South Africa P.I.G.: DEMOCRACY

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Where is the liberation?

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLk6n8otTaUvK3o0clscFk-f_9Pqgf4UjUAR4NU0AtD6u5FCU8tbADcrfOJWBTdEjPKKLqg_XG1ZkyRL0emojdEr8T7XPHXDLpHudVasK4poWrLENGWAe-HeBCzkomF0ThjZ2mkhDe81Ms/s1600/apartheid-info-scandal-south-africa.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533197907795254114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLk6n8otTaUvK3o0clscFk-f_9Pqgf4UjUAR4NU0AtD6u5FCU8tbADcrfOJWBTdEjPKKLqg_XG1ZkyRL0emojdEr8T7XPHXDLpHudVasK4poWrLENGWAe-HeBCzkomF0ThjZ2mkhDe81Ms/s320/apartheid-info-scandal-south-africa.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 298px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>by Peter I recently read a full speech by a Member of Parliament detailing the reasons why the new media bill was required. Very convincing stuff – all of which we have heard repeatedly over the last couple of months. The alarming thing though, is that this was the speech given by Connie Mulder in 1977 when the Nats implemented exactly what the ANC is doing now. If we analyse critically the issues that have risen since 1994, the only conclusion is that the struggle for liberation and freedom was a farce. It was nothing more than a power struggle to change the base of wealth from an elite few whites, to an elite few blacks at the expense and sacrifice of the masses. We should hang our heads in shame. The real acid test is to take all current employment, social, university and institutions (like the Black management Forum) and replace the word “black” with “white”. Imagine the outcry if there was a white management forum, postings of job adverts with whites only need apply tag lines, university entrance requirements with lower standards for whites, sports teams requiring a certain percentage of whites in each team..., that was apartheid and yet are all current situations save for the word white being replaced with black. So one segregation system has been brazenly replaced by another and the base of power has simply transferred to another inept, corrupt and incompetent set of individuals who then have the audacity to proclaim that the masses have been liberated by them. The poor are arguably worse off than during apartheid. The fact is that the Nats still built houses for the blacks at a greater rate than the current government! Blacks are still being abused and exploited; it’s just that their masters are no longer white. Maids are still black, gardeners, construction workers, miners, heavy duty labourers are still black. What has changed? Where is the liberation? What has the current ANC government done since 1994? What are the excuses? The incredulous part for me is that black people will still consider themselves as liberated, simply because there is a black government. Zimbabwe has the grossest of human violations – far worse than during white rule and yet Mugabe still reigns supreme raping the once bread basket of the world. If we are going to truly become a liberated country, we have to actually liberate the masses. Change has to occur materially in their lives. We need to stop making this a black/white issue and concentrate on making it an accountability issue. It seems Africa has not learnt any lessons whatsoever and wherever “liberation” has occurred, decline on an unprecedented scale has occurred soon after because the so-called liberators had only one real agenda: power. The current activities of the ANC are case in point. People will continue to flog the apartheid horse (which is beyond dead) as their excuse for what is going on. If only we could be mature enough to realise that the problem is that this country is being mismanaged by people who have no motive other than to enrich themselves. To quote Oscar Wilde: Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.

Where is the liberation?

by Peter I recently read a full speech by a Member of Parliament detailing the reasons why the new media bill was required. Very convincing...

12:42 PM

Deployment: The ANC can't have its cake and eat it

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OxW6aHrLszGyN9vIOZEN9GfxSjgQbV9Vx47vzbsDBnergqSLE1CgkUxGBuz9ALwDZj-y57TdDMvjXG4X4tvBpBgEG2H8PYFjPPm7QcsUGI2hLiSI0a_ngph6giou2SpCUfp6YHc_AbI/s1600-h/ANC-Govern.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397573392442658482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OxW6aHrLszGyN9vIOZEN9GfxSjgQbV9Vx47vzbsDBnergqSLE1CgkUxGBuz9ALwDZj-y57TdDMvjXG4X4tvBpBgEG2H8PYFjPPm7QcsUGI2hLiSI0a_ngph6giou2SpCUfp6YHc_AbI/s400/ANC-Govern.bmp" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 272px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>Paul Trewhela responds to Malusi Gigaba's analysis of the state of local govt THE SUBSTITUTIONISM OF THE ANC Earlier this week, in 'The Professor and the Police Minister', I developed a grim argument that despotism is an old tradition in South Africa, and that the current administration appeared to be moving in that direction (see <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=148248&sn=Detail">here</a>).. I neglected to add a rider to that proposition. The rider says: True, but South Africa is a very difficult country to govern despotically, without the consent of the governed. Let the governors take a warning from the history of their predecessors. Few countries in the world have such a rich tradition of resistance against unjust and arbitrary rule. In few countries is there such a deep and grounded assumption, with such a powerful lived experience among the present generations, that 'these truths we take to be self-evident': that government exists to serve the governed, and not the other way round. It is not wise in South Africa for government to believe that it has a God-appointed, or History-appointed, right to rule. Unfortunately for government, the people have a very long experience of being instructed in the nonsense of that fable, which they learned the hard way not to believe, through many sacrifices. Their greatest heroes refused that argument, and stated instead: 'It's right to rebel.' At the age of 91, born in 1918, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is living proof of that grand refusal. The fact that he stepped down voluntarily from the seat of power, after only one term in office, is also proof of it. It is not wise for the governors in South Africa to exempt themselves from that model, provided so richly over so many years by a Mandela, a Biko, a Luthuli, a Sobukwe...the names go on and on. Each and any despotic action by the government of South Africa will be held up for inspection in the mirror of that history, which is not dead: it is not even past (as the novelist William Faulkner liked to say about the past). Few countries live so much in the present of such a history. If a people are instructed constantly in a historical tradition of defiance of unjust rule, as in South Africa, it would be unwise to assume that they will not continue to honour that teaching. If the first article in the most honoured document of that tradition were to state that 'The people shall govern', and that 'All people are entitled to take part in the administration of the country', then it would be wise to expect that the people would in the course of time come to know if they were not, in fact, being permitted to govern themselves, or if some other agency had arrogated to itself the right to act as surrogate, or substitute, in their proper place. No, ruling by fooling has only a limited chance of succeeding in a country with this kind of history. It can succeed for a while. But then, bit by bit, people catch on. About political dispossession, South Africans are a learned people. Their government should beware that kind of knowledge becoming widely established. In this sense, the people are wiser than their government, and they live much longer - above all in their historical memory. It is so easy to see who acts as Baas in this country. This is the significance of the extraordinary statement by Malusi Gigaba, Deputy Minister of Housing and member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC, which appeared last week on the weekly online newsletter of the governing party, ANC Today 23 October (see <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=148245&sn=Detail">here</a>). Gigaba's document is revelatory for two reasons. Firstly, he provides an astonishing insider's accountancy of cronyism and corruption by the governing party, and how it eviscerates local government across a huge area of the country. Secondly, despite all he shows of maladministration and corruption, he reveals an unshaken faith in the sacred right of his political party to continue to act as a substitute source of authority, in place of the voters. Gigaba begins in his first sentence with an acknowledgement of a primary contemporary reality: "It is quite easy to hear such swiping statements as that - 'All Councillors are useless and corrupt'". The problem arises, he states, "when nothing is done about those that are corrupt, or arrogant, and/or lazy". Some of the current service delivery protests, Gigaba continues, have been not so much about service delivery itself, but, rather, "service delivery issues have been raised to highlight a much deeper challenge in our municipalities which relates to the political leadership of the Councils." The recent Lekwa municipal protests had little to do with the issues of service delivery, he states. They were directed rather at "the arrogance of certain comrades deployed to positions of responsibility...." What the community is complaining about was basically that "their leadership had turned their backs on their mandate and had forgotten their leadership responsibility". Councillors at the level of municipality, he goes on, sometimes "become big-headed and undermine and disrespect" ANC branches, so that "the only structure they interact with is their caucus". In addition, there are "constant divisions between the ANC and its allies. There are many opportunists on the ground masquerading as SACP members, sowing divisions in the name of the SACP and even orchestrating violent riots against Councillors. In many instances, it is an open secret that these so-called SACP activists want to become Councillors themselves in 2011, and just use the SACP for that purpose. This is not helped by the ANC's own ample opportunists sowing divisions of their own between the ANC and SACP." ANC branches, Gigaba continues, "regard themselves as representatives of the leadership in the community rather than as representatives of communities..." Branches feel that this "precludes the ANC from engaging in what are regarded as civic issues", thus "[refraining] from civic engagement about roads, electricity, water and housing, indeed about issues of municipal governance...". In a situation in which the "ordinary masses on the ground had enormous grievances and discontent about local issues", in Lekwa the recent protests had in fact been "led by ANC members in good standing". ANC branches in Lekwa had previously "raised these issues to senior organisational structures, but with no positive response." The result is "Social distance - a leadership disconnect[ed] with communities": a "yawning political, organisational and leadership hiatus on the ground", in which for years it had been "evident that the masses felt estranged and disengaged from the ANC and regarded its leadership as aloof." This was "Deployment gone berserk". In Lekwa, Dipaleseng and other areas, the political leaders of the municipalities "disrespect the masses and have tended to regard themselves...as untouchable. What often compounds this is the fact that these comrades often have connections with senior leaders in the regions and provinces and belong to powerful factions that protect them and shield them from any criticism." Mayors, Speakers and Chief Whips are often "clearly incompetent to occupy these positions. Yet they have been deployed to hold them...to serve factional ends. When they buckle and fail to perform, and when they become arrogant and big-headed, it is because they know they will be shielded by those that had deployed them". There, without even having to read between the lines, and from the hand of the Deputy Housing Minister (who is also a former President of the ANC Youth League, and therefore knows the score backwards), is the rarest glimpse of truth from within the ruling apparatus. Gigaba describes a pervasive system in which councillors (though not all) are "corrupt, or arrogant, and/or lazy", who "turn their backs" on the people they are supposed to serve, who are "big-headed" and interact only with their caucus, among whom there are "ample opportunists" and in which there are "constant divisions" of a purely factional, self-serving nature. What an indictment, and what a betrayal of the ANC's promise that 'The people shall govern'! It is an exposition of the systemic nature of South Africa's failure of governance. Gigaba goes even further. In a dazzling illumination of the real nature of modern South Africa which deserves to be re-enacted in municipalities across the country as a form of political theatre, for the enlightenment and entertainment of the people, he displays the systemic machinery of corruption in government. The "greatest injustice", he states, is committed "when patently incompetent and unqualified people are deployed into the administration as Municipal Managers, Chief Financial Officers, and Heads of certain services such as local economic development, technical services and others." Then comes the clincher. "It is generally known that Section 57 Employees are political deployees. The reasons for this are never explained except that this is so. This is so helplessly abused and perverted that it could seem that what is at fault here is the very notion of deployment. Anyone who is connected with the powerful blocs can end up occupying any of these positions. "Often, RECs deploy people to these positions despite the fact that they have no deployment committees and have no power to deploy. And when they do so, they often deploy 'javelin throwers' who will ensure that all contracts are thrown in the right direction and then they run hard to receive the javelin on the other hand and share the spoils with those who 'deployed' them." "Javelin throwers"! What a wonderful phrase! What is at fault here, Gigaba affirms, "is the very notion of deployment". He concludes by stating that "atrocities are committed in the name of deployment and municipalities undermined and decapitated!" He could not be more damning. Yet, contrary to Malusi Gigaba, "deployment" is the heart and soul of ANC government, its principle of life, its fundamental principle of rule. It is built into the very fabric of government by the Electoral Law enshrined in the Constitution of 1994, by which a party list system of unmediated proportional representation places a cabal of party managers in Luthuli House supreme over Parliament, the provinces, the municipalities, the civil service - and even the Presidency itself - with as little difference as if it were the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The "javellin throwers" are the living truth of South African despotism, built into the Constitution by the ANC in its Electoral Law under the benign aegis of Nelson Mandela, in a last-minute secret compact with the outgoing party of despotism, the National Party of FW de Klerk (and before him, of PW Botha, BJ Vorster, etc etc), in the early months of 1994. It is the continuation of apartheid tyranny by other means, to the advantage of the ANC, as successor to the apartheid state. Even a cursory reading of Gigaba's historic document makes it clear, however, that he sees no remedy to this systemic miscarriage of democracy in South Africa, apart from an appeal to the nobler sentiments of the party for whom this system was constructed as sole beneficiary. Gigaba is a prisoner too of the ANC's folie de grandeur, or arrogance (or foolishness) of power. It is the besetting sin of substitutionism. This term, current within British leftwing groups in previous decades, was invented to describe those deluded groups or sects that believed that they could substitute their own energies (or arrogance) for the self-activity of the working class. It applies perfectly to the arrogant delusion of the ANC, of whatever faction (and no less to the direct inheritor of the Stalinist tradition of the Soviet Union, the SACP, burrowed away within the ANC), that it is the God-created fount of the political right to rule in South Africa, and not the voters organised in constituencies, with the power to pull down any incumbent. In this sense, the Constitution of 1994 through its Electoral Law established a tyranny dressed up as democracy, and this system urgently needs revision. Discussion of this subject should be brought to every municipality in the country.

Deployment: The ANC can't have its cake and eat it

Paul Trewhela responds to Malusi Gigaba's analysis of the state of local govt THE SUBSTITUTIONISM OF THE ANC Earlier this week, in '...

1:45 AM

All Colours of the Rainbow

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKmQaUHgI0lxy2HghKBVwTMRl1NqYyFP521zs22KbXmSx49wiIqkq84QER1yN-_HiMy0OGrWQeSUKj6-P4_N7bpFFnxZ7L9Ktr4hm5zqwxyjnbwspOSV0CEVvfnbTrAw2_cCHmeOl7-g8/s1600-h/babygivesfinger.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364253283046342386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKmQaUHgI0lxy2HghKBVwTMRl1NqYyFP521zs22KbXmSx49wiIqkq84QER1yN-_HiMy0OGrWQeSUKj6-P4_N7bpFFnxZ7L9Ktr4hm5zqwxyjnbwspOSV0CEVvfnbTrAw2_cCHmeOl7-g8/s400/babygivesfinger.gif" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 304px" /></a>After a fourth ANC victory in South African elections earlier this year many both within the country and abroad are worried about the direction of the country under a new leader who, by virtue of allegations of corruption, inspires little confidence. How will South Africa find its way on a road to prosperity in these difficult economic times and will the country provide for the security of its citizens? The ANC, amongst others, fought against Apartheid South Africa on the grounds that the regime’s laws were discriminatory. It discriminated against black and other non-white South Africans. Politically speaking, non-white South Africans were disenfranchised. They were forbidden by law from participating in a political system that nevertheless passed laws they were bound to adhere to. The ANC claimed to represent the disenfranchised black majority in its apposition to Apartheid or what it labeled as its liberation movement. At its inception the ANC was narrowly focused on the interests of black South Africans. Its membership was closed to others and the colour black on its flag was symbolic of black South Africans. Its political objective was to overthrow a government representing a minority, and replace it with one representing the majority. It defined itself along ethnic grounds just as its political opposition in power. The ANC’s own moral justification was founded upon its claim to represent the majority of South Africans and opposition to discrimination against that majority. The thinking of the ANC at its founding has a direct link to the present day as South Africa’s political elite understand that their political mandate is derived from their electoral majorities. This mandate is indeed legally correct, but the constitution also constrains the majority through protecting the rights of minorities. Therefore, if the ANC only pursue the interests of its voters then it is potentially no different from those previously in power, with the exception that the ANC represents the majority rather than the minority. This resembles a majoritarian view of democracy – one where a political party gaining a majority of votes may do as it pleases as regards the entirety of society. There are upsetting signs that the ANC is verging ever closer to a majoritarian view of South African democracy. Earlier this year the ANC opposed a court application seeking voting rights for some 2-million expats at South Africa‘s foreign legations and Zuma recently blasted the conduct of the judiciary and questioned the supremacy of the Constitutional Court as the highest court in the land, saying it "is not God". He also accused Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke of declaring war on the ANC, and criticised other judges who, coincidentally, ruled against him in his corruption court appearances. The South African constitution was constructed with the intention of it being the foundation of a modern, democratic society with equality before the law and, importantly, the protection of individual rights and a balance of power. The drafters of the constitution drew inspiration from other nations that had provided models of stable democracies. Ideally, the new South African constitution would provide for a genuine representative democracy but alas it does not. Take for example the more than one million expatriate white South Africans. The ANC’s attempts to disenfranchise them politically would be little more than a de jure addition to what is already de facto. Indeed those who have left South Africa have done so precisely because they are already politically disenfranchised. In interviews with those who have left South Africa reasons such as violent crime, discrimination in employment and a breakdown in government services are cited. When confronting the government with such issues, such concerns are casually dismissed as did former Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula when he proclaimed “They can continue to whinge until they're blue in the face, they can continue to be as negative as they want to or they can simply leave this country.” Well, in the absence of political representation that is what many are doing. Everyday citizens are willing to put up with significant levels of dissatisfaction if they believe that they will, through the power of their vote and personal action, enable change to occur in future. However, if that vote is essentially deemed worthless then dissatisfaction turns to despair. A means to counter this despair would be a new arrangement of the balance of power in South Africa. When the current constitution was drawn up, there was a delineation of power between national government and the provinces. This is consistent with a federal structure like that of Germany, from whom the drafters of the South African constitution drew inspiration. However, if one looks closely, the two nations differ in important respects that impact on the effectiveness of their respective balances of power. Germany’s federal states have, in many cases, been forged by history with many named after peoples who were once governed independently such as Bavaria, Saxony, and Hessen. The federal structure of Germany which dates back to the Holy Roman Empire, was created to ensure a balance with no single people emerging to dominate others politically. South Africa’s nine provinces, with the exception of KwaZulu-Natal, are largely artificial creations of convenience following the end of Apartheid. The provinces’ largely arbitrary boundaries contain a variety of different ethnic groups. South Africa’s demographic kaleidoscope resulting from migrations following the Zulu wars and British Imperialism has made it extremely difficult to delineate political boundaries along ethnic lines. However, ethnicity matters in South Africa as it does elsewhere and it will be of vital importance to the future stability of South Africa that ethnic minorities not be marginalized politically. The balance of power between the central and provincial governments does not serve the purpose of minority representation in South Africa as it does elsewhere in successful multiethnic societies. Switzerland is one such society that is multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-confessional. The country has a German speaking majority, a strong French speaking- and smaller Italian and Romance speaking minorities. The country’s unity is unusually strong and contrasts starkly with societies like those of the former Yugoslavia which broke apart as a result of ethnic conflict. Switzerland is delineated politically into twenty-six cantons varying from a mere 15 thousand citizens in the smallest to 1.3 million in the largest. The boundaries were not created along arbitrary lines such as population or geographic size. The biggest canton comprises around seven thousand square kilometers with the smallest being a miniscule thirty-seven square kilometers. Instead the cantons are continuations of historic boundaries encompassing different communities. Each canton enjoys almost equal representation, regardless of size, in the Council of States or Switzerland’s upper house of parliament. This ensures that no single community, even the fifteen thousand citizens of Appenzell, lacks representation at the highest levels of federal government, whose power is itself limited in Switzerland’s confederate system. Cantons also send representatives to the lower house proportional to their number of citizens. This balance ensures an effective representation for all ethnic and cultural minorities and the evidence is centuries of peace and prosperity in Switzerland. The country consistently places amongst the top of rankings for both wealth per capita and quality of life. South Africa enjoys far greater diversity than Switzerland. But despite the now clichéd pronouncements of a “Rainbow Nation” there are no genuine political safeguards for South Africa’s various minorities. Instead we only witness claims by populist ANC leaders to mandates derived from simple majorities. The over one million South African expats number more than a quarter of Switzerland’s entire population and yet they, and many others within South Africa, find themselves without representation. South Africa needs to move beyond a simplistic majoritarian view of democracy and instead live up to its claims of being a Rainbow Nation and actually accord genuine representation to all its minorities. Such a system could resemble that of Switzerland, with smaller communities, or newly created African cantons, electing representatives to an upper house. Given South Africa’s demographic situation, those cantons would not necessarily need to be territorially contiguous. The Zulus would be given equal representation in the upper house that the Sotho, Xhosa, Afrikaner or English speaker would enjoy. Areas of high diversity in a single area such as major metropolitan regions would simply remain multi-ethnic cantons such as are the larger cities in Switzerland. Such a representative system would balance the current lower house of parliament. A cantonal system, adapted to the demographic realities of South Africa, would require co-operation and consensus building amongst South Africa’s various communities. No-one would feel disenfranchised but rather empowered to better their local communities and in doing so the nation as a whole. South Africa’s future as a successful multi-ethnic society holds enormous promise. But first, the ANC and others must abandon antiquated notions of simple majoritarianism which effectively translates to might is right and encourages the rise of populist leaders. Instead a re-balance of power needs to take place recognizing the legitimate and equal political rights of all minorities. The proven path to successful multi-ethnic nations is through a strong degree of equal minority representation. This may indeed be the only means towards building a peaceful, prosperous, and genuinely Rainbow Nation.

All Colours of the Rainbow

After a fourth ANC victory in South African elections earlier this year many both within the country and abroad are worried about the direct...

5:30 AM

South Africa P.I.G.

Where is the liberation?

Deployment: The ANC can't have its cake and eat it

All Colours of the Rainbow

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