MANDY WIENER: We do have good stories to tell, just not that one, Mr President

MANDY WIENER: We do have good stories to tell, just not that one, Mr President

President Cyril Ramaphosa wants us to be more like the Chinese and to stop badmouthing our own country. He wants us to be messengers and tell the ANC government’s good story about South Africa instead.

This is according to reports about his comments made during a ‘stakeholder’ meeting in Durban where he listened to submissions made by various representatives from religious groups, advocacy organisations and businesses.

TimesLive reported that Ramaphosa was disapproving of what he termed “severe lopsided” public criticism of the government.

“Here, some people have made it a sport to badmouth the country, to say all sorts of negative things and we say we need to be patriotic and acknowledge that we have challenges and problems. But at the same time [we] say that our love for this country is much more important than the negativity, so therefore we must be positive about South Africa. That is the only way this country can move forward,” he said.

Ramaphosa spoke about the damage done by the misrule of colonialism and apartheid and applauded the ANC’s policy of transforming the economy, saying it had historically been structured around colonial rule and apartheid rule in a way where it was never designed to include most of the people. “What we have sought to do for 30 years is to transfer that economy,” he was reported as saying.

Of course, the ANC, led by Ramaphosa, is already in full election mode desperately trying to rosetint its record. But I agree with the President that as South Africans we often fall into the default narrative of South Africa. It is easy to complain and moan about how bad things are when we speak about service delivery, loadshedding, crime, corruption, etc.

We should balance the narrative because there really are good stories to tell about this incredible country of ours.

I speak about this often at conferences and on stages across the country and always quote the Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie and what she refers to as the danger of a single story. “The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

We do often tell this single story about South Africa – the default negative narrative that everything is broken, nothing works, and the entire system is defunct. It’s not untrue, but it’s not the only story we have to tell about the country.

Unfortunately for the President, the good stories we must tell are not all about the work of the ANC government.

Yes, there have been pockets of excellence in government and Cabinet ministers and departments that deserve to be applauded. There are success stories from within the administration that deserve acknowledgement and recognition.

Amongst the successes of the past thirty years the ANC would argue are the social grants system, the rollout of ARVs and the school nutrition programme. Writing in the Business Day this week, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni also argues that there are achievements and progress that the media does not focus on. She points to the Auditor-General’s report and the census as evidence of this:

“While there is a need to improve the capacity of the state, the narrative that seeks to project a continuously weakening state capacity is not supported by the facts. Recently, the auditor-general of SA presented the outcomes of the 2022/2023 financial year national and provincial audits, including a trend analysis for the last five years. This points to an encouraging trend of continuously improved performance, which indicates overall improvement in accountability, transparency, adequacy, and effectiveness of controls,” writes Ntshavheni.

However, an overall assessment of the performance of Ramaphosa’s government must include the fact that the ANC has presided over the destruction of state infrastructure, an evisceration of parastatals, widespread corruption, the breakdown of municipalities and the erosion of public confidence in the ability of the state to deliver. You just have to read my column last week about the various reports that have been released in the last fortnight that back this up and raise glaring red flags.

The good news success stories that we can tell about South Africa are about those who have excelled and made a difference despite the government, not because of it. The stories of civil society organisations that have stepped into the breach, of active citizens, of those patriots who have chosen to change the narrative themselves, of whistleblowers, of investigative journalists.

There are stories of good police officers, prosecutors and civil servants who have done their jobs properly. We can tell the stories of the judiciary and of the rule of law and of judgments that have been made to hold power to account. We can share the incredible entrepreneurial spirit of the hustlers who have succeeded in a gruelling economic climate. We can tell the stories of the Springboks and the social cohesion success achieved within and through the World Cup-winning team.

Those are the stories that we should be beaming to the world instead of badmouthing South Africa. Yes, I agree Mr President. We should be championing our country internationally. But just not in the way you and the ANC hope we will ahead of the elections.