Get involved in leading dialogue in South Africa

For some time now calls for an “economic CODESA” and “national dialogue” were made at various levels. As we speak, many citizens are involved in great initiatives to manage the tensions that arose from the attacks on citizens from other African countries residing in South Africa. 

Focused dialogues to overcome economic and social challenges are important, but the impact will be limited if there is no nationally mandated, civil-society driven, state sponsored mechanism in place to ensure sustainability. South Africa was the shining example in the world when we signed and implemented the National Peace Accord and its structures in the early 90s. As the attached concept note indicates, we have sadly been overtaken by Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe and we have not shown sufficient leadership in Africa on national peacebuilding since our transition to democracy.

The purpose of my mail is to stimulate discussions and ideas on how to unleash the energy of ordinary South Africans in partnership with government so that we can, once again, engage one another in pursuit of durable solutions to our common challenges.  

Dialogue is a leadership function, hence my call for you to help take leadership in building momentum for a national dialogue and conflict resolution mechanism in South Africa.

Please read the non-paper concept note on ideas to mobilise for social justice and inequality elsewhere on this blog. 

There is no copyright, and no ownership is claimed by me or anyone else. The important thing is to get the ideas out in the open and to stimulate dialogue. Feel free to extract or publish ideas and to challenge all who live inside our borders to bring their best ideas on how to build lasting justpeace — peace with justice and justness. 

My request is the following:  

1. Please read and then disseminate and discuss the concept note in your circles of influence.  
2. Please copy me when you forward the documents by email so that we can build a database of interested people.
3. Consider ways to stimulate the discussions in the media (talk radio, electronic media, social media and TV). One possible hashtag is #NationalDialogueSA 
4. Please volunteer to undertake some of the functions described in the concept document. 
5. You are welcome to call or email me to discuss ideas.