How Dialogue & Discourse died – Dr de Kock’s Blindspot Column in Leadership Magazine (Sept ’22)

I – Back to the future of 1999

On the eve of the ‘new millennium,’ former President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, HE Mohammad Khatami, delivered an address entitled, Dialogue between East and West, to the European University Institute, Florence (10 March, 1999).*

It would be safe to say that while the 1990s was a decade of tumultuous change across the planet, brought about by the end of the Cold War, and the abdication of the Soviet Union from a planetary ideological death race, it was also a time marked by optimism. 

In retrospect one could argue that a type of zeitgeist filled humanity with anticipation of the potential global integration holds to open new platforms for dialogue, and discourse, with the aim of building ‘mutual understanding’. 

South Africa’s ‘dialogued/negotiated’ political transition, in that decade, inspired millions upon millions of people around the planet. This inspiration stemmed from a very simple (yet hard fought for) idea, namely that it is indeed possible to overcome difference, discord, and disastrous conflicts – through dialogue.

II – Khatami on listening, hearing, and the art of dialogue 

President Khatami’s address in Italy, on the eve of Y2K, may for today’s ‘netizen’ sound like words from a very far away, and long gone era. Meantime, it is just little more than two decades ago. 

He lays out the nuts and bolts of the idea as such, “Dialogue among civilisations requires listening to and hearing from other civilisations and cultures, and the importance of listening to others is by no means less than talking to others. It may be in fact more important.” 

What surprising words to come from an Iranian head of state in 1999. This especially because Iran is often portrayed as a country where, if one relies on certain mainstream global media channels for news and information: bearded Ayatollah Khomeini look a-likes walk around the streets of Tehran with nuclear warheads wedged between the shoulders, covered in impressive turbans, as disguise. Let’s take George Bush Junior’s ‘Axis of Evil’ with Iran prime suspect number one, as Exhibit A, of a world where dialogue died on the same altar as truth.

Nevertheless, here is a former Iranian head of state arguing that, “…talking and listening combine to make up a bipartite, sometimes multipartite, effort to approach the truth and to reach mutual understanding.”

The proverbial crunch comes when Khatami argues, “That is why dialogue has nothing to do with the sceptics and is not a property of those who think they are the sole proprietors of Truth. It rather reveals its beautiful but covered face only to those wayfarers who are bound on their journey of discovery hand in hand with other human beings.” 

III – What is this political progeny of Ayatollah Khomeini teaching us? 

Lesson one to take is that, according to Khatami, Dialogue requires two things, being: Listening and Hearing. One can immediately ask, how much listening and hearing, and dialogue takes place on some of the most critical issues and crises impacting on our world, and its peoples, today? Social media was, and still is sold to the world as panacea of communication, expression, and ‘sharing’. However, those very digitospheric platforms have become battlegrounds of pronouns, pro-Ukraine versus anti-Russia hate – with no space for engagement, listening, or dialogue. The only ‘listening’ that happens is by the AI’s, bots, and monitoring systems tracking ‘public sentiment’ and relative virality of bot-driven sock-puppet accounts. 

Let us take a recent example. The Russia-Ukraine conflict severely impacted global food, energy, and fertiliser supplies. In fact, it is a matter of public record that key institutions such as the IMF, World Bank have warned of severe global food shortages, and crop failures (due to lack of fertilisers), and record shattering energy cost inflation. Yet, instead of engaging in some form of dialogue, the Biden Administration in the USA, for quite some time referred to spiking energy, and food prices as, the ‘Putin tax.’ It took significant dogged determination by the Turkish government in recent months, to broker an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, for strictly controlled movement of grains through the Black Sea. While this may not be the ‘final solution’, it does illustrate that even in the proverbial ‘thick of the fog of war,’ words and dialogue can make a tangible difference. 

In the view of Khatami, a world is possible where civilisations engage, through listening, hearing, all in an effort to enable dialogue that could move the needle towards mutual understanding. Khatami was making a case for honest efforts at engagement between ‘East’ and ‘West’. This is of course before 9/11 and the Global War on Terror hit the global political fan. And, it is just as relevant today, as it was back then. 

Did we really learn anything from Khatami’s wise words when, earlier this year the US adopted a Bill that aims to curtail and counter what it calls ‘malignant’ Russian influence in the African continent. The passage of this bill is not necessarily surprising, but, it also does not bode well for anyone in Africa who thinks there is still not only opportunity, but, at this stage, more than ever, an urgent need to remain ‘engaged’ as African nations, in dialogue with all the major powers shooting at each other either directly, or via proxy, on Ukrainian battlefields, including the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the EU, and NATO.

IV – Quo vadis dialogue in Cold War 2.0 

As reflected on in a previous column in this magazine, the date 24 February, when the Russian Federation launched its special military operation in Ukraine, marks the death of globalisation, and a grand bifurcation of the world system. On the one hand Eurasia is integrating at breakneck speed, with multilateral organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, BRICS, and regional platforms such as the Belt-Road initiative, creating conditions for integration of a landmass encompassing, to name but a few: Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, and more than three billion people. 

Eurasia is rising, de-dollarising its intra-trade, and deepening strategic cooperation, especially in the economic, and military domains. 

On the other hand, leaders from so-called democratic nations, espousing ‘democratic’ rhetoric, condemn and aim to silence and question any voice, even here in South Africa, that dare to argue for us to listen to all sides, to listen to the genuine concerns, and  make an effort to research the tumultuous history of Ukraine, and what some take as Russia’s legitimate security, humanitarian, and cultural concerns, since the Maidan coup toppled Ukraine’s government in 2014.

This means, current discourse in Africa, on the most significant global conflict of our era, has seen no real dialogue, listening, hearing, or discourse. It is either you are with the NATO-ist western position of economic war and isolation of bad bearish Russia, or, you are a pro-Russia anti-democratic Putinite. Finish & Klaar. 

Once again, one can ask, what is Mohammad Khatami, political progeny of the leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, teaching us? 

He teaches us that talking and listening combine in the process of human engagement, with the result that one grows ‘mutual understanding’. Now, once again, a question. While South Africa might have inspired millions around the world in the 1990s with our ‘dialogued/negotiated’ political transition, in the 2020s it seems as if the bling of the 1990s multi-cultural rainbow nation cow has really been worn off by corrosive forces of state capture, insurrection from inside the ruling party, and factionalism that has brought the once mighty African National Congress (as broad church for all), ‘oldest liberation movement in Africa’, to its knees with epic in-fighting proving itself truly ‘unfit’ to govern. 

This means that even in the case of South Africa there is not much listening, and hearing happening. Ask yourself, when last did this country’s public discourse have proper, informed debate, about policy choices and the strategic direction of the nation? Mostly these descend into a cacophony of voices of opposition opposing just because that is the job of politics – to oppose. 

Factionalism and fratricidal in-fighting in coalitions cobbled together to boot the ANC out of Metro governments have not meant improved service delivery, it has only brought hung councils, hours and days wasted by ideological posturing, and parties seeking privileged access to the little bit of state resources still to be grabbed (the deck chairs) while the Titanic is not completely down and out, yet. 

The ethic of dialogue, listening, hearing, and trying by all means to live by those principles, however difficult it might be, seems to be lost in the land of a miracle democracy. Social media driven hate, friction, and forces of fragmentation abound. That is why, in both the South African, and Russia-Ukraine conflict case, it is necessary to pause at the words of Mohammad Khatami, and ask – have we really ‘progressed’ since the 1990s? Or, have we plunged straight back into the dark age of Cold Wars, a world divided into competing geographic blocks: in the case of Cold War 2.0 it is not just Russia versus, but, Eurasia versus the West. 

In this case South Africa should ideally maintain a neutral and non-aligned course in current world affairs, and make an extraordinary effort to invite open, honest dialogue with all so-called ‘opposing sides.’ Do we really want to live in a world where there is only one mediated perspective, one party line that is either anti- or pro this or that? Do we really not want to listen to all dimensions of the Ukrainian people’s perspective on the conflict, as well as the deep historical roots and strategic interests Russia has been triggered, to protect, in the Ukraine? 

Let’s listen, and learn. And be open to our Russian, European, NATO, and Ukrainian friends’ perspectives, plans for, and pains with contemporary geopolitical realities. That is the brave thing to do: listen to everyone, encourage engagement, and empower yourself with more nuanced knowledge. Listening to only one side, and silencing so-called voices of dissent, is the global disaster in the making.

Reference 

* Mohammad Khatami. 2001. Dialogue among civilisations: a paradigm for peace. Editors: Theo Bekker, Joelien Pretorius. University of Pretoria – Centre for International Political Studies.