Universities of 1976

“…I am frightened, dreadfully frightened, that we may soon reach a point of no return, when events will generate a momentum of their own, when nothing will stop their reaching a bloody denouement which is ‘too ghastly to contemplate’…”

With these words Mphilo Tutu, then Bishop of Johannesburg, implored the then-Prime Minister to lead South Africa into a better dispensation. The letter had been written to Vorster on 8 May 1976. Today we mark the 40^th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising; killings and violence that could have been averted had the authorities heeded Tutu’s words.

Today, 40 years after Tutu’s letter, our university campuses are on a knife edge. One shudders to think that 22 years into our democracy something as horrible as Soweto could happen again. Yet the situation is volatile. Like the students of 1976, our students are angry. Not necessarily against our government but against a system that has not changed much in democratic years.

Many hailed the protests of last October but very few realized that our campuses would never be the same again. People such as Patrick Bond and Shauna Mottair have written on the inevitable link between the endowment of human rights, especially the socio-economic ones, the “rights-talk” environment this creates and the growing demands of South Africans, especially by those who are marginalised.

It is only natural then that students who come into a university community, become conscious of their rights, start to question gross inequalities, structural injustices and the, often, patriarchal and racist responses from our universities’ management.

The anger of our students was palatable at Wits at the beginning of the year, during the #RuReferenceList at Rhodes and the recent occurrences as UCT. Professor Xolela Mangcu joins Dr Sizwe Mabizela and Professor Jonathan Jansen, to mention but two, in being screamed at, insulted, threatened and publically degraded. Our students, like those of 1976, are angry.

Ironically, one may suggest that Mangcu, Mabizela and Jansen come from that generation of ’76. What would they have wanted the then authorities to do? History has taught us that the students demands were against Bantu education and being forced to learn in Afrikaans, among others. But let us imagine for a moment, how they would have articulated those demands.

Maybe firstly to be recognised; as a person. Maybe the students would have wanted to sit down with Vorster and insist on addressing their demands to him directly. Maybe they would have suggested what, who and how they wanted to learn and hear more about in the curriculum. They wanted a transformed education system in South Africa.

Forty years later, our education system has somewhat transformed. It is safe to say that more Black children have gone to university in the last 22 years than ever in this country’s history. Billions of Rands are spent every year both on basic and higher education. No one should doubt our government’s firm determination and commitment to prioritize education and skills development. But somewhere something is going wrong.

While the state can fund, it cannot build the necessary academic environment needed on a university campus. However much it facilitates a research economy, the government cannot develop that pivotal relationship that must exist between academic and student for the production of knowledge. The state resorts to police; university communities, as loci of thought and creativity, must build for themselves social compacts. If one had a socialist state though all of this would be very different.

Instead, like Apartheid South Africa, our universities’ management have responded with the law. Interdicts have been imposed on a number of our campuses around the country; a false sense of security as Apartheid laws were. All interdicts do is put the lid on the pressure cooker. Its attempts to smother, to choke and to suffocate. Yet, as in the South Africa of June 1976, the pressure is building up.

Twice in its history South Africa has had a glimpse of the future it seeks to achieve; what a transformed South Africa looks like. The first was in Kliptown in 1955 and the second was at CODESA in the 1990’s.

Both the Congress of the People and the Convention of a Democratic South Africa brought together South Africans from all walks of life and allowed for all constituencies to sit down together, without the mighty arm of the law hanging over them, to create a new South Africa and forge a social compact.

The Congress of the People led to Sharpeville and eventually Soweto because those who had the power to change the course of history refused to sit down and negotiate with their adversaries. Today we are in the same position. We have interdicts instead of interaction. All, we can do at this stage sadly, is hope that our universities’ management will remember Tutu’s words: Blacks are exceedingly patient and peace loving.

Rhodes, racism, rapists and rules: Further reflections on the student movements (The 1st movement)

The following is a three part series in response to an article written by Adam Habib in January 2016, published in the Daily Maverick, as well as to further reflect on the student movement, as Habib did in his article.

***

“Welcome to the real world” were the words of a policeman as he locked up a student in the back of a police van during the April 2016 #RUReferencelist protests at Rhodes University. The words are symbolic of two people at the opposite ends of a protest. The one is a (White), South African male representing the state, the other a (Black) South African woman symbolic of the marginalised.

To the woman, a student at Rhodes, the “real world” is constantly having to live in the fear of being raped and/or sexually assaulted. She cannot wear what she wants. She cannot trust whoever she wants. She cannot just have coffee after a night out with a guy in his or her room. She cannot walk alone. She cannot just smile at a guy (or a girl). Daily she has to be in a society that re-enforces patriarchy. She was raised not to offend. Not to offend the male university management. Not to challenge the male policeman. Not to question the male state.

The policeman welcomes our sister, who has been taught to think and act freely at university, to the “real” world. Read: a male world. Where any “emotional” behaviour (because that is so feminine) which reacts to or challenges the (male) status quo is dealt with in an alpha male reaction. The only “crime” committed by this woman student was that she was “manning” a barricade set-up on a public road. Of course, to the policeman she was just being the lazy, spoilt woman that she is and he was reminding her that she operated in his world: the real world.

In January 2016, Professor Adam Habib offered some reflections on the student movements that had dominated October and November 2015. Currently, we just completed a course on social movements in South Africa at Rhodes University or the University Currently Known As Rhodes (UCKAR). Unlike Habib, this author is comfortable being a stakeholder AND reflecting on it. Unlike the natural sciences, the social sciences have always taught us that subjectivity is not to be dismissed. In fact, we may argue that most of our qualitative research depends on the subjective experiences of subjects. Indeed, we do try and “objectify” them. But I digress.

Intersectionality of persons and issues

Since Habib’s article, we have seen (violent) protests continue at a number of our campuses. Wits, UJ, UCT and Rhodes in particular have even approached the courts to apply for interdicts. Yet unlike Habib, we may suggest that these protests were not limited to October and November 2015 nor were they just about “quality higher education and insourcing of vulnerable workers”. Or even worse: just of “under-funding”.

Rather we would want to suggest that a) the student movement started or became visible on the national (elite) agenda with the #RhodesMustFall movement and b) that, like the intersectionality of the movement, the issues have evolved. We cannot separate the successful fall of Rhodes, from the fallen increase in fees or even from the issues that continue to dominate the student movement.

Old social movements are suggested to be single issue movements. For example, Grahamstown Rates Payers Association will be addressing the same issues that they were fifty years ago in Grahamstown: street lamps, potholes, security in Grahamstown etc. To be a member of the GRA you have to be a resident of Grahamstown. Yet with new social movements we have seen an intersectionality of persons and issues.

Intersectionality in persons means that there is no criteria for membership of the movement. In fact, there is no “membership” per se. No form needs to be filled in. No “sign-up”. No membership fee. In the instance of the “student” movement, you can be a cleaner, a lecturer, an administrator to “belong” or partake in the activities of the movement. However, you come to plenary as equals. Hence, this intersectionality lends itself to all kinds of resources and networks being made available to sustain the movement. Academics tap into their expertise and their networks, as an example.

At the same time the intersectionality speaks to intersectionality of issues too. The student movement takes on a number of issues: symbols and curriculum of colonialism and Apartheid, outsourcing, fees, accommodation, racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity etc. For sure, we could loosely suggest that it’s about “quality higher education” but also it’s about changing the South African society.

Yet intersectionality does have its disadvantages. Who benefited most from the 0% increase in fees? Not the fiscus, the universities nor the poor student but the Barbie living in Camps Bay and the Ken living in Sandton. He upgrades from a 3series BMW to a BMW coupe. She moves from an apartment to a penthouse.

It is best therefore to view it as an evolution of the movement rather than a “fracturing” as Habib describes it. The movement goes into a lull where reflection and articulation takes place. However, factors such as Black nationalism (rather than Habib’s racism) and singling out of specific categories of people does affect the cohesion of the movement’s intersectionality.

For example, during the week of #RUReferencelist protests at Rhodes, a meeting of “males” was called. Never mind that intersectionality deals well with those who don’t define themselves as “male”, this was like calling an all-Indian convention to talk about non-racialism. At this meeting, arranged by “the guys”, “the guys” were expected to talk about the “the girls” issues. As if the solution was in the hands of “the guys” and therefore by “the guys” changing their ways they would “rescue the girls.” This meeting was a blow to intersectionality.

Another example, of the infringement on intersectionality, was a staff meeting called. Many staff members were concerned and wanted to act as a “mediator” between senior management and the students. While some staff members were and continue to be sympathetic to the students, they wanted to “invite” the students to a meeting. Who has the power here? Staff members were hesitant to join students as equals.

Again, a leadership structure (#RUReference List Task Team) emerged which is anathema in new social movements as well as a Black women’s movement meeting was held where a female White student, who was tweeting about the protests, was asked to leave the meeting. 

Singling out identities, such as males, staff, Blacks (whereas up until then there was a large number of White students/survivors participating in the protests but not “in leadership”) was a serious blow to the intersectionality of the movement. One believes this, dividing members of the movement into segments, was more dangerous to the movement than the interdict. Singling out divides, the interdict unites.   

Part 2 and 3 to follow.

Disruption as a continuous link between student protests

Through the sociological lens of liminality, Alves examines how Portuguese boys form their own initiation rites by going on rampages through a Lisbon suburb. The work by Alves is useful in two instances. 

Firstly, it problematizes male initiation rites by pointing out their “harshness” and the re-enforcement of patriarchy. Secondly and more importantly, using Turner and van Gennep, Alves points out that the human person embodies that which is structural and anti-structural at the same time. It is during periods of liminality, which are often “…temporally, spatially and socially ambiguous, unsettled and unsettling…” that the anti-structural trait finds expressionii . 

Khanna et ali introduces us to the idea of ‘unruly’ politics. Some scholars, such as Tarrow express this as ‘unconventional’ politics. Institutions, whether formal or informal, are viewed in terms of “rules-of-the-game”. 

'Unruly politics', as opposed to politics within the rules, occurs where the established institutions are (deliberately) used against the system. The institutions are not necessarily discarded: in Alves’ understanding, structure (rules) versus anti-structure (unruly). It is helpful to perceive unruly politics as amoral and not always necessarily illegal. 

Social movements, unlike their traditional civil society counterparts or old social movements, unfold within this domain of unruly politics. They occur as moments of liminality. Part of the challenge is often that members of the movement act within the anti-structure or “unruly” space. Yet, they do so to embarrass or expose the failures of the structure. Those who respond to activists frequently do so using the structure. We therefore have two groups of people operating in two parallel but incommensurable paradigms. 

Khanna et al mention three ways in which 'unruly politics' manifests. The activism against Rhodes’ rape culture could be situated within these methods. Firstly, they speak of the symbolic. To management, the state and those acting within the structure, the release of the #RUReferenceList and the subsequent “kidnapping” of some of those whose names appeared on the list could arguably be acts of vigilantism. Yet, for the unruly activist the names on the list are symbolic of the rape culture that exists at Rhodes. It was simply known as a “reference list” not a “rapist list”. It is symbolic. 

While the university management defers to the Constitution of the Republic, the law and university policies i.e. institutions or the structure, the bodies of the alleged perpetrators become symbols of patriarchy, oppression and space. Rape is a symptom of patriarchy and oppression. Survivors and activists use the bodies of the alleged perpetrators to claim back their own bodies. This leads us to the second method of unruly politics, as articulated by Khanna et al, that of bio-politics. The climax of bio-politics becomes visible when, for instance, #NakedProtests occur. Note Mani’s work on the protests against rape by officers in the Indian army in the north-eastern state of Assam. Women protested naked, holding banners reading: Indian Army Rape Us. Locally, university managements and the South African Police Service respond through the law and the imposition of interdicts. 

The third method of unruly politics is aesthetic. We see graffiti going up on walls, posters being displayed and barricades, among others, going up. Barricades, again, fundamentally has to do with space. Who claims the space? The space of the campus, the classroom, the body. Von Lieres examines issues of invisibility and often those on the margins, those who are silenced find voice and find space during these episodes of liminality. 

Therefore, during this period of disruption, liminality and engaging through unruly politics, a state of chaos, as it were, is created. It is only during these periods of anti-structure that the structure is exposed. Those undesirable elements of society, usually protected by the status quo or the institutions, the mores, cultural norms and values that exist, are suddenly revealed for what they are. Racism, colonialism, patriarchy, inequality, heteronormativity etc become visible for what they are because they are usually sheltered by the existing rules of the game. 

Graffiti is impure but usually speak truths. #NakedProtest is frowned upon and condemned as ‘public indecency’. This state of chaos therefore facilitates two inter-related processes. The first is that it exposes these truths. “Rapes and sexual assaults happen during shutdown!” shouted the activists when there was talk of an academic shutdown. Students testify how, during last year’s #FeesMustFall campaign, they suddenly came face to face with the misogyny of their fellow comrades. While the fight was against fees and inequality, the reality of gender inequality and sexism reared its ugly head. Similar incidences of sexual assault or gender based violence against female activists were also present during recent protests at Wits. 

The second process that this state of chaos facilities, thanks to the unique feature of intersectionality, is creativity. Intersectionality is unique to social movements where membership is not limited nor the movement issue based. Hence methods employed by activists are creative or “out-of-the-box” due to this state of liminality, but also, and more importantly, the creativity of issues becomes key. Traditional civil society organisations are usually issue based e.g. trade unions deal with workers issues and one must be a worker to belong to a trade union. 

Yet the creativity of the social movement, operating in a liminal space and through unruly politics, allows for issues to emerge that will sustain the survival of the movement. What started off last year as a student movement against a statue has evolved into a movement against colonialism, racism, inequality, fees and now, patriarchy. During each stage of the evolution, the moments of unruliness, new issues emerge and when the movement goes into a lull, as is probably the case at the moment at Rhodes, it is simply a regrouping and the preparation for a new disruption. 

This article first appeared in the May 2016 edition of the Thinking Africa newsletter.

Mbeki’s self-indulgence

Seale suggests that Mbeki is suffering from big daddy politics and is obsessed with how the people and history will perceive him. Mbeki was the one to continue the cult of personality.

“Before we proceed any further, hear me speak…

You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?...

First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy of the people…

Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price…”

Thus opens the Shakespearean tragedy of Coriolanus - to which the people respond: “No more talking on’t; let it be done: away, away!”

Those of us familiar with the irony of the play would know that the “victor”, Caius Marcius later known as Coriolanus, is viewed as a villain by the people. He is despised, detested and rejected by men because all he cared about was himself and how history would perceive him. Everything else he dismissed as popular or plebeian.

Without necessarily going into the detail of the tragedy, this play once again came to mind when reading the first article by former President Mbeki and his foundation’s subsequent response to Ray Hartley’s response. Sadly, his second article released earlier today is in the same vein.

It was Mark Gevisser, who in his biography of Mbeki, The dream deferred, wrote about how paranoid the president was, that made this initial comparison to Coriolanus. Having spent hours interviewing Mbeki, one reads Gevisser’s account of how the paranoid President even dismissed his own wife in one instance.

Gevisser’s theory, alluded to by the former President in his first article, was that the president was distrustful. He was obsessed with how he was perceived and how history would judge him. The former president’s exercise, mentioning an anecdote of Winston Churchill, confirms Gevisser’s theory: the man is paranoid. So paranoid, about how history would view him, that even his foundation promptly and peremptorily tries to refute Hartley’s response.

The former president, like the erstwhile Shakespearean character Coriolanus, must understand that we judge him, and history will judge him, on his stance on the issues rather than his person. We are really not interested in, nor is history (as plebeian as it might be) interested in, who plotted to oust him or not, whether he reprimanded Tshwete or not and whether they got the investigations right or not.

We want to know about the corn. We want to know about why he was contemptuous towards the people. We want to know why he fell into the trap of personalising the South African narrative. We didn’t want to remain trapped in this personality cult; a cult now obsessed with President Zuma. Instead we want to talk about the issues.

In his letter to the President of the ANC on 31 October 2008, Mbeki wrote:

"During the decades we have worked together in the ANC, we have had the great fortune that our movement has consistently repudiated the highly noxious phenomenon of the "cult of personality", which we saw manifested in other countries..."

After trying to elicit from the ANC President his view on the phenomenon of a "personality cult" and after listing the names of struggle heroes and heroines, Mbeki continues:

"...They never did anything, nor did we act in any way as we grew up in the liberation movement, which would result in our movement being enslaved in the cult of the individual.

In this regard there were exceptional circumstances attached to Comrade Nelson Mandela, which were not of his making or will..."

Unfortunately for Mbeki, he was the one to follow in the Presidency after the iconic Nelson Mandela. Whether he liked Madiba's shoes or not, he certainly was tempted to wear them because it was he that continued to cultivate this "cult of the individual"; as Coriolanus did.

The error with the saga, detailed by Mbeki in his first article and to which Hartley responds, was not that there was an attempted oust. It was not that the 3 ANC leaders were named nor was it that the Minister of Safety and Security divulged classified (if it was such) information to the public.  

The tragedy of the saga was that South Africa was continuing to be dragged along the cult of personality. While Madiba's "cult", as admitted by Mbeki, "...was not of his making or will...", that saga once again steered South African politics away from discussing the important issues and instead entrapped us in the politics of big daddy.

Mbeki could have ended the obsession with big daddy but instead cultivated (and continues to cultivate through his articles) an organisation and country which became fertile ground for personality cults around Zuma, Vavi, Malema, Nzimande and so many others. 

If only he addressed the issues! If only he would still address the issues!

Racism. The negotiated political settlement. The perception that Madiba sold out the revolution. GEAR. HIV-AIDS. Our problematic economy. Inequality. Unemployment. Poverty. Instead, we are subjected to "correcting history's perception" of him as a man. If the 21 year-old needs therapy, then we need to understand those early stages. Mbeki may account for the first 14 years!

We want heroes that will give us corn. Not heroes obsessed with their place in history!

Away! Away! Away!

For he is (and remains) an enemy of the people!

Development needs history and patience

Cardo needs a few lessons in history

(See original posting here)

[DA MP] Michael Cardo, in his article The ANCs developmental doublethink, does his PhD in History a grave disservice for two reasons.

Firstly, he seems to ignore the history of development, the development discourse and the emergence of the term developmental state. Had he taken the time to study the developmental discourse in the last, say, 50 years, he would have soon discovered the metamorphosis, almost literally, of this science and practice. Erik Thorbeckes research paper, The Evolution of the Development Doctrine, 1950-2005, is a good starting point.

If anything we can deduce from Thorbeckes analysis then it is that i) the concept and practice of development has evolved; and, ii) that doublethink continues, even to this day, in the scientific field of developmental studies on what exactly development means. For example, for decades development was measured, and continues to be measured, in economic terms. There is an almost automatic equation of economic development and development. Worse still, economic growth means development. Even worst, economic freedom, lets think of freedom in Sens terms, was to come from the nationalisation of mines, as grossly suggested by some.

Importantly, one would want to suggest that national consensus be reached on what exactly we, as South Africans, not as members of the ANC, the DA, Cosatu, NUMSA, but as South Africans, mean when we use the term development; but more about national consensus in a bit. There is no one size fits all definition of development.

Furthermore, one would have thought that an academic of Cardos calibre would interrogate the history of the developmental state. This is as interesting as it is exciting in a number of respects. Studying and starting the concept developmental state, Chalmers Johnson*, in his study of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) came to two particular pointers, relevant to our discussion.

Johnson points out that the interventionist state specifically identified special areas in which it found it necessary to intervene and play a role. In the area of social services, it sought it necessary to improve health and education, hence improving human capital. In the area of the economy, it specifically identified sectors and/or industries that were succeeding and invested more funding, directly or indirectly, from the fiscus, to ensure that those sectors or industries grew (see our IPAP and New Growth Path in this respect).

The National Development Plan: Vision 2020 envisages doing just that in its 15 chapters. It is built on the premise that the state must be interventionist and that it cannot leave critical areas such as health, education, the development of industries and even social cohesion and transformation to the varies of the market. This is the contradiction and farce of parties such as the Democratic Alliance. They agree with the plan, with all its ingredients for a developmental state but completely rule out its founding philosophy of a state that must intervene.

Cardo points out this contradiction in his article when he insists on the establishment of ...a capable state whose role is developmental rather than dirigiste.... If only he had ventured into the history of a developmental state, as seen in the rise of the Asian Tigers for example, then he would find that at the heart of the notion of a developmental state is precisely a state that is dirigiste. But then again we might now even question the doublethink on state.

As a side point, this contradiction is a symptom of liberals still stuck in the Thathcher/Reagan mould. Even the World Bank, as far back as in 1997, had to recognise the need for the state to intervene in order to play a developmental role. History was simply repeating itself, this is what Hitler had done in pre-World War II Germany and what the Marshall Plan was all about. Free-market economics worked for Thatcher and Reagan, it crashed the world economy in 2008 and yet liberals, of the Cardo ilk, wish for us to go back to Egypt.

In addition, Chalmers Johnson also laid emphasis on the particular characters that bureaucrats had. Peter Evans** later develops this into the notion of embedded autonomy. In deconstructing embedded autonomy, Evans notes that firstly these bureaucrats, though highly skilled, enjoy the institutional culture of gakubatsu. They have studied together, are formed together and are deployed to various strategic positions within the state, be it in government, parastatals and/or government agencies. Here they work for decades before being deployed to head-up certain industries and sectors. In the ANC, we call this cadre deployment.

However, Johnson and later Evans highlight the important role that social capital plays in building a developmental state. In this respect, reaching national consensus is of utmost importance and ensuring that we move beyond the cleavages of our society becomes imperative.

As a student of history, Cardo would hopefully appreciate the role that CODESA I and II played in the shaping of our Constitution, a document that hopefully, he will agree with me, unites and should unite all of us, despite our differences. Reaching consensus through these talks, over time, required all parties to move beyond their corners and bridge the gaps that infiltrated us through our history and circumstances. We could reach a democratic dispensation because of national consensus. We could ride off this wave of national consensus, with social capital in hand, by successfully hosting the Rugby and Soccer World Cups, among others.

National consensus but more importantly social capital, the child thereof, is the hinge in which the NDP works or not. Hence the ANC has assured others that it views the NDP as a working document, a document that is alive. It needs, whether you agree or not, the buy-in from the largest trade union in this country.

Consideration of all views is important even those parties not represented in Parliament. The DA might be arrogant, as they are in the Western Cape, and not give much attention and detail to consultation, participation and engagement but the ANC does place these high on its agenda for it wants to create national consensus. Together, in a non-partisan manner, we need to be patient in order to create a better future for our children.  

 

Secondly, given this national consensus, Cardo, as a good historian, would know that CODESA I and II was not the first time that South Africans crossed their divisions and sat down to talk to each other and reached consensus. Even though a major role player was absent, the government at the time, the Congress of the People held in Kliptown in 1955 sought to reach national consensus. It was not a gathering of the ANC alone, albeit a major role player. Imagine what the outcome would have been had the other major role player at the time, the National Party, joined the Congress of the People?

The Freedom Charter, the product of that national consensus project, is the gakubatsu of the National Democratic Revolution. Yes the NDR, like any theory on a developmental state, requires an interventionist state but it also espouses a free, non-racist, non-sexist, democratic South Africa in which everyone enjoys in the countrys wealth. As a historian, Cardo might be surprised that at the very heart of our Constitution lies the lines of the Freedom Charter. To therefore suggest that the Freedom Charter, which guides the NDR, contradicts the Constitution and the NDP is therefore dangerously disingenuous.

Just as he does his PhD in History a disservice, Michael Cardo does Amertya Sen definition of development as freedom a gross injustice. As a student of development, one shudders to think that Sen could have suggested that the state must not be developmental, and all that means with its history, and that the state must therefore leave the circumstances, which create or hinder opportunities for the development of capabilities, untouched. Even in the capabilities approach, correctly as Cardo points out espoused by the NDP, an interventionist and therefore NDR approach needs to take place.  

There is no better example of doublethink and doubletalk in South Africa than the DAs opposition to transformation. We have seen it question this term as it has flip-flopped on employment equity, broad-based Black economic empowerment and land reform. The DA fundamentally opposes transformation and therefore will not agree to the objectives of the NDR. It uses the NDP as a launch-pad, nothing else, to attack the NDR because it dismisses the ideals of a non-racist, non-sexist, free and democratic South Africa where all share in the countrys wealth. It wants to perpetuate past privilege. If anything, like Cardo, it professes to acknowledge history but in the same stroke dismiss it.

Yet what the NDP, based on the Constitution and the NDR, calls for is a national consensus and just as the government has to be patient with some in Cosatu and the SACP, so too the ANC government will be patient with the DA. For as with Cardo, and his spin, we have to be patient if we wish to build a capable and developmental state.

*See Johnson, C. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975. Stanford: Stanford University Press

**See Evans, P. 1989. "Predatory, Developmental, and Other Apparatuses: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the Third World State". Sociological Forum. Vol. 4 No. 4. Special Issue: Comparative National Development: Theory and Facts for the 1990's. pp561-587

Unity in Diversity? Let's be innovative and start with balls.

Anonymity must be high up there on the list with factionalism, slates and patronage as its bed-buddies. It does the movement no good when “high placed–sources”, “insiders” or even “members” do not want to be identified yet want their remarks or comments to be published and taken seriously. How does one take seriously a concern or allegation made by ‘anonymous’?

If one takes oneself seriously, one’s thoughts seriously and one’s principles seriously you will not be afraid to put your name to it. Whatever happened to the maxim: stand up and be counted?

I must confess, personally, I think this is what gossip is made of. It never becomes ‘official’, it stays in the dark secret rooms of anonymity where rumours, cloaks and daggers are festered. There is a grey area where the one who made the comment or took the stand can retract or deny making it. Hence there is no surety and one cannot challenge them. In fact, those who remain anonymous don’t like to be challenged. Hiding is way much easier.

This is what came to mind as I read the newspaper article today about the new developments in the question of the ANC Western Cape leadership. I have studied the document “Unity in Diversity” which is refreshing in some aspects but also stale in others.

Stale because the fundamental challenge facing the ANC is that we are engrossed with leadership questions. The document makes no mention of policy and makes no effort to propose new policy directions. Have we ever had a discussion document on policy matters? It uses, for example, the national question once again to settle leadership scores when what is actually needed is a thorough engagement with the national question, in which questions of leadership and elections are but two aspects of a more deeper and fundamental issue.

The premise of the document is 2016 and not necessarily building a strong and vibrant ANC despite 2016. We need a strong ANC not a strong elections campaign. An elections campaign is a means to an ends: a strong organisation. Nothing in the document on building capacity, on better communications, on changing perceptions, on the correct utilization of resources, in fact the entire premise for building a ‘vibrant’ ANC, this nameless document contends, is to propose that we (re)look at leadership. Stale!

I suspect a bit of misunderstanding of Path to People’s Power as well; as one who had no hand in drafting it but who has studied it numerous times, the aim of the strategy was not 2014 NPE’s. For example, the document explicitly indicates how the ANC can have power without even having the tools of the state, at provincial and local level, at hand. Surely a worthwhile topic for a discussion paper: a critique of Path to People’s Power, 3 years on?

Instead the authors stick with: leadership. And it’s more about ego, access to resources than actual leadership. The authors, whoever they are, have been here before and have done what they are doing now before. So it literally is a case of: been there, done that. What are ‘they’ proposing different this time? Are they proposing that they will not be a slate? They will not use patronage? That they will ‘unite’ and work with the current leadership? Gosh I hate ‘they’.

The often quoted definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. Need I say more? More anonymity, more leadership discussions.

The ANC is currently pursuing the Imvuselelo Campaign launched by the President on 20 July 2014. It is a pity that the document makes no mention of this important campaign in order to build a strong and vibrant ANC. One would have assumed that ‘they’ would take this into account.

What is refreshing about the document is that it does deal with issues of factions, slates and patronage. Whether intentionally or not, it links these three and poses the question whether the ANC in the Western Cape can continue on the same road or whether something else is required.

However, because the document is anonymous and because those speaking to the media remain anonymous one is not sure how seriously to take these proposals. Maybe the aim was simply to make headlines? Portray the ANC as divided?

No doubt, the issue of leadership needs to be looked at. But as I have said before and I will continue to contend, the ANC, in the Western Cape, needs people with guts. It needs people who can take decisions without worrying about covering their balls, backs and worrying about their political/economic futures. Selfless sacrifice. Ring-a-bell?

The ANC needs people who can challenge leaders and leaders who are willing to listen. The ANC needs people who have the balls to get rid of dead-wood and bring in people who have the capacity, capability and professionalism to run the organisation. If an employee doesn’t perform and runs his area of work into a shambles he/she must go. The ANC in the Western Cape needs capable cadres; professionals who have a history in the ANC.

My definition of a leader: one who has balls and is prepared to have them kicked. Put your name to your comments, your document and grow some balls. Whoever said politics was for the faint hearted?

If the authors want to get stuck on leadership then this, in my opinion, is what the ANC requires. I put my name to it and I am exposing my balls to be kicked. I just wish we had more political leaders who could do the same.

P.S. I know some female political leaders who have more balls than their men counterparts so forgive my using this metaphor.

Support Palestine? Educate yourself

False consciousness. The most potent ingredient for any dictatorship: a nation that suffers from mass false consciousness. I googled the definition and chose one which went like this:

 

1. a Marxist theory that people are unable to see things, especially exploitation, oppression, and social relations, as they really are: the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances.

2. any belief or view that prevents a person from being able to understand the true nature of a situation.

Hence, very possible in a democracy and so a dictatorship in a democratic setting.

 

Those involved with the United Democratic Front (UDF) in South Africa during the 1980’s would recall the slogan: organise, mobilise and educate!

Integral to their efforts, the activists believed then, was that in order to embarrass the Apartheid government and question its legitimacy they had to ensure that whoever they mobilised and whatever they organised, had to include, as a matter of course, political education.

 

(In fact, many would believe that the single important challenge in the Mass Democratic Movement today is the question of cadre development and political education; but that for another day.)

 

The UDF was established as an "alternative” to the Apartheid regime’s plan to establish the Tri-Cameral parliament. Coloured and Indian stooges were used to legitimise the Apartheid folly with each race group i.e. White, Coloured and Indian, having their own parliament. Notably Africans had their own tribal homelands and were therefore only in South Africa for cheap labour.

 

At the same time, while this UDF activism was happening in South Africa, false consciousness was widespread throughout West. Most noticeable in the UK and the USA, with working class Britons returning Thatcher to 10 Downing Street in 3 consecutive general elections and working class communities in the USA putting Reagan into the White House in 2 presidential elections and then voting Bush Senior into power after Reagan’s second term. 

 

Working class Americans (from the US) and Britons could just not comprehend that Thatcher and Regan/Bush were the most anti-worker leaders their countries ever knew yet they won overwhelming majorities, thanks to working class communities, at every election.

 

There exists, of course, one could argue a link between false consciousness and Gramsci’s cultural hegemony. The working class suffer from false consciousness as it were because of cultural hegemony or at least the two compliment each other. Thatcher’s glitz and glamour together with Regan’s theatrical moves made the working class go gaga for these leaders even though it was to their own detriment. 

 

The oppressed in SA, in the eighties, would not suffer the same folly. The broad alliance of organisations and leaders that formed the UDF made sure that political education was primary in fighting Apartheid. After all, as Steven Bantu Biko would remind us, the most potent weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

 

Today, the mobilisation and organisation tools of the UDF have somewhat whittled down. It exists in pockets here and there, especially in civil society coalitions – the few that we have – but by and large they are weak. Service delivery protests are the children of the protests and “boycotts” of the eighties: burning tyres/cars, throwing stones, damaging state/municipal property and looting shops. Recent developments by Ses’Khona People’s Movement indicate an emergence of organisation similar to that of the UDF where street committees and organisers play a central role in mass mobilisation. TAC’s success was due to the important emphasis the leadership placed on educating people about diets, about ARV’s and bio-politics.

 

Yet the great malaise in our politics, especially in the Western Cape, is due to the inability “...to see things, especially exploitation, oppression, and social relations, as they really are: the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances...”

With the 7 May elections done and dusted one cannot but help to think that the working class in the Western Cape must be suffering from the same false consciousness as those Britons and Americans did during the ‘80’s. They elected a woman and party that is the most anti-trade unions and therefore most anti-workers, anti-poor and anti-small business since the dawn of democracy in South Africa.

 

A good example of this false consciousness: the majority of the estimated 40 000 people who took to the streets in Cape Town a few weeks ago, to rally against the attacks on Gaza do not realize the exploitation, oppression and discord that exists and is happening right here under their noses in the Western Cape. The human rights report on sanitation is but one example. When Ses’Khona People’s Movement march, do these who protest against the occupation and bombardment of Palestine, join them?  

 

In fact the majority of those who marched two weeks ago as well as those who marched this past Friday, voted for the Zionist funded DA on the 7 May; classic false consciousness. It is no secret that the DA is funded by Zionists and yet we see no attempt for those who organise and mobilise around the Palestinian cause to educate marchers about whom the local Zionists are and why the Zionists are doing what they are doing in Palestine. In fact, their argument goes: Palestine is not a party-political issue! What rubbish!

 

The Premier of the Western Cape should be told that what is happening in Gaza is not a question of religion. It is a question of humanity and it is a question of politics. The same reason why Arab governments have been silent in condemnation of Israeli atrocities is the same reason why our home-grown Zionists are silent: money.

 

Apartheid fell not because the masses, Black and White, could mobilise and organise but because the activists and their leaders knew that they could never leave education out of the equation. Apartheid Israel will only fall once those inside and outside start realising who their local Zionists are, why the Zionists are occupying Palestine and why Apartheid Israel is bombing Palestine at this point in time.