The
Sidikiwe/Vukani Campaign has caused waves. It has touched and rattled the South
African political landscape just on the eve of what is likely to be the most
contested general Election to date. Within the ANC, from Jacob Zuma to Gwede
Mantashe, from Essop Pahd to Pallo Jordan, on the fringes of the Zuma ANC there
have been howls of protest, and a sense of betrayal. There are others I would
rather ignore like Alastair Sparks and Rhoda Kadalie whose attacks on Ronnie
Kasrls are so personal as not to warrant a response. In any event they do not
address the concerns from within the ANC that the likes of Ronnie Kasrils and
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge seek to present.
But
there have been other more thought-provoking responses from Patric Mtshaulana, Jeremy
Cronin, JJ Onkgopotse Tabane, Phillip Dexter, among others. Theirs was to
suggest that, Ronnie Kasrils, in particular, had turned his back on a
revolutionary tradition that he nurtured in many years in exile and underground.
The point was made about the futility of politics outside the formal structures
of the ANC, and that the ANC was the only viable vehicle for change in the
country. Interestingly there was no effort to defend the Nkandla debacle, or to
explain away the shenanigans in the so-called security upgrades that caused the
price tag to escalate. The view is expressed that the Nkandla situation is not
defensible, but that, in Cronin’s words, Jacob Zuma is not the worst leader
that the ANC has ever had, or that the present crisis is not unheard of in the
history of the Movement, and that revolutionary strategy and tactics would be
enough to guide comrades on how to approach the present crises in the Movement.
Dexter and Tabane draw on their experiences having left the ANC, only to
recognize the futility of functioning outside the ANC. They both make two
telling points. One, that the ANC remains the most viable vehicle for social
transformation in the country, and that it is possible to raise matters for
debate and correction within the ANC. It is the latter two assertions that I
believe require a response.
The
Sidikiwe/Vukani Campaign is essentially a conversation within the ANC about the
ANC. It is introspective. The champions
of the Campaign have not given up on the ANC, and have not formed a political
party. The purpose of the Campaign is to challenge the ANC about its faults and
shortcomings, and in the end to clean up the organization. It happens outside
of the structures of the ANC because the ANC has in fact been captured by a
clique that has turned it into an instrument of self-enrichment, and for the
control of the state - not for the common good, but for personal benefit. The
result is that the ANC has become an ‘echo’ to use Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
telling expression. It speaks to itself, and its words bounce back on itself.
The organization is no longer an inclusive, debating chamber. It is no longer a
place of ideas, or a forum for ideas battling with ideas. It is not an
inclusive society conscious of its moral responsibility for the well being of
South Africans.
On
the second criticism, that the ANC is the only viable vehicle for radical
transformation, I beg to differ. Actually the ANC in recent years has become a
very backward, conservative organisation. As a matter of fact there is hardly any
difference in policy between the ANC and the Democratic Alliance, except
perhaps that the DA holds a better prospect for fighting corruption within its
own ranks than the ANC has ever managed in 20 years. The truth is that the ANC
has become a harbinger of die-hard conservative politics that make it possible
for the erstwhile National Party stalwarts to find a home within the Party, of
capitalists – black and white, vying for attention at ANC fundraising events,
and whose message line is about enrichment without conscience. This is the
organization that treats the poor as if they are the scum of beggars. Minister
Bathabile Dlamini can proudly say that the poor must be grateful to the ANC
government for the grants they receive. Or the lavish parties and drinks
displayed at ANC events for leaders only, speak volumes about the drift of the
Movement to the right of the political spectrum. It explains the cynicism with
which the party will dish out food parcels, at the expense of the state, at
party rallies. It is out of utter disrespect for the poor. Nowhere does the
notion of a developmental state that uses the resources of the state to empower
the poor in human dignity asserted with love and passion. In a revolutionary
developmental sense, the poor must never be treated as beggars and supplicants
at the table of the rich ANC Master.
Those
of us who are not merely impatient with the ANC in government, but have lost
faith in the ability or even passion of the ANC to transform the fundamentals
of South African society in a manner that moves decisively away from the
apartheid-induced social constructs, must however, confront a fundamental
challenge. The question, however, begs to be asked: Has a functionally elite
system under apartheid been dismantled or truly transformed? The answer has to
be a resounding NO.
The
concern is about living comfortably with transformation that does not touch the
fundamentals, but makes the apartheid fundamentals more efficient, and aims to
reach further than apartheid did. For Raymond Williams, the British historian, this
is “a transformation engineered by political methods directly contrary to the
values at which the transformation aims.” That is a sobering thought for the
ANC, and a dilemma for many of those of us whose faith lies with the ANC as the
vanguard for fundamental change in South Africa. What we have not managed to do
in 20 years is never going to be done by those selfsame that had found reason
not to go as far as their ideology demanded of them. “We have seen enough of
the paradoxical results,” notes Williams, “- the reality of change and yet the
degeneration of political values – to be both tense and alert, as we take our
turn to be tested.” That is our dilemma
too.
Similar
messages have been heard following the Marikana Massacre. Police poorly trained
in riot control methods are protected by a reckless disregard of law and of
human life. That must surely explain why it is that the ANC government boldly
and persistently tabled a Traditional Courts Bill the effect of which would be
to entrench in law an undemocratic system of governance and give it legal
credence with the consequent effects on the rights of women and on land distribution,
and on rural development. Under the ANC government the country has entrenched
the Bantustanisation through affinity with traditional leaders, appointments
and by the spatial geography that has become entrenched in law. The ANC itself
has become so tribalised under Jacob Zuma that there is no longer any need for
the IFP! Apartheid is alive and well when one takes a look at the roll out of
housing for the poor – RDP houses in ghettos as in apartheid-style group areas.
The policies of the ANC in government have been less about empowering the women
and the poor, especially the rural communities, but to enrich the few at the
expense of the poor.
Nkandla,
on this understanding, therefore is symptomatic of a deeper malaise in the
philosophy and practice of government. Twenty years on South Africans are
entitled to think again. The Sidikiwe/Vukani Campaign may have the potential of
wresting the country and her economy out of the clutches of the kleptomaniacs,
and restore it to the people. If democracy from within yields no results it is
justifiable to try democracy from without.
N
Barney Pityana
Grahamstown,
25 April 2014.
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