Introduction

Under the influence of the ANC and its particular brand of black African nationalism South African society has come to embrace mediocrity, at the expense of excellence and merit.

In 2002, President Mbeki told journalists at the Presidential Sports Awards that the country should be prepared to lose international competitions while "our people" were brought into South Africa's national sporting teams. It was a statement that typified the ANC's attitude towards excellence as much as it revealed its underlying racial agenda (one might well ask who exactly are "our people" - surely all South Africans are equal - and, if there is an "our people", who or, perhaps more importantly what, are the rest?).

It is also an example illustrative of the ruling party's attitude to almost every issue - be it an acceptance of Robert Mugabe, the failure to hold a single person to account for the crisis at Eskom, the endorsement of Jackie Selebi as Police Commissioner or a general drive to reduce our institutions to the lowest common denominator - the pursuit of excellence is not a value inherent in the ANC's approach to governance.

Why is this? Why is the ANC happy to settle for second best and, often, to actively check the progress of those institutions that stand out as excellent?

The answer has everything to do with the nature of nationalism, how it works as an ideology and how it manifests in public policy. If anything, nationalism is synonymous with mediocrity.

In today's edition of ‘The Real ANC Today' we look at this relationship. Space does not allow for a full and detailed interrogation and thus what follows is a polemic of sorts - a brief outline of how these two concepts relate and some of the consequences.

Nationalism breed mediocrity
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy argues that nationalism "...is often in practice indistinct from chauvinism, which makes one's own national identity the overriding moral-political consideration."

Put more simply, nationalism represents the triumph of the heart over the head. At its core is an appeal to emotion rather than rational consideration and it argues that group interests (as opposed to individual rights) should be the defining moral and political consideration in deciding how a society is structured.

This is not to say that group identity has no place in a democracy - groups and group identity represent an important part of any society - only that, for the nationalist, it is the defining criterion.

Individuals are required to define themselves as members of a collective and their commonalities are prioritised over those things unique to them. In order to appeal to one's sense of belonging or those characteristics identified by the nationalist as common to a particular group, those characteristics must be defined. For the ANC, they are racial.

When President Mbeki or Jacob Zuma talk about "our people", they mean black Africans. Similarly, they have a set idea of what it is that defines white, Indian and coloured South Africans and, on a broader level still, that defines a South African and even an ‘African'. Race is central to all of them.

And, by appealing to one sense of belonging (for the ANC, an appeal to one's race), the nationalist is appealing to their emotions. This is, of course, a very powerful appeal - one's individual identity is often inextricably linked to one's group identity - but it does have a number of significant consequences.

For if a competition of ideas is resolved by an appeal to subjective emotions, then one runs the risk of suppression or overriding more objective considerations - such as a set of values and principles. Consider the following example, by way of illustration:

A man commits a crime against the community in which he lives, for which he serves a sentence. On completing his sentence, he returns to his community. On his return and because they are still angry with the man, the community prevents him from obtaining a job, from voting in the upcoming elections and from buying a house. His crime was not a serious one but, nevertheless, the community feels aggrieved and acts to express its unhappiness. The man takes his case to court.

Here the community's sense of anger at the man's crime has overridden his rights as an individual. According to the law, he served his time in prison and, in doing so, paid off his debt to society. If, however, the judge hearing his case was to resolve this dispute by siding with the emotions of the community, the principles that underlie the criminal justice system would have to be sacrificed. It would also be a very shaky precedent, for a different community might respond in a different way.

There are many ways in which principles and values - objective positions arrived at through rational consideration - override emotional desire. Indeed, the very structure of any constitutional democracy is based on the idea that the values and principles contained in the Constitution should define how its citizens live their lives, and not vice versa. The Constitution is a constant, not a shifting set of emotional desires.

Thus, in a democracy, and where emotion is not involved, a competition between ideas is usually decided by weighing up the merits of the two opposing views - by means of analysis or debate - and, on the facts, making an informed decision. But, were emotion to be the arbiter, rational consideration cannot be successfully employed; for emotion, by its very nature, denies or subverts intellectual thought. 

And thus, the nationalist faces a fundamental contradiction: how to reconcile emotion with rational consideration, or principle with desire. Very often, it cannot - for the two are mutually exclusive - and so the nationalist, faced with an impossible choice, will act to alter the value or principle and, instead of justifying a position prior to its conception, will do so retrospectively, as this allows one to shape the principle to fit the action; as opposed to it determining the action. 

It is for this reason that almost all forms of nationalism are defined not in ideological terms, but with reference to policy positions on particular issues. Indeed, the ideological basis for almost all forms of nationalism is a set of policy proposals, but the underlying principals and values are almost never explicitly identified or expressed (the ANC being a powerful case in point).

The reason for this is that, if one's default position is emotive rather than intellectual, it is often difficult to coherently, consistently and precisely identify the underlying principle that defines that position - for, by its very nature, its justification is subjective, not objective (and it might well contradict another opposing emotional position). This is not necessarily the case every time; often one's emotive reaction might well fall in line with a particular set of objective values (say, those enshrined in a Constitution), but that is by chance. The more problematic situation (and the one that is more difficult for a nationalist to explain) is when one's emotive position contradicts that set of principles or values. 

In this sense, an ideology such as liberalism, which revolves around a series of principles, is in many ways the opposite of nationalism. For, where nationalism would first and foremost adopt a position and then refer to the principle, liberalism refers first to the principle and, from that, attempts to determine the relevant position.

In other words, whereas nationalism is intuitive, liberalism is counter-intuitive - it requires rational consideration before a position is adopted or promoted. It is easy then to see how liberalism requires more intellectual rigour - as most all counter-intuitive exercises do - than nationalism. The one relies on subjective considerations, which come naturally to any person, the other one considered reasoning and intellectual scrutiny, which is far more difficult.

In any society where nationalism is fundamentally entrenched, this triumph of the subjective over the objective, and emotion over principle, has a number of consequences.

Importantly, the practice of justifying decisions retrospectively or with reference to subjective considerations infects those institutions and processes which define a democracy - and which themselves function on the basis of a set of objective and constant values and principles. The emphasis of these institutions and their respective functions shifts away from outcomes towards process; and away from considered and objective analysis towards appeasement, compromise and political correctness. (The ultimate manifestation of the emotive appeal underlying nationalism is conformity to the dominant orthodoxy - often at the expense of a principled position. The more powerful the orthodoxy, the more powerful the urge to subscribe to it. And few things are more powerful than identity, race or religion.)

Examples abound but the attitude of the South African Human Rights Commission to the statements by ANCYL president Julius Malema and COSATU secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi (that they would "kill" for Jacob Zuma) is a powerful case in point. Principle was quashed in the face of political appeasement and, instead of declaring the remarks hate speech, the SAHRC effectively amended its procedure (extended a deadline in the case of Malema and not taking any action when it was ignored by Vavi) effectively allowing both to get away with what they said. (Indeed, Malema simply went on to substitute the words ‘eliminate' and ‘destroy' for the word ‘kill', making a mockery of the institution and the Constitutional values it is supposed to protect and promote.

Any society in which decisions are defined by adherence to an orthodoxy, compromise and process - as opposed to principles and outcomes - will inevitably open the door to mediocrity; for excellence is a value which, like defining a position by reference to a principle, requires hard work, intellectual rigour and application. 

Under the ANC, South Africa today demonstrates all the signs of a democracy increasingly defined by mediocrity. In large part, this can be attributed to the effect and nature of the ANC's nationalism, the impact it has had on our country's institutions and the way in which the resultant dominant orthodoxy has affected decision making and political analysis.

Conclusion
Inherent in the relationship between excellence and politics is the idea of betterment. It is only by furthering advancement that any society can improve the condition of its citizenry. And advancement is achieved through the pursuit of excellence and the protection and promotion of merit. Excellence concerns an attempt to raise the bar and to achieve.

If, however, the goal of a government is to lower the bar, to reduce everyone and every institution to the lowest common denominator, this is not possible; and progress is replaced by compromise and inertia.

In his book The Meaning of Things (a quite excellent guide to liberal values and principles) A.C. Grayling puts it like this:

"Although there are few if any true democracies in the world - most dispensations claiming that name are elective oligarchies - the democratic spirit nevertheless invests Western life for good and ill both. The good resides in the pressure to treat everyone fairly, the ill resides in the pressure to make everyone alike. The latter is a levelling tendency, a downward thrust, which dislikes excellence because it raises mountains where the negative-democratic spirit wishes to see only plains. But democracy should not aim to reduce people and their achievements to a common denominator; it should aim to raise them, ambitiously and dramatically, as close as possible to an ideal. And that means, among other things, having institutions, especially of learning, which are the best and most demanding of their kind."

It is this value, understanding and appreciation of excellence and the role it has to play in society that comprises a central pillar of the DA's vision of an Open Opportunity Society for All.

The DA believes that excellence should not only be rewarded and promoted but fostered and protected, that it should be one of our defining values as a society and that its pursuit should, in turn, define our institutions - public and private - their purpose and their administration.

This article first appeared on the Democratic Alliance weblog - The Real ANC Today - on July 27 2008