The real reason Zimbabwe must fail

THE 112-year-old African National Congress (ANC), which is Africa’s oldest liberation movement, is wounded, and political vultures are sensing blood.

They believe the ANC, which failed to garner an absolute majority for the first time since the attainment of black majority rule in 1994 (30 years ago), is there for the taking.

Since the end of the May 29 elections in our neighbouring country, there has been animated discussions and disproportionate focus on the dip in support, or so it seems, for the governing party — and understandably so — without examining nuances of latest developments in South African politics.

But let us get this right: The outcome of the just-ended elections does not in any way suggest a decline in support for the liberation ethos and values of the ANC, but, rather, internal contradictions among comrades on how best to achieve the aspirations of the majority of black South Africans, who still find themselves mired in grinding poverty three decades after independence.

Despite being considered the biggest and most industrialised economy in Africa, with a Gross Domestic Product of US$405 billion, South Africa’s unemployment rate stands at a lamentable 33 percent.

This simply means the majority, mostly disillusioned black wananchi, are not enjoying the fruits promised by the liberation project.

This is not peculiar to South Africa.

You see, while independence ushered in political freedom, it has struggled to deliver economic independence and prosperity for most people.

Though rich, we still remain dirt-poor.

In many jurisdictions, the stark inequalities between the haves and the have-nots are deep and obscene.

And in South Africa, nowhere is this inequality more troubling and apparent than in the embarrassing divide between the wretched informal settlements of Alexandra and the gratuitous affluence of Sandton, Johannesburg.

It is just immoral.

Most disconcertingly, decades after independence, the economy is still under the control of an entrenched white minority and a tiny black bourgeoisie class that are seemingly aloof to the struggles of the ordinary man and woman.

Such a status quo is always perilous, as it perpetuates class struggles, which sometimes turn violent and cataclysmic.

As the French philosopher Jacques Rousseau once said: “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”

Ezekiel 16-49-59 eerily warns: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore, I did away with them as you have seen.”

Protest vote

Bishop Lazi insists that the recent elections in South Africa did not represent the repudiation of the liberation ethos and values of the ANC.

They actually showed an overwhelming vote and belief in black political parties as vehicles to a prosperous future that is aspired for by most South Africans.

For example, the cumulative vote from the ANC, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) — parties that are arguably essentially and quintessentially ANC in everything but in name only, especially since the latter were founded by ANC comrades — amounts to 10 333 966, which dwarfs the white Democratic Alliance (DA)’s tally of 3 506 864.

The ANC, MK and EFF drink from the same foundational and ideological well.

They both agree on the same destination but fundamentally disagree on how to get there.

And such internal contradictions have been the major cause of internecine strife in the former liberation movement, which has often manifested in splinter political formations such as EFF, COPE and, lately, the MK.

The message that was delivered by the May 29 protest vote — for indeed it was — against the ruling ANC was loud and clear: The current status quo was no longer tenable.

Radical economic transformation

The dilemma in South Africa, as indeed elsewhere on the continent, is still on the best way to wrest economic control from the clutches of white monopoly capital.

While some comrades seemed to favour the neoliberal approach, which is premised on laissez-faire policies that promote free markets as vehicles to deliver prosperity, opinion seems to be shifting towards embracing radical economic transformation, as espoused by the EFF and MKP, to redistribute wealth to the majority blacks.

This is why a potential coalition involving the ANC, EFF and MK was branded a “doomsday coalition” by the DA, for it possibly meant a change in trajectory in the envisaged government that could have been conceived by a mating of the three formations.

Further, this would have meant a challenge in the status quo that is clearly not working for black people.

One just simply needs to read the Jacob Zuma-led MK party’s manifesto to understand what Bishop Lazarus is talking about.

“The foundational issues of poverty, unemployment and inequality stem from the theft of land and mineral resources,” it reads in part, adding: “post-apartheid reconstruction efforts cannot be pursued through neoliberal policies that prioritise the market over state intervention.”

And this resonates with EFF.

Among many of its proposals for radical transformation to reconfigure the economy are “expropriating all land without compensation and transferring ownership to the people under state and traditional leadership custodianship”, “nationalising the South African Reserve Bank, major banks and insurance companies to reduce the dominance of private finance over our economy” and “nationalising strategic mines . . .”

In essence, this is an acknowledgement that the material wellbeing of the ordinary South African — and, by extension, African — cannot be fundamentally changed for the better without disrupting the current deeply entrenched neoliberal and extractive system.

But perhaps what causes many leaders to prevaricate and continue to kick the can down the road when it comes to taking onerous and bold decisions to change the current neoliberal system is the pain that is inherent in radical transformation

Remember how the South African financial markets (read white capital) reacted when former President Jacob Zuma sacked his finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, after little more than a year in the job and replaced him with a relatively unknown backbencher, David van Rooyen, in December 2015.

The rand plummeted to a historic low against the dollar in that period, indicating how white monopoly capital was prepared to fight back against anything that threatened their interest.

Why Zimbabwe must fail

But South Africa needs not look any further than neighbouring Zimbabwe to see how neoliberal forces can viciously react when threatened.

Twenty-four years after taking back our land through the historic land reform programme, we are still under the yoke of deleterious sanctions from the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

We still remain isolated from financial markets, not least the Western-controlled international financiers, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, making our industry scramble for the little but expensive credit that is available from alternative sources of capital.

The post-land reform deterioration of the economy, which ironically has been used over the years by the West to promote the specious claim that it resulted from misgovernance, corruption and ineptitude by the “ruling elite”, has been used as a forbidding example for those countries that might dare to entertain the idea of challenging the current economic system.

But thankfully, the new governance ethos spearheaded by President ED’s administration, which put locals at the centre of driving reconstruction and economic activity, has proved to be both transformative and instructive. Zimbabwe now proudly stands as one of the fastest-growing economies in the region, where local companies are taking the lead in infrastructure development.

Were it not for the obtaining economic sanctions, the country’s economy would have been galloping by now.

This is the real reason Zimbabwe must fail. A successful Zimbabwe might be a bad example for the developing world, as it would prove the existence of an alternative development pathway and model from that of the West.

This. essentially, is a threat to neoliberalism and its interests in our own backyards.

What is happening in South Africa, West Africa (where the military has taken over) and pretty much elsewhere on the continent shows that the old way was and is not working.

We need to define or redefine a new way forward to prosperity for the majority of our people.

Bishop out!