In Spokane business forum, South African diplomats say social media may have tanked effort to form democracy

While unspoken were the names of either political party, the deepening American political polarization became the focus of a Spokane business organization’s annual meeting on Tuesday.

Greater Spokane Inc. welcomed two lawyers who spent years on opposite sides of the bruising, and sometimes violent, effort to end apartheid in South Africa some 30 years ago.

That system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination by the white minority over the country’s Black majority finally ended in 1994 when South Africa agreed on a new constitution.

Roelf Meyer is a former member of Parliament who served as the chief negotiator for the conservative National Party government during the negotiations to end apartheid and establish a democracy.

His counter was Mohammed Bhabha, an attorney and former senator from South Africa, who served on the negotiating team for the African National Congress political party.

The pair has traveled all over the country for speaking engagements to explain their country’s successes, failures and continued struggles to overcome a 300-year-old system designed to benefit whites.

While both speak of respect and collaboration, both cautioned that they may have failed 30 years ago if they had to contend with the current impact of social media.

Bhabha said the country was first colonialized by the Netherlands and later Great Britain with a focus of using the Indigenous populations to extract minerals from South Africa.

“We were subject to a system of oppression that went on for over 300 years. It was very brutal,” he said. “Whatever our struggle was, it had to be value driven. It was no use in engaging in … fighting a system and replacing it with a system where the behavior was the same. If it wasn’t value driven, then it was retribution and the bloodletting would not stop.”

The sight of Meyer or of a police officer “was something that really generated a lot of anger in us. We hated these people. And it is from that basis that we had to create an atmosphere where we had to vote as a country again,” Bhabha said. “The same policeman that was the object of my oppression I had to learn to love. It cannot be done from a top -down approach and it cannot be done only by politicians.”

Meyer, the son of a sheep farmer, said he grew up in a conservative household that benefited from the political structure.

Opening himself up to change started with simple conversations.

“You have to engage,” he said. “You have to be curious about the person on the other side.”

The key was respect, Meyer said.

“You don’t have to agree with that person on the other side. The worst thing that can happen to any individual, Black or white, is to be ignored and to have the feeling of being bullied,” he said. “Then there is no chance.”

Those negotiations, which sometimes stalled through fits of violence from both sides, finally resulted in a constitution that created a democracy. But both speakers cautioned that the struggle didn’t just end with a new political structure.

Meyer said the 30% of Afrikaners who opposed ending apartheid continue to support the old structure decades later.

“It’s not something that you can leave behind and say, ‘OK, victory is there,’ ” he said.

“It’s a task of ongoing consultation, public participation, like you are doing here, and a matter of bringing along as many minds as possible in that process.”

The local business leaders inevitably asked about their perceptions of the U.S. and its current state of contentious politics.

“First of all, America is great,” Meyer said. “We observe it. We experience it. Why is it good? Because it sets an example for the rest of the world in terms of democratic practices and being a society that is largely at peace with itself. I hope that will remain the case.”

One attendee submitted a question about the role of social media during contentious political times. Bhabha didn’t mince words.

“I’m not certain whether we could have had the success that we had if there was social media. It is very destructive,” he said. “I just find we are on the retreat because of the fake stuff that comes and their influence.”

He noted that social media could be used for good, but that has not occurred.

“That is precisely why personal engagement at this level becomes that much more important because the perception and reality is much different when you are engaged with each other,” Bhabha said.

Meyer said the negotiations that eventually led to a functioning democracy started with two years of talks without any specific focus or agenda. Both sides just spoke to each other.

“There is obviously some divides in your community – huge divides that could lead to polarization,” he said. “From the outside there is concern with that. But the only way to address it and to overcome it, I would say, is through dialogue and finding common ground to go forward.”