Stopping the train.

Things that really matter in keeping it together for South Africa’s future.

Love them or hate them, but current events have demonstrated how deeply ingrained the ANC has become in South African society. In many respects we are like a one party state, and the trauma that that party experiences, reverberates through all walks of life. Its leadership transition has created as much uncertainty and anticipation as the country experienced in the heady days of the early 90’s.

But these events have shown something else:

·        How easily power corrupts;

·        how fickle and fragile it is when it is based on patronage and loyalties shift from a weakened patron;

·        how effective opposition can be even without parliamentary power;

·        how political opponents can unite against a common threat;

·        how strong civil society can be when it says “so far and no further”, and

·        the supreme value of being guided by a Constitution supported by an independent judiciary and law enforcement.

The Jacob Zuma gravy train has been derailed. It may take a while for the carnage and broken corrupt carriages to be cleared, but history will reflect on these times as a painful evolutionary hiccup and stark cautionary case study. For that alone, 2018 has become a turning point and a year to celebrate even in its infancy.

As many commentators have opined, there’s certainly a lot more hope for a better future. But that does not mean there’s more trust. Indeed, the political uncertainty; corporate scandals; a still unacceptably high crime rate; increasing revelations of corruption, arrests and charges being laid, and the economic quagmire we find ourselves in, have all contributed to deepening distrust. We already have one of the world’s lowest levels of trust in institutions such as government; business; NGO’s and the Media; as ranked by the 2018 Global trust Barometer.

One could also argue that with none of these institutions being fully trusted, and because trust is one of the most significant factors holding a society together, we should be a dysfunctional society. Yet we are not. Only ultra-cynics, or some disgruntled ex-pats who lose touch with the day to day lives of ordinary folk, will argue otherwise. I fully appreciate that there are many of us, including myself, who have been affected, even traumatised by crime, betrayal, poor service, and of course the daily headlines that constantly highlight our capacity to do others harm.  But we go on, sustained I believe, by the number of benevolent acts that we experience more often than malevolence, and a pool of goodwill that despite everything, still exists between us.

Perhaps it’s the metaphor, but I am drawn to reflecting on another train.

Let’s go back a month or so, and to the maize farming town of Hennenman, where a full passenger train was derailed after crashing into a truck at a level crossing. More than 20 people died and about 200 were injured. Within minutes a handful of local folk rushed to help, saving many lives amid anguished screams from passengers trapped in carriages. Among the rescuers were two pre-teen boys – Mokoni Chaka and Evert du Preez – who have a firm friendship oblivious to racial differences, and who helped evacuate the injured, including quite a few infants. They created the perfect cameo not only of humanity’s instinctive empathy at an early age, but how what is most important to our survival bridges any differences between us.

A few weeks earlier, I too was hit by a train. It happened at a level crossing next to a settlement called Dutoitsrus in Buffeljagsriver near Swellendam. I had stopped at the crossing, but edged closer because of an obstructed view of the track. Then there was a deafening hoot just before I saw hundreds of tons of steel hurtling towards me.

Nothing I have experienced comes close to that split-second of paralysing terror. Fortunately I was not too far into the goods-train’s path and it hit the front left fender, spinning the car out of its way to end on an embankment next to a huge blue-gum tree. The train had stopped and I got out of the car. I was not hurt and within seconds was surrounded by many residents – mostly teens and youngsters. I sensed only genuine concern in their curiosity, and had no thoughts that I could be harmed. It’s strange how we often legitimately trust a moment, and then only later question the wisdom of it, mostly on the prompting of others.

Confusion! What does one do when you’ve stopped a train? Get details. Of what I don’t know, but I found a scrap of paper. One young man offered to testify on my behalf that the train had not hooted until it was upon me. But I could not write down his name, having committed a journalist’s cardinal sin of not having a pen. Then I felt a tug on the leg of my pants, and a boy not much older than four offered me his prized possession of a pencil stub. I wrote down the number of the train and name of the “witness” before putting the pencil stub back in my shirt pocket. There was another tug – and an outstretched tiny hand asking for the return of the pencil-stub.

Soon I was surrounded by railway forensic staff and I suspect most of the police contingent at Swellendam. The crowd too had swelled, while crime scene tape was stretched for hundreds of meters around the train and surrounding area. An elderly lady offered me some mineral water, and soon thereafter another on crutches offered me half a bottle of coke. “For the sugar,” she said. I can’t remember how many people approached me with offers of help. I can only remember the genuine warmth and concern around me, including police and railway staff.

There are many things that made the event memorable, apart from the rarity of being hit by a train on a scarcely used line. Among them was the fact that the car had minor damage and I could drive it away, while the train was stuck for 5 hours to undergo repairs to its steel sweeper. For a while, friends and close acquaintances called me the “train stopper”. Fortunately that passed before some village joker was tempted to ask: “Did he really need a car to do that?” But what will linger for the rest of my life is how those folk at Dutoitsrus confirmed my deep faith in humanity and its capacity to care.  

In the larger scheme of things and the current turmoil, these reflections may appear counter-intuitive and perhaps even trivial. Not so when one considers how many thousands of times they are repeated in different ways throughout society. As long as we have that and continue to demonstrate it, it outweighs all else in holding our society together.

Hope and Trust

Will increased hope improve the low level of trust?

Few states are more important in society than happiness and trust. All of the other indicators and measurements we use to gauge societal and economic health pale into insignificance compared with these two. Not only are they codependent but ultimately they will also affect all others things that we think are important. 

I remember some years ago there was a significant global debate on incorporating levels of public happiness and life satisfaction not only as important metrics, but also as significant components of official policy. There’s no point, it can be argued, in having growth, income and employment targets as the primary policy goals, while people are disgruntled. That debate seems to have died down, most likely because of the extreme difficulty in measuring them, but perhaps too because it’s a fair assumption that a large part of humanity remains miserable, angry and for the most part in rebellion against the establishment.

Trust is largely created by personal experiences but can also be significantly influenced by external factors such as improvements in the economic and political climates which engender hope in the future. Globally there has been a marked improvement in economic growth prospects and domestically there has been a complete shift in prospects in a few short months, so adequately outlined by Hilton Tarrant in this Moneyweb Article that further treatment here is unnecessary. Indeed, South Africa’s economic prospects are suddenly a lot brighter.

But will this translate into greater trust? That will take a lot more time and depend not only on economic and political factors. On the global front, economic prospects are very fractured and come with a growing fear of national isolationism and protectionism. There is growing concern also of the financial nature of this growth and the prospect of a repeat of the 2007 great recession. Domestically, much has to happen to restore trust in both government and private sector institutions. The apparent collapse of a corrupt cabal in the wake of some incredible exposé work last year by the media and many others, has to be followed up by rigorous accountability, law enforcement and retribution; as covered in my last article last year. This seems to be happening and could make 2018 one of the most significant life changing years in South Africa, should some of the criminals, including those in the private sector, end up behind bars.

For quite a number of years, one of the most credible global trust reports, the Edelman Trust Barometer, has consistently shown disturbing declines in levels of trust. Its 2018 report is not much different, but could be overtaken by recent events, especially in South Africa. Yet, it is useful to reflect on how it saw 2017 compared to the previous year which it described as “trust in crisis”. The global report, tables and graphics are available at this link.

The Trust index of all of the 28 countries measured has improved by only 1% – from 47 to 48 – in trust in the main institutions of Government, Business, NGO’s and media. However, that means that we are still living in a world where these institutions are mostly distrusted, and hides the fact that one more country has moved from neutral to mostly distrusted. Trust in all South African institutions declined: government by 1% to 14%; business by 3% to 53%; NGO’s by 8% to 50% and the media by 4% to 35%.  

What this is saying is that no institutional sector in South Africa is fully trusted any more, with 2 having neutral scores and 2 being outright distrusted.

Some of the global highlights include

·        The rise of experts in trustworthiness.

·        Respondents saying they want CEOs to take the lead on policy change instead of waiting for government, which now ranks significantly below business in trust in 20 markets. (A point I have repeatedly raised in my own articles.)

·        A highly significant plunge in trust in social media, due to the occurrence of fake news. This in turn has raised trust in journalists themselves, particularly in reports where sources are named. There is a swing from trusting platforms to sources, but even here, as we have seen with the reckless Viceroy reports, sources themselves can be highly suspect. Excessive hyperbole and hysterical panic mongering in their work bear testimony to dubious motives and are never seen in serious company analyses.

·        The global polarization of trust where some countries like China have had massive trust gains, and others like the U.S record breaking declines.

The last bullet perhaps answers a question many South Africans were asking after Donald Trump was elected President of the U.S.: “Who had the worst leader: Americans or South Africans?”

This may be a hint because trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Trust by that group fell nine points to 43, placing it in the lower quarter of the 28-country Trust Index. Trust among the informed public in the U.S. imploded, plunging 23 points to 45, making it now the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed, below Russia and South Africa. But mischief aside, this refers to trust in all four institutions, and not government alone, and by an informed group and not the general population where the U.S.’s 43% is still significantly higher than South Africa’s 38%.

2018 is certainly going to be a very interesting year. Let the games begin. In many respects they already have.