LETTER: In this failed state, it's up to civil society to reverse SA's destructive trajectory
The Conference for Democratic Renewal & Change should embrace public opinion to help establish an ethical democracy of law and order — a state beyond the competence SA's existing political establishments
22 April 2022 - 11:57
byDavid Gant
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The Defend our Democracy-led Conference for Democratic Renewal & Change, to be held in June, may be the last bastion available to South Africans who wish to live in a nonracist, ethical state of constitutional democracy, law and order, economic growth and the provision of human dignity. That is to say, respectable housing, education, healthcare and employment for the majority of its people.
Certainly, such a state is beyond the competence of our existing fractured and divisive political establishments. They have, under the tragic dominance of the ANC, the destructive role of the EFF and the inability of the leadership of the DA to appeal to the majority of the nation’s voters, plunged SA headlong into a failing state, and it is now up to civil society to reverse that trajectory, to formulate a transformative people’s manifesto and demand its immediate and urgent implementation by the legislature, the executive and judiciary of the day.
To do this, the conference will have to embrace, collate and reflect an enormous tsunami of public opinion that government and political parties will ignore at their peril, and it must demonstrate the collective power of broad-based democracy over parliamentary and political-party sovereignty.
Essentially, the conference should represent the broadest possible spectrum of citizens on the ground and project their will to revolutionise our political and socioeconomic environment. It should prod, provoke and persuade our political fraternity that their arrogance, corruption, incompetence, factionalism, sheer laziness and misguided ideology and policy are no longer tolerable.
The conveners of the conference need to know how crucial the outcomes of this initiative is for all present and future South Africans and our frustrated, fatigued and fraught citizenry should support and speak out in support of it in any way they possibly can.
David Gant Kenilworth
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: In this failed state, it's up to civil society to reverse SA's destructive trajectory
The Conference for Democratic Renewal & Change should embrace public opinion to help establish an ethical democracy of law and order — a state beyond the competence SA's existing political establishments
The Defend our Democracy-led Conference for Democratic Renewal & Change, to be held in June, may be the last bastion available to South Africans who wish to live in a nonracist, ethical state of constitutional democracy, law and order, economic growth and the provision of human dignity. That is to say, respectable housing, education, healthcare and employment for the majority of its people.
Certainly, such a state is beyond the competence of our existing fractured and divisive political establishments. They have, under the tragic dominance of the ANC, the destructive role of the EFF and the inability of the leadership of the DA to appeal to the majority of the nation’s voters, plunged SA headlong into a failing state, and it is now up to civil society to reverse that trajectory, to formulate a transformative people’s manifesto and demand its immediate and urgent implementation by the legislature, the executive and judiciary of the day.
To do this, the conference will have to embrace, collate and reflect an enormous tsunami of public opinion that government and political parties will ignore at their peril, and it must demonstrate the collective power of broad-based democracy over parliamentary and political-party sovereignty.
Essentially, the conference should represent the broadest possible spectrum of citizens on the ground and project their will to revolutionise our political and socioeconomic environment. It should prod, provoke and persuade our political fraternity that their arrogance, corruption, incompetence, factionalism, sheer laziness and misguided ideology and policy are no longer tolerable.
The conveners of the conference need to know how crucial the outcomes of this initiative is for all present and future South Africans and our frustrated, fatigued and fraught citizenry should support and speak out in support of it in any way they possibly can.
David Gant
Kenilworth
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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