adminA SPIRIT of “each man for himself” is undermining everything that the ANC has stood for, writes Vusi Shongwe. When stimulating intellectual and political discussion is suddenly replaced by heckling and howling, then you should know that complete political bankruptcy has crept in. The political shenanigans that have permeated the KwaZulu-Natal political climate are not only disheartening, but also vitiate the critical milestones that have been achieved by the ANC.
The political insolvency that has replaced the robust intellectual and lively debates is a blot to the image of the ANC – a party acclaimed and renowned to be steeped in the tradition of vibrant intellectual discourses is now on the brink of the cesspit of the contrary.
It is fast abandoning its cornerstones and hallmarks. Robust intellectual combats are no longer relished. It is my take that true leaders must always transcend factionalism and show leadership. There is a need for recreating political institutions where human decency prevails over ruthless and anarchical political strategies, and civility triumphs over callous political manoeuvring.
The move by the ANC to set up an integrity committee whose primary aim would be to instil discipline, respect and aura among its members, is most welcome. Hopefully, the integrity committee would help arrest the downward slide to end what South African politics has become – a messy, deceitful, treacherous and murderous affair.
We are all challenged to appreciate the fact that the politics of democracy is the politics of diversity and tolerance. Another disturbing development that has nearly brought the ANC to its knees is the conspicuous immersion of its members in crass materialism.
The period between 1994 and the present has shifted progressively towards material benefits, and is best known as the era of the politics of the stomach or to use Michela Wrong’s words, the “our turn to eat” era. It is an era where the moral compass that guided us in the liberation struggle period has been de-calibrated – where an avowed distaste for individual possession of wealth has been replaced by the vision of our existence as a merciless contest in conspicuous consumption.
This has resulted in a dislocated and disoriented conception of ourselves manifestable in our preoccupation with populating the machineries of our nation state with people who pursue narrow, parochial individual concerns, at the expense of the greater South African humanity.
The term “ubuntu” is giving way and life is breath into the adage, “every man for himself”. The main focus of this period is the fixation with government tenders, and people who are in the forefront of this process are people with dubious political credentials. The majority of the people who joined the struggle during this time found it easy and, I dare say, their political, business and service credentials are questionable.
While our unique history occasioned us the “struggle time” heroes, the advent of democracy has bequeathed us “peace time heroes”. The birth of “struggle time” heroes can be traced back to the times of apartheid leaders like Hendrik Verwoerd’s speeches, while that of “peace time” heroes can be traced from the 1990 president F W de Klerk’s speech when he unbanned almost all political parties.
Peace-time heroes never went through the liberation struggle trenches, and would hardly have stood the test of time. Personally, I have little regard for these so-called comrades who have arrogated to themselves the task of misrepresenting everything that the struggle was about.
It was not the pursuit of self-aggrandisement that drove many of the ‘struggle time” heroes away from their children, spouses and loved one, but it was the resolve to the relentless pursuit of a worthier and nobler cause. Sadly, the majority of the “peace time” comrades are now the beneficiaries of government tenders. These are comrades who only joined the ANC for their own selfish needs.
The ostentatious display of opulence by these comrades leaves one cringing with embarrassment when one looks at the plight of unemployed MK cadres and the families of the departed stalwarts – the real “struggle heroes”. If the stalwarts were to wake up today, they would be disappointed to see their families languishing in a perpetual state of destitution and neglect.
Maybe Oscar Wilde’s observation is worth tossing in here. Wilde observed aptly when he said: “The problem with the Irish is that they remember too much history, and the problem with the English is that they forget too much.”
Are we like the Irish in remembering the “bridges” that carried us over to where we are as a nation, or should we be like the English and forget all there was? But somewhere in the dictionary and equidistant between “forgetting” and “remembering” there is “learning”. I want to argue 20 years of democracy has accorded us ample opportunities to learn – and with learning, change is expected.
Change should ring in us that we are in a state of flux, in a moment between moments, in a time between times and a place between places. Tolstoy reminds us that “everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”. This was corroborated by one bumper sticker I saw recently, ‘Change is good. You go first.’
Who among the multitudes of bribe-paying tenderpreneurs who go on to provide shoddy services would go first? Maybe change (like rot) should start from the top.
There have been isolated calls for changes in leadership nationally and in this province in particular, but unless as Maurice Halwachs reminds us “the present generation may rewrite history, but it does not write it on the blank page”– the recruitment and selection strategies and policies of the ANC are revisited, the calls for changes in leadership are a zero sum game.
Equally true, when calling for leadership change, an American female civil rights activist, Fannie Lou Hammer, puts it aptly when she teaches us that there are two things we should always care about: never forget where were came from and praise the bridges that carried us over.”
It is such apathy on the part of South Africans that has made it possible for them to forget the “bridges” that carried us over to where we are as a nation. There is an apparent forgetfulness that our progress is a march that we started with the fallen heroes. As is almost always the case in politics, there are no easy answers and the reality is more complicated than it may appear. The present membership of the ANC leaves a lot to be desired.
Some of the members hardly know the constitution of the ANC, let alone the culture and the dynamics of the party. Never in the history of the ANC have people used guns and knives to drive their points home. This is unheard of. The killing of ANC members by their own comrades for positions is also something new in this glorious movement. Perhaps in the process of recruiting membership, the ANC opened its doors to hardened criminals and fraudsters.
This calls for the ANC’s selection and recruitment policy to be seriously looked into by exploring the possibility of having an induction programme, which will focus on, among other things, political education, mentoring and training for all new members of the ANC.
I strongly believe that the problems being experienced by the ANC are attributed to a large extent to the silent majority of credible people who choose not to involve themselves in societal matters, let alone political matters.
This vast silent majority of our people have left the public sphere to a select few who seem to set the agenda. Hendrik Ibsen, the great Norwegian dramatist, puts it aptly when he argues: “The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.”
It is “the damned compact majority” that has failed the ANC. It is also the very same compact majority that has accepted the culture of disrespect that has become so pervasive in this country, and in the ANC, in particular -The Mercury
Online Reporter