South Africans are not contending with a singular challenge, but instead are frustrated and weighed down by the lost decade, the festering nature of the pervasive State Capture project, the structural challenges of our society and economy and the prospects that the next few years will be very difficult.

In 2015, I reflected on the challenges confronting South Africa and my view is that things have sadly become worse since then. Then, I quoted from former president Thabo Mbeki’s 2008 State of the Nation speech when he, like Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, relied on Dickens when he offered the following words:

I am certain that South Africans are capable and geared to meet the challenge of history — to strain every sinew of our being — to respond to the national challenges of the day… and seize the opportunities.

The challenge with a lost decade of progress is that the issues confronting South Africans since 2008 have worsened. It will be hard to stomach in the aftermath of all that we have lost over the past 10 years.

In his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement Mboweni reflected on how South Africa stands at a crossroads — “a path of hope; or a path of despair”. The choice available to South Africans is actually not that simple as we have for far too long gone down “the other way”, and we have not simply been taken there by one man in the Union Buildings, or by a few men and women who extracted as much wealth and power under the guise of their shadow state and the State Capture project — South Africans have been betrayed.

The emphasis during the 2018 MTBPS was one of reality — South Africa is a country of scarce resources (worsened by the State Capture project, malfeasance and corruption). The scarcity has always existed, given the structural nature of our society and economy. However, the inequality of that scarcity and the offensive nature of its actual impact have not simply lingered, but rather festered in the past decade.

A large part of the new dawn, offered up by President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his own maiden State of the Nation speech, was to talk about the opportunity to rebuild, to restore and to build a new coalition. However, can we put an “era of discord, disunity and disillusionment” behind us? The president of the Republic in his maiden speech sought to remind South Africans that they are bonded together by a “common destiny”. However, the articulation of that destiny must be owned by South Africans.

A singular narrative no longer exists given the loss of faith, the growing hopelessness, the erosion of trust and the collapse of our public institutions. The new dawn has sought to arrest the decline, and to shift gears from the “other way”. It will be important to consider what the outcomes are from the Investment Conference (off the back of the recent Jobs Summit) following the MTBPS.

However, this moment in our collective history is an important opportunity for ordinary South Africans, as Mboweni phrased it, to consider whether there is in fact a singular path for South Africa?

South Africa is no longer simply at a point of choosing between heaven and hell, but rather about what society it wants to build and what society it wishes to be the custodian of.

This is not a new narrative that urges South Africans to build a new society. However, the modalities of that building are far more complex, polarised, challenging — and our society is less connected and united.

In the post-apartheid era, South Africans were required to work across affiliation, race and gender to consider the important work of recasting a fractured and damaged society. That generation of South Africans had been cultivated and empowered by an ethos embodied by the movements of Black Consciousness and the work of the United Democratic Front.

South Africa is a very different place from the 1980s and 1990s. Our leaders must begin to understand and appreciate this shift. Disruption is now part of our context and instead of avoiding that inevitability, we must consider how we can leverage this energy and motivation in order to start building a society that honours its pluralistic nature.

We no longer have the time for two choices (as Dickens reflected on in A Tale of Two Cities). South Africa has multiple destinations and outcomes — not a singular future. However, there is no doubt that South Africans have no choice today but to work together to ensure that their collective multiple futures are bonded for the greater good.

We cannot again afford to go down a singular path, nor a path that is defined as the “other way”.

There is a unique opportunity for South Africa, and its leaders, to seize the moment. South Africa, and in particular the governing party, failed to honour that call 10 years ago.

However, today, as Mboweni noted, our system has been compromised by malfeasance and corruption, which means our resources are “no longer available to support our efforts to reduce poverty and lighten the burden of the poor”.

Ten years ago, South Africans were urged to respond to national challenges, but instead we were taken down a disastrous path. A path that ordinary South Africans will continue to feel the consequences of beyond the 2018 MTBPS.

The difficult choices may be debated in the next few weeks in Parliament and reflected on during the Investment Conference, but the real cost of those difficult choices will be felt and borne by ordinary South Africans.

The path ahead is not simply about choice, but about how much work can be done in this new dawn in order to carve out a social compact that speaks to our pluralities, is agile enough to respond to our difficult choices and one that honours the work done by those who were guided by the values espoused in the Black Consciousness and United Democratic Front movements. A path that confronts our fractured society, structural inequality, unemployment, hopelessness and despair. DM