In politics some of the most important developments can often slip by unnoticed. It is easy enough to recognise the significance of the big events. But these are often merely the ultimate expression of a far more gradual, and much less noticed, change of mood in society. It is only when one looks back - and remembers how things once were - that it is possible to recognise the magnitude of the shift that has occurred.
As many reviews have noted, last year was a truly extraordinary one. In these circumstances it is easy to overlook a mere ‘change in the air' - but one that could be of great consequence. For could 2008 also be the year in which the liberation movement lost faith in its ideology?
Up until 2007 the ANC unrelentingly pursued, to borrow a phrase, the "harsh ends of an imperious racial nationalism." The Strategy & Tactics document, formulated under the old party leadership that year and adopted at Polokwane, envisaged an unforgiving continuation of the dual policies of ‘demographic representivity' and ‘cadre deployment'. ‘Affirmative action' measures, it stated, would be used to ensure "all centres of power and influence and other critical spheres of social endeavour become broadly representative of the country's demographics." Meanwhile, a high premium would continue to be placed, on the "involvement of [ANC] cadres in all centres of power."
The basic pathology of this nationalism lay in the refusal to relent on such principles even when they, pushed past a certain point, started harming the real interests of the black majority. Whenever the negative consequences were exposed, the response was to deny the problem, ascribe any expression of it to the ‘demon of white racism', and to press blindly onwards.
Last year something changed. The new ANC leadership made a concerted effort to reach out to working class Afrikaners and the Expropriation Bill was shelved, albeit temporarily. In a statement that would have been regarded as heresy a year before the party's new Treasurer General Mathews Phosa described the ANC's early efforts to hasten the exodus of white South Africans from the civil service as a "mistake." And he acknowledged that this had "resulted in a skills vacuum in some areas of the public service" (see here).
The new ANC leadership, once in command of government, appeared far more open to drawing on the skills and expertise of white South Africans. The appointment of Judge Edwin Cameron to the Constitutional Court was particularly symbolic in this regard. Cameron's accession to the court had initially been blocked on racial grounds by Mbeki's office back in 1999, shortly before Nelson Mandela stepped down as president. This time around there was but a belated protest against Cameron's candidacy by Advocate Vuyani Ngalwana.