The Last Word

There is little doubllhal great stress will in the short to medium-term future be placed on all p!'ocesses geared lor the establishment of a democracy and a shared loyalty in this country. It cannot be denied thai there are very deep cleavages In the South Alrican society. AI the same time it has to be admitted that significant progress has been made over the past years if one considers how apparently unbridgeable the divide looked as recently as early 1989. It Is probably a truism to say thai in fulure communication will simultaneously be one of the necessary conditions lor the successful transformation of the country. and one 01 the indices 01 the progress and success of such tranSformation. Against this background the fOllOWing paragraphs conlain a summary of Ihe more imponant findings, as well as a number of funher aCllons that may be required on the road ahead.

in the short to medium-term future be placed on all p!'ocesses geared lor the establishment of a democracy and a shared loyalty in this country. It cannot be denied thai there are very deep cleavages In the South Alrican society. AI the same time it has to be admitted that significant progress has been made over the past years if one considers how apparently unbridgeable the divide looked as recently as early 1989. It Is probably a truism to say thai in fulure communication will simultaneously be one of the necessary conditions lor the successful transformation of the country. and one 01 the indices 01 the progress and success of such tranSformatio n. Against this background the fOllOWing paragraphs conlain a summary of Ihe more imponant finding s, as well as a number of funher aCllons that may be required on the road ahead.
1, The process of developing a common loyalty • South African· ism -will be a slow one, albeit more noticeable that in the past. Factors that may contribute to· wards this process inc tude the fol· lowing: • An entire communication context . i.e. political dispenSalion -fa· cussed on commonality ralher di· visions' also negative reinforcemem for racism. However, some Of the divides might even become more accentuated as cenain groups strive to dissociate themselves from the seeking of com· munality.
2. Interaction between different populalion categories are bOund to increase as the initial stages of affirmative action take effect. To a limited extent this means that the nature of the participants will all change in the sense that communication will become somewhat less hierarchical.

3.
English will increasingly become the lingua franca of the country and the character Of South African English will increasingly be under the influence of an Africanization force, as opposed to the relatively strong Afrikaans influence of the past.

4.
Education can, should and in fact seems geared to play a very important role in the transformation of the country. In this regard specific attention would have to be paid to the constructive intercultural content and processes.
5. The agendas of the media in the country have undeniably undergone significant change in the course of the past two or so years in the sense that a broader spectrum of information of the total political spectrum is provided. The role of the media as agendasetter, but also as indicator of change will probably grow, especially if the social turbulence persist.
6. The process of participatory democracy will become more salient and potentially represents an important unifying force. The perspective on the role of communication indicates a trend towards unifying the people of the land. It would be naive, however, to infer from this that the road ahead would be a smooth one. Factors such as the tragic Strength from unity.

2
Unity out of diversity. extent and abhorrent nature of the violence in the country, the run-up to the 1994 election and the actual campaigns in which political support is to be mobilized, the unacceptably high level of unemployment, the stagnating economy, etc., may bring a temporary halt to some of the positive signs we have alluded to. Perhaps the ideal expressed by the ~outh African motto of Ex unitate vires does not emphasize our mots salient needs. Somehow the concept of Ubuntu, freely translated as huma·neness should receive more attention. This could enable us to be more appreciative of typically African ways of doing things, a point in case being the principles of African financial management that were highlighted in the workshop by Jeff Fadiman. Over the shorter term, we will have to make a motto such as that of t~e USA work for us: Ex pluribus unum , at least at the national overarching level.