Cees Bruggemans: Elevator to nowhere – myths of the `new SA`

Source: Fin24, 07/09/2015

In true Cees Bruggemans style, he sums up the ANC brilliantly – it`s
like standing on an elevator, and trying to walk upstairs and
downstairs at the same time. They stay on the same spot, and the world
just keeps rolling away from them.


In this piece he reflects on the past 10 years and makes reference to
Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert`s iconic words. Van Zyl Slabbert is best
known as the leader of the official opposition in the House of
Assembly from 1979 to 1986, the Progressive Federal Party.


Bruggemans looks back at the 5.5% GDP growth achieved in 2005, minimum
levels of growth needed in a country where 1 in 4 sit without jobs.
Worse following the negative levels of growth achieved in the second
quarter of 2015. A brilliant read. – Stuart Lowman
It is ten years since Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert wrote these arresting
words (2005), the country at the time already over ten years into the
Mbeki stewardship, by then supposedly only in what at the time
appeared to be mere foothills of a sustained 5.5% GDP growth spurt
that uproariously would go on and on and on.



It was not to be.

These words confirm why. Why the Mbeki years, and following him sadly
the even greater contradictory Zuma years, could never sustain such
outstanding economic performance, even if this was poorly grasped at
the time, gripped as the country was by speculative credit fever and
great anticipation focused on World Cup soccer preparational mania in
which supposedly anything was possible and within reach, only for the
asking, if only going by red-hot property market conditions.



Van Zyl at the time mused as follows regarding "the most common
mistakes" of a democratic government (pp145-146):


• Confusing democratic representivity with competence: the fact that
you are the duly elected representative does not automatically give
you the competence to make your promises come true.


A local councillor does not automatically have the competence to
reticulate water, allocate electricity or administer rates and
taxes.

And when he/she retrenches or fires the official who
has such competence, you have a self-concocted crisis of delivery;
• Rewarding loyalty above competence: The leader appoints those who
are compliant and uncritically support him/her because he/she values
control more than performance.


Thus manifestly incompetent cabinet ministers strut around pronouncing
nonsense, and compound the problem by appointing officials who are of
the same ilk;


• Confusing authority with intelligence: A very common mistake. Nice
young Afrikaner boys who came to Parliament in 1974 and five years
later became ministers or deputy ministers.


Suddenly their whole demeanours changed. The back stiffened, the suits
became more expensive and they pronounced the words "yes" and "no" as
if they were pregnant with profundity. They automatically assumed that
because they had authority they must be clever;



• Dealing with corruption selectively: As leader you know that the
cabinet minister sitting next to you has his/her fingers in the till,
but you deliberately divert attention from this person by jumping on a
minor official selling fake IDs in Mpumalanga to show that you are
serious about combating corruption.


The rule is simple: the bigger the fish you catch, the more seriously
you will be taken as an angler. Corruption is corruption is
corruption;


• Sacrificing domestic policy for foreign policy: This is also a
mistake of repressive governments, but as they are not accountable to
anyone but themselves, it resonates far more strongly with democratic
government.


The absent leader syndrome very quickly translates into perceptions of
indifference about domestic problems and crises."


Would Mr Zuma, in his short wilderness period, have read these sage
words and made up his mind how to proceed once in power? Will we ever
know, or can we merely appeal to the facts since as to what apparently
comes naturally, going by the Van Zyl analysis?



Van Zyl Slabbert becomes yet more penetrating when examining our many
and damning contradictions in what he describes as the "emerging
programmatic infrastructure underpinning the myths of the `new South
Africa`" (pp163-165):




• Firstly, we have a liberal democratic Constitution. The defining
characteristic of such a Constitution is not the celebration of
majoritarianism, but constraint on the use and abuse of power. That is
why the separation of powers, rule of law, respect for human rights,
etc form such a distinctive part of a liberal democracy.
(Yet) most `liberation movements`, when they come to power, have a
deep distaste for any constraint on their use, or even abuse, of
power.


Attempts to circumvent these constraints become the new political game
– how is it possible that a movement that epitomises the `will of the
people` and/or `the masses` can be constrained in pursuing its
mandate? That is why, in a one-dominant-party democracy such as ours,
one has to be on the lookout for how key constraining institutions are
co-opted, or the executive begins to ignore the legislature or other
organs of government;


• Secondly, within a liberal democratic Constitution, another
programmatic practice is to centralise decision-making and
authoritarian control, euphemistically called democratic
centralism.


Bluntly put, it means that `the leadership` of the ruling party
controls the party, cabinet, Parliament and all other levels of
government.


The government of the USSR made this practice famous. To pursue a
liberal democracy and democratic centralism concurrently is to indulge
in serious programmatic contradictions. Something has to give, and
usually it is a liberal democracy;


• Thirdly, in order to keep `the masses` on board, the ideology of a
national democratic revolution is propagated.


Historically it is almost impossible to find an example where such `a
revolution` has been national, or democratic, or both. The hallmark of
such an ideology is the promise of `large scale`, `fundamental`
economic and social redistribution.


The promise of `a chicken in every pot` continues to haunt the ANC.
Increasingly the dilemma is that the more they promise, the less the
poor and dispossessed are inclined to believe them;


• Fourthly, a macro-economic policy referred to as GEAR (growth,
employment and redistribution). This is the attempt to use `the
market` as the driver of economic growth and to respond to the
challenges of globalisation.


(Yet) there is a tension between the concurrent pursuit of a national
democratic revolution and GEAR. The former promises growth through
redistribution; the latter redistribution to growth. The more visible
the success of GEAR, the more galling it is to those waiting for the
delivery from the national democratic revolution.


The new emerging `Black` middle class and business elite are a
constant reminder of the degree of relative deprivation of `the
masses`.


"So there we have it!" according to Van Zyl Slabbert:

The myths of the `new South Africa` are maintained by the CONCURRENT
pursuit of four major programmatic goals: a liberal democracy,
democratic centralism, a national democratic revolution, and GEAR
(since 2012 superseded by the National Development Plan, as much a
dead letter as its forerunner).



It is like standing on an elevator and trying to walk upstairs and
downstairs at the same time. You stay on the same spot, and the world
just keeps rolling away from you (keeping your insider/outsider
dichotomy, your most damning and incapacitating feature intact, as
your structural shortcomings relentlessly deepen).



The ANC government is potentially confronted with four paradigm shifts
at the same time (a terrifying, paralysing reality as it
eventuates).



(Yet) out of the current confusion, something extraordinarily creative
may yet emerge. We remain an amazing society, and given where we have
come from I am not without hope for the future.



These words, now ten years old, eloquently and analytically
razor-sharply capture our present and ongoing predicaments. This tide
is yet to turn. One wonders how much time and hardship for the many
need to pass for this to eventuate? If ever?