Take yourself back two decades. 

The late 80’s were a depressed period for most. The South African population lived in a funk of despair, rugby aficionados were in the doldrums because of the sports boycotts and we wondered if life could ever normalize and afford dignity and pride in being South African to all citizens. 

Then along came the release of Nelson Mandela, the unbanning of several political parties and CODESA.  This was followed by the extraordinary first democratic elections in 1994 where all our citizens finally had the opportunity to cast their votes and the inauguration of a new president with iconic stature.  This heralded in an era of opportunities for many but the scourge and seemingly unbreakable cycle of poverty remained.

In 1998, a survey called futurefact came into being.  Since then futurefact has been tracking the moods and minds of citizens of this country.  Each year it identifies the changes in the mindsets of South Africans and reveals the fascinating shifts in the social fabric of the society.  We have seen shifts that are optimistic and upwards, we have seen sideways shifts, and in the latest survey we have seen a decided degree of disaffection and sense of alienation and anxiety underpinning the moods and minds of significant numbers of South Africans.  We can clearly see that many feel excluded in the context of the new South Africa, though they are unlikely to rise and protest as they did during the struggle years when the injustice to the majority was clear and unambiguous.

Today, not only do many feel excluded, but across the board there is insecurity with regard to crime, unemployment, economic sustainability and political leadership. Protesting voices such as those against the dissolution of the Scorpions and protests on immigration and crime, seem not to have been heard (or heeded).  And so many citizens feel side-lined, despite the recognized improvements in living standards and palpable class mobility.   A sense of belonging and worth is essential if citizens of the country are to feel they are citizens not subjects (Cass Sunstein,Harvard Law Professor, quoted in the ‘The new liberalism’ by George Parker in the New Yorker, November 2008.

Hopefully 2009 is bringing in a new period of hope and possibility with petrol price reductions, potentially a knock-on effect on food prices and interest rates, and a new president in the White House who has performed well in his first 100 days according to the polls.  Jacob Zuma is now making conciliation a theme, a la Mandela and as Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858 – 1919) said of the USA:  “This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in”. 

But what are the mindsets of South Africans?  What distinguishes the various groups of people?  Based on a national probability sample of 2500 adult South Africans (only excluding communities of fewer than 500 people) surveyed from mid August to mid September 2008, the following ‘Mindsets’ emerged from a statistical factor analysis conducted on behalf of the International Marketing Council (IMC).

The Enthusiasts have been around as a pretty solid group for several years.  They have seen a significant move into the middle and upper middle classes since their parents’ day with major improvements in their economic circumstances compared to their parents.  They could also be called the ‘optimists’, because they have a glass is ‘half full’ rather than ‘half empty’ view of life in SA.  What is fascinating about them now is that while being optimistic about the future, they show a realistic attitude to the problems of South Africa and are not blindly ignoring them.

The Influentials have also been around for some time, being reflective of all race groups, well educated and fairly affluent, but are unfortunately showing a steep decline into lowered confidence in the country.  They are unhappy about the perceived lack of accountability and capacity or skills to implement policy and are finding it difficult to hold onto the good things that are happening in the country.  They are fearful that there will be conflict between the various ethnic groups in SA and that the country will go the way of Zimbabwe.  They still see that the country has a lot of potential but there will have to be intrinsic change in the political and social milieu to prompt them to a change in spirit.

Solid Citizens are a principled group of people, but with low levels of income and education that do not equip them to rise above the everyday demands in making ends meet.  They believe that SA has better prospects now than prior to 1994 but are not so sure about the prospects currently. 

Then we have the Conventionals, basically Mr and Mrs Average, but more likely to be small town dwellers.  There is a general sense that they are not particularly socially or politically conscious and that they just live their lives on a somewhat routine level.  They can best be described as people who do not have a world or country view – their lives are contained within their own immediate communities.  One has a sense of a group of people who just want to be left alone with their lives, not participate in democratic institutions nor in mobilizing to do their bit for the country.

A new group that has just emerged in the last survey can only be called the Pessimists, who by and large are the opposite of the Enthusiasts and tend to have a ‘glass is half empty’ state of mind or perhaps for them the glass is empty.  They are not just apathetic, they are negative in their attitudes and see little chance of things coming right, nor are they prepared to do their bit to help.  There is an almost active resistance because of their lack of belief in the country and its future.  They have serious concerns about the future political leadership of the country and reflect the lowest confidence in key political leaders and institutions of all the mindsets.

They express the strongest levels of fear that there will be violence between the different ethnic groups and also that there are black racists in the country.  They tend to be above average white and coloured, older (50 plus) and female.  Members of this mindset have lost hope that they can make a difference or succeed in this country, and their feeling of belonging appears compromised.  Nonetheless, this loss of hope appears to be fairly recent, in that they claim to have previously been optimistic and to be losing hope for the first time.  It is always possible that conditions will change under the new administration which will allow this group to reclaim a more hopeful space in the future.

Perhaps it is fitting to quote the economic historian Arthur Toynbee (1852 -1883), who noted that “The ability to respond to crises is the critical difference between societies that succeed and those that fail.  Progress does not come from having no challenges; rather it comes from societies responding successfully to the inevitable challenges that come their way”.  Let us hope that we and our leaders will respond well to the global and local challenges that lie ahead.  It will be fascinating to examine the mindsets that emerge in the 2009 survey due to go into field in September. 

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The perception amongst some that only white South Africans are concerned about crime is false. This is according to a study recently released by futurefact – an entity that examines the changing attitudes of South Africans.

More than 7 out of every 10 South Africans reported being continuously afraid and alert because of crime. However there was only a marginal difference in the relative number of whites (75%) and blacks (70%) that expressed this sentiment. While whites and Indians appear notably more disillusioned by government’s attempts to combat crime than their black or coloured counterparts, there exists a consensus as to the need for more community involvement. Lorinda Nel from Business Against Crime argues that the police’s function lies not in protecting individuals but rather in investigating crimes once they have been committed. This appears to absolve the police of their primary crime-fighting responsibility. While one would expect this sentiment to be rejected by South Africans, this does not appear to be the case. Nine out of ten South Africans believe that every citizen should take responsibility for addressing crime in their communities, a sentiment expressed by 90% of blacks and 93% of whites. With 53% of respondents identifying themselves primarily as South Africans (and relatively few seeing themselves in terms of race, language or religion) one would expect this strengthening national identity to strengthen communities’ resolve. Unfortunately, however, this convergence of sentiment has failed to unite South Africans sufficiently or mobilise them in the war against crime.

There appears to be widespread support for increased salaries and training for the police with 67% and 77% respectively of respondents believing that this would lead to improved crime prevention. The disparity between the sentiments of whites, coloureds and blacks in this regard is negligible with a slightly greater commitment to community policing and increased police support amongst Indians. Although South Africans generally believe in supporting the police in their fight against crime, there appears to be an unwillingness to actually rely on or trust the police. 8 out of 10 South Africans, irrespective of race, believe that a lot of police officials are corrupt. This common distrust of the police is revealed again by the sentiment, held by 60% of respondents, that they are more likely to call a neighbour or private security company than the police.

One may question then how a public that holds such a cynical view of the police is equally willing to support them – with 88% of respondents arguing that it is time that the community stood behind the police. The answers lie in South African’s common desire to eradicate crime – transcending both racial and political identities and in the establishment of more inclusive partnerships between government, business and the community at large. Corporations need to give substance to their corporate responsibilities by providing funding and by supporting community-led projects, poverty eradication and visible policing. Individuals and communities need to provide legitimate opportunities to disillusioned youths, increase access to counselling and drug-related rehabilitation facilities and apply pressure on parents to actively engage with their children. An improvement in people's socio-economic situation results in a definite (and predictable) decline in their reporting that they often feel depressed. This reinforces the need for community-led interventions to improve people’s standard of living and eliminate their sense of exclusion.

While there is a global trend that suggests a drastic decline in the number of people participating in civil society organisations, South Africans appear to be opposing this trend. While only 3% of South Africans reported being members of a residents’ association in 1999, the number has more than tripled to 10% by 2008. Although this increase is certainly encouraging, it is hardly enough to constitute the community-led intervention that the crisis requires.

The unforgiving attitude among South Africans to corrupt officials, with 86% agreeing that corrupt officials should never be allowed to hold office again, shows that communities cannot rely on political leadership to combat crime. With bitter debates raging about how the police should be structured and a national police commissioner who has been relieved of his duties, crime prevention requires a mobilisation of the people by the people. The willingness of South Africans to take control of their communities and act against crime was revealed by respondents, 63% of whom agreed that they possess an inherent right to take the law into their own hands if government fails to prevent crime. This apparent endorsement of vigilantism transcends racial lines with the proportion of blacks who support this viewpoint almost equalling whites. While this trend presents some concerns, it serves to show the extent to which citizens are willing to take action against crime – and should act as a warning to the government as we approach the tipping point and risk descent into the abyss of lawlessness.

Beeld, 13 August 2008

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