The thing the Congress of the People (Cope) should be paying close attention to is finding the process of how to form genuine, democratic, progressive hegemony that'll debunk the perception that it is concerned with prestige privileges at the expense of mainstream interests.
To achieve this, its organic intellectuals (socially constituted individuals that constructively critique) have to expose the fakery of Liberation Movement (LM) rhetoric, and demonstrate, in believable terms, that anti-imperialism, post-colonialist, non racial democratic politics must involve meaningful participation of all the peoples of this country. Its approach must pluralistic.
This would require a systematic critique of both vulgar Marxism and radical market-ism; and the rest of intolerant ideologies that resist societal progressive change and disrupt the possibility. It'd have to provide a platform for cooperative rapport and collaboration between people of different backgrounds. Cope will have to expose and decisively reject the politics of coercion; adopt those of democratic consent; and, struggle against all forms of regressive hegemony emanating from our yesteryear bad habits and passé politics.
Cope will have to avoid dogmatism and formulas in forging the party's philosophical praxis; stand for freedom with responsibility; human values that are based on liberty, and clearly elaborate its policies. In short it must brand itself as the vehicle for progressive politics in our country and political common sense. Cope must be more than a political or social movement and come to embody a moral and ethical concept.
Critique of Cope
Therefore Cope will do well to follow Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, as opposed to the Leninist approach of the LM. As a modern political party Cope must have propensity to accept, and ability to generate, progressive ideas and values. In a way this position Cope already occupies by default, even if so far it has failed to live up to expectations of the position it occupies. The reasons for this failure are myriad but chief among them is its leadership failure to grasp with visionary insight the spirit of the social movement on the ground.
Taking its formation history (protesting against creeping anti-constitutionalism, erosion of democratic processes and institutions) Cope cannot afford to lapse into similar errors. This is why at the slightest shortfall it is vehemently criticised by the public at large. Cope was born with a promise to be better, and if it can't what is the point of it? The people would rightfully prefer the devil they know.
Unfortunately, in recent experience, Cope has not been locked in the courage of its convictions; in fact it seems to be struggling to implement what it professes. But the difference and advantage it has over the LM (that incoherent, execrable repository of malcontented careerists who are concerned only with personal ambition) is that it still hangs on to its convictions even where it struggles to implement them. Despite its problems one still senses a genuine striving for sincere way and moral centre for conducting politics.
Strengths of Cope
The LM, which is not as dumb as some would like to believe, has rightly identified Cope as a grave threat. This is because Cope was born as a vehicle of demand for political competence, legitimate forms of hegemony and exposure of "contradictory and discordant" aspects at the heart of LM political philosophy. When Cope's widening vision reaches popular sectors of our population it'll completely realign the politics of this country, and this is why the LM fears it so much.
The hurdle Cope need to overcome is that of disposition, the habit of settling for a certain way of doing things by the general population of our country. For that matter it is incumbent upon the followers of Cope and other progressive political parties to make people aware what happens when people acquiesce to an unjust system due to despair. We've seen this attitude of haplessness settle slowly until it became defeatist and fatalistic in many countries in Africa, the recent one being our neighbours across the Limpopo.
Cope is the genuine last hope for this country if we are to afford the fate of countries like Zimbabwe, hence its message must spread in a bottom up democratic drive, a process of sedimentation that diffuses the contingent nature of society's prevailing norms. Because of this the process would be a little slow since it needs to be internalised into becoming a new political culture.
The message must develop voluntarily and spontaneously in the natural environment, and diffuses by learning and teaching. It must consciously adopt an attitude of radical freedom against subalternate conditions imposed by the dominance of regressive hegemony. In short Cope members will be well advised to wean and distance itself from the LM straight jacket passé politics and Stalinist procedural politics, especially the lies of empty and populist rhetoric.
Cope and modern times
Another failure of Cope is in not emphasising enough on the problems it has identified as major issues in our country. Hence you find the ruling party making more of Cope Manifesto as a backdrop to the current administration's implementation programme. The Zuma administration, to its credit, has realised that ANC manifesto is impractical, and has instead decided to pirate Cope's one. You hear the ruling party talk about reopening Nursing Colleges, etc. This is an unintended complement to Cope, especially coming from President Zuma who makes no qualms about his disdain for Cope.
Unfortunately, the ruling party's opportunism and usurpation is not driven by inner convictions, which is why the whole thing will end on the fur like a dog's sweat. Cope must not be afraid to state the truth, no matter how out of fashion it might be at the present moment. Take the recent riots of Mandela Park backyard dwellers burning government built houses, because they were allocated less than expected number to occupy. This cannot be right.
To correct it the LM must desist from populist electioneering, of feeding people lies that are fodder to bad attitudes; like expecting the government to be Father Christmas, handing everything to everyone. The government is not a supplier but a facilitator of houses. This is the right attitude Cope should be taking from the start. People must learn to do things for themselves with the facilitation of basic services by the government.
Cope, if it wants to be a modern party, must not join the deafening silence on the issues interwoven problems of our era caused by population growth, climate change, sustainable supplies of food and water, and threats to biological diversity now threatening our existence on this planet. Its voice is not loud enough on need for convictions, morally and otherwise, in our politics, because, perhaps, its become wary of sounding moralistic. But the truth of the matter is that most of those who are loosing hope in the LM is due not only to its political failures and lack of conviction, but of moral values also.
African Fascism
About three years ago I wrote a friend an email intoning that Robert Mugabe is probably a founder of something, due to lack of proper term then, I called African fascism. He disagreed with and corrected me. Now I've this creeping feeling that perhaps I wasn't that far off the mark. After all the Cambridge dictionary is clear enough on the meaning: Fascism - a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control and being extremely proud of country and race, and in which political opposition is not allowed. [Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary] I'm sure no want needs my further interpretation on that.
All regressive hegemonies lead to fascism which is what prompted Gramsci to look for a different kind of revolution, what he called "passive resistance" that would act as a "moral and intellectual reformation" on what he saw as a regressive society (dominance of Italian fascists, which eventually led to the Italian support for Hitler). We saw the seeds of Mugabe-ism during our last elections wherever the ruling party sensed a real threat to its hegemony.. As that threat widens the chances are, the aggressive stance will intensify also, and will be left with two options, either fight fire with fire, or take the option of Gramsci's "passive revolution", which I favour.
Conclusion
How would we popularise the South African version of "passive revolution" is the task every Cope member (agent), and its success depends on the readiness of the South African population to accept the reality of our situation. What is a stake here is civilising the mind of a nation. By civilisation I don't necessarily mean Western cultural chauvinism. I mean a certain degree of political and economic development that allows for productive innovation and lead to material progress. I also mean the art of refined and tasteful living that comes as result of intellectual vitality and spiritual élan. I'm sure here at Gardens take easily to that sort of thing, we don't even need to feel guilty about. What we need to do is create a space for someone in Philipi or Khayelitsha to be able to achieve the same goals and more, with motivation, hard work and our communal help. We need not leave in fear of another, but rather promote an atmosphere of civil society, the building blocks of any country's development and ability to educate itself.
Building a society that'll be responsible for marrying material prosperity and prosperity of the soul is the greatest legacy Cope can offer this country. And teach its peoples how to avoid stunting creative development in reconstructing African heritage. What we'll need to do is to bring quality of life and experience, the best of everything on offer in history so far, to the widest number of people.
We would have to follow Matthew Arnold advice: ‘The work of civilisation is to speak to the ordinary self of its longing to become the best version of itself.' We must take from the best of each civilisation to make ourselves better. This means giving people not only the freedom, but incentive, to develop love for ideas, objects and other people.
Those of us who cut their political teeth in what in this country became known as Black Consciousness would recall what we took to be its revolutionary message were the demands this philosophy put on us, especially the black people, to excel and claim the right to stand within the family of nations, proud of who were and the legacy handed to us by those who came before us. The call to reconstruct the African legacy is not about putting black people on the comfort zone so they may hide behind the aggrieved past..
Reconstructing the legacy of Africa is a call to Africans (black and white) to put themselves at the cutting edge of the developmental combat of our era. That is the call, in the legacy left to us by the likes of Braham Fischer, Ruth First and Steve Biko who chose to die by their convictions than submit to a regressive hegemony.
Things have changed a little now; the lies are perpetrated in the name of the majority, instead of the minority; but the attitude is the same. South Africa will stand or fall because today, instead of hoping that things will turn out for the better, you, not your brother or your sister, or only those who are political inclined; but you, stand up to be counted!
Once again South Africa is in dire need for quality citizens that are ready to stand united for an even better future. If you think things were tough running against foot soldiers, how would you fare now that you must run against the horses. That's the question God posed to the prophet Jeremiah, and now to you and I. Things have changed, changed utterly!
Mphuthumi Ntabeni is editor of http://copetown.org/ and COPE's head of research in the Western Cape legislature
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