Prepared speech by DA Parliamentary Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko MP at the Cape Town Press Club February 6 2012 

The Trenches of Democracy

In South Africa today, as in any democracy, there are a great many opinions about the state of our nation - where we are, where we are going, and even where we have been. From analysts to politicians to journalists and ordinary citizens, everyone seems to have a different perspective on the most important matters of the day.

This is how it should be. Our democratic system is founded on the understanding that we are a diverse people with diverse views and backgrounds. We know all too well the consequences of being dominated by one interpretation of our national experience, and we have resolved that we would never again suffer that kind of domination.

I believe that our constitutional order was put in place with the knowledge that its strictures, rules and principles would be buttressed throughout by this shared diversity of opinion. It would be our safeguard; the assurance that our national course was subject to scrutiny from the eyes of all the people.

This is the spirit which infused the era of the Mandela administration. But I am not harking back to some glorified ideal of our best days.

I am referring to when we were in the trenches of our democracy. I am referring to dispute, disagreement and debate, and the vibrant dynamic that flourished in our first democratic Parliament.

We know that in a democracy the majority government makes the final decision. We know that there has to be a final choice.

But there are dangers when decisions are taken without sufficient discussion and debate, when a government starts to believe that it has a monopoly on the truth.

Wherever we have been able to, the DA has been at the forefront of efforts to make Parliament work. It is our members who have consistently asked the questions, proposed Private Members Legislation and used Portfolio Committee processes to effect real and important legislative changes.

Nevertheless, Parliament today is not the institution it should be. I think that part of the reason we are in our current state is because we have forgotten one of the lessons of our history: that robust debate between people of diverse opinions has to be at the heart of our democracy.

That is one of the reasons why the DA supports a mixed-electoral system of representation in Parliament, where parties and constituencies can be represented, and where diversity and accountability can flourish.

Our Parliament achieves some of these things some of the time. But too often real debate is undermined or cheapened by put-downs or manufactured hysteria. And so, in the spirit of proper engagement, allow me to give a perspective on where we have come from, and where we are going, ahead of the President's speech this week.

Over the past eighteen years, South Africa has achieved a great deal. We removed our economy from international isolation and made it productive again. We expanded school access to everyone and ensured that there was a common curriculum and the resources available to support it.

We have implemented an extensive social welfare safety net to help vulnerable people see to their most basic needs. We have made progress towards universal health care. We have built for our country a constitutional framework that not only works, but is also the most celebrated in the world. And we have developed a culture of human rights that has empowered and freed us.

We have all of these things and more. And I stand here today knowing that, while I do not agree with all that has been done, I am grateful for that which the President's party has done to contribute to these achievements.

But, of course, democracy cannot forever be a chorus of fawning hagiographies, of citizens forever grateful and never critical. In the parliamentary trenches of our democracy, representatives of ordinary South Africans are meant to ensure that this is not the case. The government is meant to be on notice, its decisions and actions scrutinised, its performance held to account.

Our trenches may seem quiet at the moment, but they will not remain so.

On Thursday, President Zuma will outline his perspective of the state of our nation. And in reponse next week, I will outline the DA's view of the core issues at stake in our nation today. I will define for the President and for the people of South Africa what a DA government would do to create opportunity, what we would do to point our country towards a future we all aspire to.

I have no doubt that the President will speak on Thursday about job creation. He needs to do so: unemployment is the biggest crisis our country faces at the moment.

We are all seized by this issue; but sometimes I also think we have become a bit desensitized to the figures and they have lost a certain context.

This was recently brought home to me in the news surrounding the upcoming presidential election in the United States this year.

The United States Bureau of Labour Statistics recently released its latest unemployment statistics, which currently stand at 8.3%. Various analysts remarked that President Obama's aides should be relieved. The wisdom was that if unemployment were somewhere closer to or just over 9%, the nation would have been in a crisis and, the incumbent president would have been almost unelectable.

This jarring analysis made me consider our situation here, in a country of 25% officially unemployed citizens.

Of course, this comparison is just an insight into what constitutes an emergency for any democracy. I know we cannot compare ourselves to the United States. But what about Turkey, with unemployment of 9%, or India with 10% or Brazil with 4.7%?

Because there is a wider context, an additional matter that we must consider:

The United States is a developed country, with a fully developed economy. Since 2008 especially, growth in these economies has been slowing down considerably, even considering the historical plateaus of development many of these countries have reached in the post-war economic climate.

In contrast, the past decade has seen a ramp-up in the growth of emerging economies in the developing world. These economies, like Brazil and Turkey and India, have achieved high growth rates, rapid economic expansion and, socially, increased opportunities for their citizens.

We know of course, that in some instances we do not necessarily have the competitive advantages that those countries have cultivated in their upward thrust, such as Brazil's oil reserves and regional market access. But neither do many other countries. Indeed, several parts of our own continent are experiencing growth rates unparalleled in the rest of the world.

Other countries have made great progress dismantling considerable barriers to growth, like India's shedding of moribund regulations that kept it locked in a stunted mode of development until the late 1980s.

We may not have some of the advantages that these countries have, but that is not to say we don't have any. We have a historical endowment of infrastructure, we have a sophisticated services sector, we have existing transport networks and we have the rule of law and order.

We have certain significant advantages for development. We just need the confidence, direction and courage to undertake a dramatic change in economic approach. I believe that means looking at policies and legislation that prevent us from taking advantage of our inherent competitive potential and comparative advantages.

It means looking at regulations that stifle our resources, from mineral rights to labour market flexibility to economic policy-making itself. It means finding synergies between the market and our people.

I remain concerned that in accepting the consensus of how South Africa is, in the ever-present thanks and adulation, we are also accepting a certain reality. It is the reality that sees poverty alleviation as the only salvation, without devising sufficient strategies for poverty reduction, and ultimately, elimination.

We need grants in South Africa. We need the daily relief that they provide. But we should not be satisfied with them. We should not see them as anything more than stepping stones as we build a new economy.

I believe that we have developed a certain measure of acceptance towards the standards of education and training in South Africa. It's the kind of acceptance that lets us throw more money at education each year while conceding that there will always be two education systems in this country: one if you have access to personal resources and another if you don't.

We should give maximum resources to children going to school and to people wanting to get an education. But we shouldn't just allocate money and then convince ourselves that we have done enough.

If we neglect education, we don't just neglect our future. We neglect our present. And all of those rights that we celebrate will mean little if people don't know enough or have enough skills to get a job.

If we stop looking at education like a department that needs this amount of budget, that number of teachers and this many books, if we stop looking at it as a self-contained system among other competing systems, and rather look at it as the laboratory in which we cook up opportunity, then we will start to get the picture.

As I will tell the President next week, the DA will propose giving more power to schools that perform to better manage their own affairs because one size does not always fit all. I will make the case that in those schools we should make principals and teachers sign performance contracts, and institute minimum qualifications for principals.

We will all start getting the picture when we see the relationship between education and the economy as the perpetual motion machine of our democracy.

The kind of economies that are being built in the 21st century require a level of skills and training that we simply don't have, but we can build them.

That means starting with the basics. It means making sure teachers and children are in school doing what they are supposed to be doing: learning or teaching. It means making sure those accountable for our children's education are held accountable.

But it also means creating opportunities beyond school. That can mean bursaries and accommodation costs for those who want to advance themselves and their education, from universities to vocational pursuits.

I don't want to live in a country where you can expect to be locked into a particular kind of life forever because of the kind of life you were born into. We don't have to accept that. It doesn't have to be our reality.

Our democratic space needs to be revitalised. Because all of these issues have been issues for some time, but they have also become accepted norms. I believe that an open competition of ideas will provide the space for a new direction in South Africa. If we have the space to demonstrate in an open forum that the solutions we have been presented with are not the best solutions for our country, then we will be making progress.

We had that in the Mandela era. We can have it again. By making Parliament the centre of debate and the exchange of ideas, we can begin to shift this country's trajectory. And we do not mean for Parliament to become a place of elite engagement. That is what it is now, a place for ceremony and ritual. It must become a place of which all citizens feel a sense of ownership. A place in which they feel included and heard.

We need a place where the executive, no matter who it is, is subject to the will of the people every day, and not just every five years. We need a place where we can give meaning to our constitutional framework and the separation of powers, a place where constituencies are effectively represented.

Democracies need spaces in which to fight things out before a final decision is taken.

While debate has been systematically shut down in Parliament, the DA is making plans to revive it. As we do so we will offer a new direction for our country, one that sees the triumphs and failures of our past, acknowledges them, and maps a new path forward for us.

We don't have to just accept things as they are. In our democracy, the people can choose a new course, one that leads them to the future. We don't have to take good enough. We can free ourselves from this politics of stasis and make a new aspirational politics.

We will see the difference between these two types of politics played out over the next two weeks, and in the months ahead.

On Thursday, President Zuma will present his State of the Nation Address. Next week, we will present our own vision for South Africa, one built on access to opportunity, and supported by a revitalised Parliament - one of the trenches of our democracy.

Issued by the Democratic Alliance, February 6 2012

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