Red flags, scenarios and our future
By Steuart Pennington of www.sagoodnews.co.za  3 September 2010

During the past week, I came across the opinions of four South African influencers that showed just how difficult it is to decide what is perception and what is reality!

The first was that of Gavin Lewis of the DA labelling me as "indefatigable but muddled in my pursuit of 'good news' " as I wrote about the Business Day's reluctance to engage in the Media Tribunal debate. Make of that what you will, but as Judge President Steyn (caretaker of the Namibian Independence handover) said when criticised about his role, "it's like a duck's water running off my back!"

The second was an article by Allister Sparks, "The swift trashing of our World Cup image" (Business Day 18 August 2010) in which he claims that "a few weeks later (after the World Cup) our government seems to be going out of its way to blot out our new image of investors beginning to reassess us as the realisation spread that South Africa was different from the rest of what many still perceived to be 'the hopeless continent' by delivering a series of public relations disasters".

I am not sure that Africa is a "hopeless continent" anymore, but read on!

The third was an article on a talk delivered by Adrian Gore at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit earlier this month, "We're our own worst enemy" in which he points out how dramatically the world is changing, in many respects to South Africa's advantage, and in which he laments that "paradoxically, South Africans remain negative and skeptical". He says "we are caught in a 'will we, won't we survive' paradigm where we are constantly seeking affirmation of inevitable decline. It is my view that South Africa's problems lie in these negative attitudes, not in its fundamentals. Importantly these attitudes are not always rational". (I wonder if Gavin Lewis read this?)

The fourth was a business breakfast I attended addressed by Clem Sunter "South Africa's economic prospects post 2010" where he did his scenario planning review which he has become so well-known for, claiming, "it's better to be vaguely right rather than precisely wrong!" In summary he pointed to three possible global scenarios:

Scenario 1: "Hard times 'til 2016"

Scenario 2: "New balls please – recovery in 2012"

Scenario 3: "Living in a two-speed world"

Essentially he pointed out that there is a growing difference in the economic prospects of the developing versus the developed world and that the economic growth prospects for Asia (+/- 5%), Africa (+/- 5%) and South America (+/-5%) are significantly greater than that of Europe, UK and USA (+/- 1.7%) and that this is good for us.

In turning to South Africa he used the soccer analogy of Premier League, Second League and Failed State.

Premier League	Second League	Failed State
57 Countries (SA 44th)	+/- 120 countries	+/- 50 countries

He pointed out that we are part of the Premier League of the top 57 nations of the world, that we had moved from 33rd to 52nd and were now on our way back at 44th and that after the success of the World Cup, we could well emerge back into the lower 30's.

But he warned of 'red flags' that could move us towards a failed state (reminding the audience that Zimbabwe up until the mid 90's had growth at +/- 7%, then...land grabs propelled the nation in five short years into 'Failed State' status).

 

The 'red flags' in South Africa's case are:

Violence

Threats to media freedom

Land

Mines nationalization

 

Sunter then reviewed the challenges we need to deal with to stay in the Premier League:

  Inclusive leadership, patriotism and national pride. "We give Mr. Zuma a tick in this regard; so far he is demonstrating the characteristics of inclusiveness".

  Exploiting our pockets of excellence rather than smothering them with mediocrity. "We are truly capable of world class performance in so many areas, we must leverage this, and we must celebrate our successes".

  Building an inclusive outward looking economy. "We remain an exclusive economy, we need to concentrate on adding value to our rich resource base, building our tourism based on our World Cup success and establishing ourselves as the pre-eminent 'gateway to Africa' ".

  We absolutely must "incentivise our ability to become an entrepreneurial state, entrepreneurship is the engine-room of growth".

 

But it was the audience's reaction that confounded me!

I think the audience was genuinely astonished at his optimism and his message that "we have it within us to grow in stature as a member of the Premier League". Certainly, if the questions are anything to go by, some people came to the presentation with a 'we are in the Second League and slipping' mindset and others with a 'get real Mr. Sunter, we are already a failed state' mindset.

Which, finally, brings me to my point. We had a magnificent 'jol' as a nation during the World Cup and the world moved from an afro-pessimistic perception of our country and continent to one of growing afro-optimism. I personally received several letters, slideshow presentations and articles from foreigners who, as one correspondent said "I knew of your www.sagoodnews.co.za website but thought it was 'sunshine journalism' I could not have been more wrong, you live in an incredible country with amazing people, even you don't appreciate how fortunate you are!"

 

I don't think that these perceptions will change because of strikes, proposed media curbs (which won't happen), and mutterings from the youth about mine nationalization. These things happen in all countries in one way or another most of the time (during the 2007 Rugby World Cup there was a 'flat-out' municipal transport strike in Paris - no underground, no buses, no taxis, hardly anyone outside Paris noticed and the local newspapers were not full of 'PR blunder' doom. And, check out strike records in both the developed and developing world - South Africa does not stand out, in fact, we hardly even feature when comparisons of work days lost are made).

 

So who is right? Gavin Lewis and Allister Sparks or Adrian Gore and Clem Sunter? Maybe that is an unfair question, maybe we should say they all are, but it does raise the question of what informs our national narrative?

 

The National Planning Commission

National Planning Commission Minister Trevor Manuel and thirty or so intellectual heavy-weights are tasked with spending the next 18 months developing our 2020 Vision. They are going to need to take us along with them, we need an informed narrative, one which understands and focuses on the 'fundamentals' as Adrian Gore refers, one which creates a shared debate on the different scenarios that confront us as Clem Sunter refers, and agreement on what 'red flags' there are out there that could get in the way.

In my view our biggest 'red flag' is how we talk about ourselves; how we talk about our challenges; how we maintain perspective and how we talk of our future. Negative and/or positive self-fulfilling prophecies are a reality.

We must not allow 'bad news' to be the only thing we talk about, write about, and read about! It is not ALL that is happening!

POST SCRIPT: I couldn't help being amused by one of the conversations I had with an enthusiastic German visitor at the Billy the Bums pub in Durban prior to the Spain/Portugal game. He said, "Bad news is like ze toothache ja, it is briefly of great concern, needs dealing wis urgently, creates panic unnecessarily, and is felt accutely! But when it is over, it is quickly forgotten – but, everyone has zis...ja - nobody holds zis against you - and no-one dies from zis!

Good news is like ze losing weight ja, no-one is interested in your progress, no-one talks about how you are doing, no-one applauds your efforts, but everyone wants to be part of your result". In Germany we have zis all the time...ja!

As a nation we will suffer from toothaches often and we will need to lose weight regularly, but staying healthy is what remains central to all of us permanently!