The Hard Work of Being Ordinary

Months after the euphoria of the South African election has passed, and the image of President Mandela’s triumphal state visit to the United States has faded from the television screens, South Africans are left alone with the challenge of solving their own problems and defining their national interest. The nettlesome questions which South Africans now confront were nicely summed up in an editorial in the Johannesburg daily, Sowetan, which asked: “What is it that we want to achieve in the world? Niceness is not a virtue in foreign affairs. Hard-nosed pragmatism is. Foreign policy is no longer solely about diplomacy either. Foreign policy is about economics, about trade, about markets.” The new world which South Africa has joined is an economic playing field featuring single-mindedly focused participants in a game with unforgiving rules. No longer may South Africans rely on their former friends, all of whom are competitors, to smooth the way for them, or accord them special, protected status. Those who do not recognize the difference between facile, soothing rhetoric whether from the politician or businessman – which suggests that South Africa continues to occupy a unique position, and the unglamorous reality of modern global politics are condemned to disappointment. The task before South Africans is to understand that their new life demands moving beyond talking and consultation about abstract philosophy. Instead they must make choices and compromises among competing policies and interests in order to create and act upon real opportunities. It is striking to see how quickly ANC members of the government of national unity have grasped the requirements of their new roles and shed liberation ideology in order to respond to the new circumstances. Minister of Trade and Industry Trevor Manuel has become a cheerleader for competitiveness, downplaying labour unrest which used to be the hallmark of opposition to the government of the past. He and colleague Jay Naidoo, who manages the Reconstruction and Development Programme, have taken on their former COSATU comrades, stressing the need for wage restraint and increased productivity in order to nurture economic growth. President Mandela demonstrated the touch of the seasoned politician during his US tour, flogging for investment and challenging President Clinton on the lingering sanctions against the South African arms company, Denel. These are conventional actions one might associate with garden variety politicians, and refreshing evidence of South Africa’s return to normalcy. Similarly, the heretofore protected South African private sector now finds itself subjected to the hard judgment of an increasingly tariff-free market. Business will no longer be shielded from the consequences of misdirected capital-intensive investment. In order to succeed in the global market, they will be required to contribute to the country’s massive social upliftment and education effort in order to ensure existence of a South African workforce which can support an export-led, manufacturing- based economy attractive to the international investment community. This is the same human resource problem which bedevils business in such countries as the United States, Germany, China and Mexico. This is a very different environment from that of only a few months ago when opposing the odious apartheid system was a straightforward political act for its victims and a cost-free statement of moral scruple for their supporters. South Africa is now like other places and there is no special dispensation which frees South Africans from grappling with the same complicated economic and political issues as the rest of us. They, too, must navigate among seemingly inconsistent demands of urban and rural, business and labour, men and women, squabbling political parties, each with the power to block the interest of the other, and so on. This is their introduction to the contemporary world of grey, where answers are neither completely right nor wrong or black or white, and knowledge has a tendency to add to the confusion. Thus are South Africans learning the bittersweet lesson embedded in the observation of the towering American moralist of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass, who noted with regard to a different fight for civil right that the reward for participation in the struggle against injustice is the opportunity to participate in the struggle. Their ingenuity, commitment and willpower served South Africans well in their struggle for human rights and citizenship, but that has only prepared them to begin their next battle.

Gail Leftwich is a regular contributor to South African Journal of Trade, Industry & Investment. She is founder/principal of Strategic Business Consultants, a US and South African based consultancy.

South Africa, The Journal of Trade, Industry and Investment
Publisher, David Altman
Writer, Gail M. Leftwich