Here it all was. Despite the day’s events, it had not changed, it had not disappeared. The world had remained.
Nadia Davids
Dikbek and gatvol
Being a South African sometimes feels like one of those lab experiments in horror movies. How much more punishment can the subjects take? Increase the voltage, let’s see if they survive this one. Our politicians range in their conflict competency from people who should not be running a primary school tuck shop to those who use their 1980s conflict skills to come in just north of the worst around them. Mediocrity feels like success because of the dysfunctional depths of failure that our leaders fight about. Even the deckchairs on this Titanic are broken.
And us? We stand around shouting our outdated clichés at each other, truly believing that this time will be different, this time this politician, this party will come charging in and fix our broken world. We speak of our political leaders as if an alien spaceship dropped them off here late one evening, and they were just there when we woke up. But this upcoming election will fix it all, right?
How does your present view of South Africa, its problems and its solutions differ from the views and sentiments you had in 2024? In the previous elections? Do you see the patterns repeating?
We cannot get to the big things that need to be done because we are so busy with the small things. We show so little progress on what should have been so easy, so damn good to have achieved. Our political leaders do not know, and do not care, and we keep on telling them that it’s ok. It’s ok because at least they are from our in-group and we cannot take anything else from Them, over there. If we are going to be subjugated, at least let it be from our people.
Our dreams have become our goals. We get so happy when we win a world cup, because there is so little else to be happy about. We have so much to give, and so little idea of how to do that. The only thing that keeps us going is the next election. And the next one.
Our suffering has become a tool to create our future suffering, a weapon to hurt others with. We do not know how to break these cycles of violence, fear and failure. We think that this is how things should be, because we do not know its alternatives. We accept less and less as acceptable, our standards have fallen to where fixing a pothole and opening a JoJo tank count as political achievements. We have hardly noticed, in that process, how soft the voice of democracy and good governance has become, and how loud the alternative voices of further chaos and radical intervention have become. We are offered tired old “solutions” that have failed elsewhere because our arguments on the better solutions have run out of time.
In technical conflict analysis we have become polarised to the extent that conflict rigidity has become an important part of our crises. We do not believe that working with the other will be beneficial, we are struggling to see the road ahead, our views have become hardened. We see the problem, we struggle to work with the solution. People with their own agendas have already sold us cheap and nasty solutions that will not, and cannot work. A significant number of polarised groups have already given up on looking to the state for guidance and successful leadership. How can we blame them, this is exactly what conflict rigidity and the unresolved pain and past conflicts of our country predict.
So we’re screwed, right?
We could be. Start thinking beyond the fix of this next election. On our current trajectories things will get worse, and fall apart, slowly, bit by bit. The plans and promises of our politicians have had their time to be dusted off and presented to us. With a few inspiring exceptions here and there, it is the same old pablum, microwaved and presented with a new wrapper. They still don’t know how to fix us, they just hope that they can convince you one more time.
So how do we do this? Brutal honesty. That’s a good place to start. Stop being so polite on the problems and the solutions. Speak up, and let others speak up as well. Imagine your surprise if you could learn something new.
If I was the King of Mzansi (yes, I am a fan of a monarchy), I would do this:
1. We save our country by saving our cities. I wrote a 700-page book on how to do that. Will you read it? No. Will it fix us? Yes. Forget the book, then. Save our cities – with this next election. We do not have time to repeat our patterns of failure. Vote in numbers, vote correctly. Vote for your children, not for your in-group. Take the medicine.
2. The heart of the solution is…you. Take a week or two and upgrade your knowledge, your economic literacy, your conflict competency. Understand how identity conflict works, and how it tricks you into decisions that are not always in your best interests. Once you can see them, you can manage them. Take responsibility. The aliens did not drop off our politicians.
3. Carry that information into your national voting. Our economy should be a relatively easy project to master. Install people who know what they are doing, insist on you being the sole focus of our economy, not those tired old slogans that promise so much and deliver so little. Markets are not masters, they are tools, get people who can use them to work for you.
4. Become an activist. Not the ones burning tyres and waiting for better days, the new and improved ones. If carrying placards and shouting slogans worked we would have been a very successful country at this stage. Your activism should be targeted – have the knowledge to make wise decisions consistently, reward good leadership, punish what we see around us. Remove failures from office, immediately. Use democracy as your tool, not a slogan. Use the LRA and other tools at your workplace, work at grassroots level in your community to get real results. Stop being patient and polite, stop hoping for the one-shot solution by next Tuesday. Be intentional, know what you want and how to get there.
If you want to focus your activism into productive channels, have a look at my earlier work at https://www.conflict-conversations.co.za/conversations/our-cities-under-siege-dysfunctional-south-african-cities-the-limits-of-and-alternatives-to-democratic-elections
The tools to make us a successful country are all there, and we do not need tealeaves to see that future. We have a leadership failure, not a failure as a country. At this stage, of course, that is becoming the same thing. The ANC took a gift-wrapped opportunity and caused more harm than good, everyone else has their own downsides, and due to political immaturity and a lack of conflict competency our political leaders remain unable and unwilling to use the rocket fuel of coalition politics to get us where we should be.
There is no magic bullet party or politician. They must work together the fix the mess they made. So far, there is no evidence that they know or care enough to do so. Coalitions is the way through this, and they are easily designed and managed – if we had the skill and the political will. We should be tired of failure and excuses. Our emphasis should be on electing and employing our politicians as tools on our road to prosperity, not saviours.
We should take responsibility for our own futures, not in that warm and fuzzy directionless, lazy way, but in a cold, clinical and effective way. We should not entertain politicians or slogans or ideas unless they improve our own lives and futures. Where we need to break with the past we need to have the courage to do so, but where we can learn from, and build on the past, we should start doing that as well.
We are failing fast. I see very little signs that we are turning this around in the right way. “No one is coming to save us” is an awful cliché, but that’s how clichés work. Blaming, deflecting, hoping – how is that working out for us? We have a proverbial 99 ways to fail at this job of making South Africa a success, and about one way of getting it right. We do not have time, our politicians seem to not have the courage and the knowledge to lift us out of this mess. We have had our dress rehearsals, we have tested our theories. From here, it’s on us.
Summary of main sources, references and suggested reading Our blog at www.conflict-conversations.co.za has a rich variety of articles expanding on specific aspects of the article, and conflict in general.
(Andre Vlok can be contacted at andre@conflict1.co.za for any further information.)
(c) Andre Vlok October 2026
*Author’s note on the use of artificial intelligence in writing this article
I learned to draft, argue and write in the hard school of litigation. I enjoy and value the very human process of creating ideas, of testing my own knowledge and thoughts. It is a process that I need, for answering some of my professional and even personal questions, it is cathartic and inspiring. Other than the most basic research assistance I do not use any AI in the creation of my written work, this article included. It is a matter of pride, of preference, and of mental health. Whether that is a wise choice or not, I will leave to the reader to decide.