The Road to Consolidating our Democracy and to Economic Freedom

1 April 2016

1. We chose the road we are on

Yinde lendlela esiyihambayo

Watsh’ uMandela kubalendeli bakhe

Wathi sodibana ngeFreedom Day

Freedom song sung by activists, including President Jacob Zuma.

Reading all the recent debates about the state of our country, one is forced to conclude that some among us suffer from a convenient but strategic loss of memory. Some of the role players that have played a significant part in putting us in the fix we are in, seem now to suffer from this self-induced amnesia or selective memory. Others seem to have lost their tongues.

Interestingly, some now conveniently blame all on one man, President Jacob Zuma. The talk as if he has not been promoted, supported and aided and abetted in his campaign to become the President of the ANC and the country and in carrying out his policies and his alleged crimes and misdemeanors. They also try, rather conveniently, to put all the economic woes we have at his feet as well.

While President Zuma must accept responsibility for his actions, he cannot be held to account for the collective decisions made by all of his cohort, or for decisions made by leaders who came before him. He must share that responsibility with the collective(s) who have been with him part, or all of the way. They must also share responsibility with him.

This is not said to score points or to gloat and say, “we told you so”, although, some of us did! The same was done to President Thabo Mbeki and the same, but in reverse, to President Nelson Mandela. President Thabo Mbeki was made to carry the can on many issues he was not responsible for, including lately, even the decision to elect Jacob Zuma. In the case of President Nelson Mandela, he is often credited with single handedly bring about peace, democracy and reconciliation, taking away the credit the ANC collectively deserves.

We ignore the past, especially the recent past and we deceive ourselves into this “Big Man” syndrome, at our peril.  It is time for everybody to own up, to “man” (sic) up, and to all contribute to fixing what we have collectively broken. We have lost the spirit of no surrender.

We have lost the creativity and passion of the national liberation struggle. Most importantly, we have lost the vision of the Freedom Charter. But we are where we are because we have collectively chosen, by commission and by omission, the path we are on. This is most true with the current ANC and alliance leadership.

2. So where are we?

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack

And you may find yourself in another part of the world….

And you may ask yourself

Well...How did I get here?

Talking Heads- Once in a lifetime

Recent commentators, often with a half-hearted apology for their own understated sins, have suggested that we are in the crisis we are in-low growth, high unemployment, persistent inequality, rising racism, rampant corruption, government failure, state capture and a general defeatist malaise-because of one man, President Jacob Zuma.

They warn us of the dangers of a predatory state, of state capture and of the culture of entitlement that leads to theft and to primitive accumulation. Without wanting to downplay these very real dangers, I want to interrogate this narrative on three levels.

Firstly, I do not agree that these new prophets did not know what they were doing when they opted for the decisions we now bear as a collective responsibility. The negotiated political settlement and its compromises was a necessary, but now outdated compromise that now limits our performance as a country. But we must all own it.

Secondly, I do not agree that they did not know what the consequences would be when we adopted policies such as the RDP, GEAR and the NDP, with all their shortcomings.  These bought us time to restructure the apartheid economy, but we have squandered the time won. Again, we must all own this failure.

Thirdly, I do not agree that these prophets did not know what the ANC under President Zuma and the collective that leads with him would do in government. All the issues raised now-the Guptas, state capture, alleged corruption-were raised before Polokwane. Those who raised these issues were purged at the time. That the prophets are now ‘shocked’, ‘surprised’, ‘appalled’, when they elected this man and his leadership collective, is quite simply, nonsense.

2. How did we get here?

The road is long

With many a winding turns

That leads us to who knows where

The Hollies

The negotiated political settlement left unfinished business, in the form of consolidating our young democracy and in terms of essential socio-economic transformation. Our young democracy has many strengths and weaknesses, as we have seen in recent times. The main strengths are the constitution, the courts and people themselves. The weaknesses are the un-restructured colonial-apartheid economy, the unchecked power of the executive and the ineffectual parliament, legislatures and councils and the people themselves.

Our economy is an archaic relic. It performs as badly as it does because it is based on colonial, slave and apartheid social relations. In fact, there are two South Africa’s, as many have said before. One is of the wealthy, privileged, mainly White, but slowly transforming to a non-racial elite.

The other is of the poor, unemployed, marginalized, mainly and certainly not transforming, Black section of our society. Our constitution gives us a great political platform with which to change the lives of our people. We have seen the courts rule in many cases against government abuse of power and resources. People have mobilised and stood up to poor governance, racism, and criminals and to many other threats to our country.

But we have also seen the executive attempt to abuse its power, for example, in terms of the secrecy laws it attempted to pass, in terms of covering up for primitive accumulation, or in trying to railroad policy choices such as unnecessarily expanding expensive nuclear power.

Parliament, the legislatures and city and town councils, are largely ineffectual, with a few exceptions. The oversight of those in office is nothing but supine. The debates on important issues are often reduced to bouts of name-calling and a shouting match. The people are often complacent on key issues and give the impression that corruption, abuse of office, waste of resources and bad service are just things to be tolerated. All of this stems from the fact that we have not educated our people properly in terms of their civic responsibilities and we have also not had a serious debate about amending our electoral system and the system of cooperative governance that has created a huge, expensive and ineffectual body of elected people who are, in significant numbers, not representative of or concerned with the service of the people who voted for them.

The key thing about the negotiated settlement was that we agreed on peace, reconciliation and transformation.  We have seen the first, at least politically, between the former apartheid and liberation antagonists. But reconciliation has largely been a one-way street, with Black people moving on from the crimes of colonialism and apartheid, but with Whites now claiming that they did not know about apartheid and even more unbelievable, that they are now discriminated against.

The transformation that was supposed to be part of the 1994 deal has been limited, to say the very least. Most absent lately, is any sense of solidarity, for the poor, the discriminated against, the most brutally violated and for those who were generous and magnanimous after apartheids demise. The rise of blatant and overt racism, is the extreme form of the returned arrogance of the oppressors.

But it is the ANC as the governing party and as the leading political force that has failed most dismally in this regard. The DA could never have been expected to lead the struggle for non-racialism and for reparations for apartheid’s victims. The EFF is a new kid on the block with a limited and even rudimentary political ideology ad program. This is the historical task of the ANC and it should be hanging its head in shame given the blatant shortcomings in this regard.

3. Why did we choose this road?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

A proverb.

The strengths and weaknesses start in the political parties we have in the country. The ANC and its allies are exceptionally good at ensuring the delivery of basic services to the masses. But in truth the national liberation movement has strayed far from the vision of The Freedom Charter in its practice. The policies and strategies chosen, in terms of the economy in particular, but also the strategy for combatting racism, as well as the general governance strategy and particularly the management of the public service and SOEs, lend themselves to the recreation of the political economy of apartheid with a façade of radicalism.

The DA, very good at administering the places it governs, is cynical about race and allows racism and the continuation of the privileges gained under apartheid in the guise of this good accounting for funds. The new kids on the block, the EFF, who are good at political posturing and communications, much like COPE was, do not project the maturity of leadership or articulate the policies needed to provide a real alternative to either the ANC or the DA.

At the end of 21 years we have to admit that;

- The RDP was as stop gap measure that was never really implemented

- GEAR was totally inappropriate, except for the fiscal responsibility aspect of the policy but its legacy is a burden on us today

- The NDP is a fudge that will do nothing but perpetuate and reproduce the poverty, inequality, unemployment, poor services and low growth that have been features of our 21 year old democracy.

None of these policies, nor the efforts of the opposition, are designed to take us down as a country. Counter-revolution is much more insidious and no doubt we will find its hand closer to home than in the opposition. But we cannot deal with it by resorting to ‘sniffing out witches’, or to fabricating intelligence reports about each other. We also cannot deal with these challenges by pretending that the current ‘debate’ about the constitution, the conduct of the President, the ‘performance’ of the opposition and similar matters will lead us out of the dark hole we are in.

Clearly, it is time to think out of the box.

4. Who leads us?

He's a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

The Beatles

The President of the Republic, was contested at Polokwane and at Mangaung ANC conferences. Each time he was elected by a majority of delegates. This was in spite of the criminal charges he faced, the many political and personal scandals and issues that have been a feature of his political life. Yet prior to the Polokwane conference, anybody who stood against Jacob Zuma was purged from political office, with very few exceptions.

Again at Mangaung, very few who contested his slate are left in leading positions in ANC structures. This has, along with the contestation over resources, factionalised the ANC, the SACP and COSATU, to the point of these organisations being mere shadows of what they once were. Many of those now urging us to follow their lead; Ivan Jim, Julius Malema, Zwelenzima Vavi, to mention three of the most vocal critics, were part of Jacob Zuma’s inner circle.

Others such as Gwede Mantashe are suddenly vocal about the threats to our democracy, while they have been in leadership positions for almost 2 decades without having done anything about these threats. And still others such as Blade Nzimande, usually the shrillest of all the critics, is so silent many wonder whether he has left the country, perhaps to receive the Guptas when they land wherever it is they are going next.

This is not to say that such leaders do not have contributions to make to our country and its future. The certainly do. But some candour is required. We must start by being honest about the fact that the social compact negotiated at CODESA and enshrined in the constitution, has run its course. The path we are on, of more of a mixed economy of the type we have, is a road to nowhere. Radical interventions are required, on behalf of the poor, to curtail big, monopoly business and to deliver quality services to our people.

A new partnership is required between government, business, labour and the rest of civil society that puts our people at the centre, our environment as equally important and the God of Mammon after these. This does not mean that there is no role for the private sector, but we cannot have the entire countries interests subordinated to those of global markets, big corporations and those close to government, who do absolutely nothing in our collective interests.

We need to have an open debate about reforming the institutions that are failing us; government, parliament, legislatures and councils, including the voting system and simply arguing for constituencies is not the answer. Local government has these and governance is no better and often poorer in these than at provincial and national level. The provinces all need to be reconfigure, to ensure development and growth are better facilitated. The same goes for local government, where many councils are simply not viable. State owned enterprises are by and large, a drain on resources.

But then we must also all be honest about the roles we have played as leaders and as citizens at home. I for one, made decisions in anger, reacting to the betrayal of the ANC, SACP and COSATU I saw leaders I had once revered and respected, perform.

My petulance was a mistake. I did stand up and speak out. If I had stayed in the ANC perhaps I would have made a difference for the good of the party. But, as I have said before, by leaving to form COPE with others, I weakened the ANC. It is difficult when purged, to continue in an organisation, so the stance of Malema, Vavi, Jim and others is understandable.

But that does not make their decisions to form new organisations correct. Equally, it is a failure on the part of the current leadership of the ANC, SACP and COSATU to allow these abuses and the resultant splits to occur. Above all else, it does not become these leaders to revise history and to claim that, ‘they did not know’.

5. Where is the road?

There’s a well-known joke about a tourist in Ireland who asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies: ‘Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’.

Then there is corruption. We need to have an open and frank discussion about this. Corruption is a problem. But to pretend that it is started in 1994 is just a bald faced lie. Our country was born of the corruption, greed and violence of colonialism, slavery and later apartheid.

This statement is not an excuse or a condoning of current corruption, but unless we are honest about the fact that just about all the land in this country was stolen from those who inhabited it, that big business has accumulated the wealth it has by paying generations of people starvation wages and that current policies have done little to change the patterns of ownership we have, then things are not going to go well for us as a country.

Anglo America was a predatory company. So was Old Mutual, SAB, etc. the difference between these companies is that some came from the UK, some from America and now these, such as the Guptas, are from India. It is clear that there are similar Russians, Chinese, Australians (look at the killing of Bazooka!) and others from all over the world. This is not a question of nationality. It’s about capitalism. It’s a predatory system. It has to be properly and effectively regulated. We have failed as the ANC to properly regulate capitalism and to manage it strategically.

To do this, we must fight to preserve and strengthen the capacity of the police, the intelligence services, the courts the chapter 9 and other important institutions to deal with the excesses we now experience. But we must also ensure that there is a radical program of government and a radical program of the masses of our people to drive economic change, more rapidly and more thoroughgoing than what we have seen to date. On corruption, we should set up a corruption tribunal that expedites investigations and prosecutions of those, both in the private and in the public sphere, who are accused of corruption. We also need an economic TRC that investigates how the current patterns of ownership of wealth we have were determined and also makes recommendations on how to change this reality in the interests of the majority, with socio-economic justice as our priority.

6. Which road do we take from here?

May the road rise up to meet you.

A Gaelic blessing

The reality we face is that without a social compact that;

1. Transforms our country and ensures a non-racial future with a fair and equitable distribution of wealth

2. Promotes diversity and social justice

3. Makes it possible for business to do business but not in a predatory way

4. Ensures full employment and decent wages to workers

5. Ensures the physical safety of its citizens, especially the young and the old

6. Ensures decent public services for all

7. Protects our environment and the future for all our children,

we are simply shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.

For us to make these necessary and difficult choices, we need bold, decisive, committed and honest leadership. We can all analyse the past. We can all apportion blame for it. The real task of leadership is to define the future path, the road ahead and to tell it to the people like it really is.

The DA is a velvet glove for the iron fist of capital that will restructure our country and ensure increased casualization, outsourcing, labour broking, starvation wages and super-exploitation of the masses. The ‘left’ of the ANC; the EFF, the new workers party, led by the rump of Jacob Zuma fans and supporters, whose only real beef is that they were kicked out of the inner circle by others, are merely wolves in sheeps clothing. Theirs and the DA’s real complaint is not state capture. It is that someone else other than them, has captured the state.

We have an abundance of rare minerals-platinum, palladium, diamonds. We have land, a small population compared to so many countries. We have agriculture, rich seas, we have natural beauty second to none. But for all this we are a poor country. It begs the question, why?

The answer.

Things have to change and radically. Leadership is the rarest commodity we have on display. We don’t have enough of it being exercised. It starts with telling the truth and speaking the truth to power. It is no good criticising a leader as his or her power wanes. Any coward can do that. It is those who stand up to the full might of others at the height of their power that can claim to be called leaders. The rest, are followers at best and those who bleat the loudest on sacrifice, are sheep.

This article is written in my personal capacity, as an ANC member, a socialist, an academic, an activist and an entrepreneur