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PRIOR to attending the annual World Communication Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, last week, one of my respected professional friends had already sent me a series of text messages from Mumbai – which he still insists on referring to as Bombay - in India, asking about the water situation.
He was wondering about the wisdom of inviting people to attend the upcoming Brand Summit South Africa in Cape Town in early May, when we clearly have a serious water shortage. He came close to warning me that I was being careless to invite international delegates to a city that would not have water for them to conduct basic human functions.
It turned out his concerns had recently been heightened by stories being spread in India by members of a local cricket team which had visited Cape Town earlier in the year, and had been faced with strange restrictions on water usage.
Apparently, my friend heard, they couldn’t even take showers. It took me several text messages and a long WhatsApp call to assure him that all would be fine.
The world is watching
Things did not get better during the forum sessions in Geneva last week. Following one presentation that touched on governance issues around the world and “in Africa”, I walked over for a private conversation with the presenter following her session.
She runs a large agency focusing on governance and boasts impressive government clients in East and West Europe, Africa, and Asia. I was particularly interested to talk to her because she routinely referred to “Africa” as if it were a homogeneous entity throughout her presentation - something that happens quite a lot when people talk about our continent in other parts of the world.
It’s an approach that further entrenches the uncomfortable perception that our continent is one large patch of land with people who, besides looking alike, follow the same traditional and cultural practices, and generally run their affairs the same way, from north to south.
The assumption is that Africans also make the same mistakes when it comes to the management of their resources and political governance, with equally unpredictable democratic practices throughout.
I have to admit right here that it’s a practice that doesn’t sit well with someone who hasn’t quite overcome the ‘South African exceptionalism’ syndrome.
This is the syndrome that consists of thinking, among other things, that South Africa is different and better; unlike many countries in Africa, it is destined for greatness and has to be defended at all costs from falling over the edge of the cliff.
Zuma pushed SA to the brink of the abyss
The Zuma presidency has pushed the country right to the edge of a precipitous drop. It is possible, of course, that nationals from other African countries feel the same exceptionalism about their countries, but I haven’t tested this.
It was also not the first time I had heard of Africa being referred to as if it were not made up of 54 different countries, each with its own peculiarities. This had happened before, many times, but something in me made me go over to privately challenge the speaker this time.
It turned out she wasn’t as clueless about South Africa as she had sounded during her presentation. She probably spoke the way she did to make it easier for an audience made up of people from many countries, spanning all continents.
In fact, she knew a lot more about South Africa than I had given her credit for. She knew about state capture; the planned, irrational withdrawal of South Africa as a signatory to the Rome Statute and from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court; she had seen pictures of horrific farm murders being circulated on social media; she knew about the “water issue” and about the recent vote in Parliament to make land expropriation without compensation a possibility.
“I have no idea why you South Africans are doing such damage to the image of your country,” she shot at me, leaving me clinging to my defences.
Our reputation is all we have
What it all means is that we South Africans need to think seriously about what we want our country to be known for and associated with. Everything is connected. The inclusive economy we all seem to agree is needed cannot be realised if no investors, or too few of them, are prepared to view South Africa as an attractive haven for long-term investments.
It cannot be possible if people with much-needed skills give us a wide berth because of unnecessary red tape or a sociopolitical climate seen as not stable enough for them to come and settle here and contribute highly desirable know-how and a whole range of possible soft investments that could create jobs and contribute to both skills and small enterprise development.
We also have to be honest with ourselves, instead of forever blaming others, about our own role in the worsening reputational fortunes of South Africa. The fact that we’re heading towards general elections that stand to be a watershed also means that we have to be level-headed and demand level-headedness from those preparing to contest the elections.
We can jump, scream, shout and demand all we want, but there is no way that we can position a winning South Africa without some compromises among ourselves. There should be no room for ‘winners take all’ if we want others to come and invest in our country.
Nobody has to come to South Africa. It’s up to us to attract the people and the investments we need to our shores. Otherwise, we shall end up in a place called Matebeleland and wonder how in the world we got there.
And for the sake of our country’s well-being, we need national leaders who have the ability to demand calm heads, as well as law and order ahead of the next elections, irrespective of who stands to align with them ahead of or after elections.
- Solly Moeng is brand reputation management adviser and CEO of strategic corporate communications consultancy DonValley Reputation Managers. Views expressed are his own.
