In societies, interest groups would routinely contend to shape perspectives of the national interest, and convince 'rulers' to adopt their preferred policies. The influence of strategic solidarity groups on policy positions in South Africa has for a while proven to work for those that can finance the process, and predominate the ideational space, and public discourse. The activities of these groups are the reason why most policy decisions will impact society in favor of those that invest in changing the course of any discourse.
The South African Constitution, as a construct, has been designed to have respect and space for any strategic and moral arguments in its support to attract the attention of its functional entities, notably the judiciary and the executive. The constitutionality of lobbying is what our liberation also promises to citizens, however, the history of South Africa will always advantage those who lived in a context that prepared them to lobby for their positions better than those who have only mastered the art of fighting for their positions by problematizing the state instead of seeing it as an ally to their interests.
The truth is that as apartheid oppressed 'others', it let others live a life of the free and democratic. They had the franchise, they knew party politics, and they understood how to work with and within the state to extort advantage. Civil society pressure was to them a tool to effect policy change. To others, the absence of rights and denial of involvement left a tradition of seeing and knowing the state to be a problem.
The case for a lobby to advance the liberation promises to those who were oppressed under apartheid needs to be made and resourced by like-minded South Africans without vitiating the need for the democracy to survive contestations that are perpetually laced with grievances than the development imperative. Like in the old United Democratic Front days, there should be efforts to establish loose coalitions of individuals and organizations that would actively work to shape South Africa's policies to be pro-liberation promises, and thus begin a process of shifting frontiers and templates of underdevelopment for the majority of voters, irrespective of which party they voted for.
Once elected into office, political parties become part of the establishment architecture. They are sucked into exigencies of state power. Their ability to pause and think is dependent on the extent to which a bureaucracy, or the mind of the state, processes regulated policy making and implementation. It is within these gaps of pausing and thinking that civil society coalitions become relevant. This can either be done through active and constructive engagement, or outright advocacy that is collaborative or hostile. Either way, ideation becomes a common process for all, and the more intransigent to change a state is, the more dominant civil society coalitions assume 'leader of the society status' based on the legitimacy of their programs.
These coalitions should not be allowed, again, to be 'single' (unified or factionalized) movements with a (central and often self-serving) leadership. They should instead be allowed to be a collection of individuals and organizations that make up these coalitions and should be shaped to allow disagreements on the hows of facilitating the liberation promise, without changing the actual promise. As a coalition, they themselves should allow platforms for cabals and conspiracies to battle for their ideas, without them being a conspiracy or cabal. The ultimate standard for such coalitions should be the extent to which their activities are transparent and accessible to societal 'scrutiny and evaluation'.
The coalition should be organized in a way that has as part of their make-up those that engage in formal influencing activities like directly 'persuading' those in power, as well as those that act informally by flooding their information harvest spaces with data and facts which will change the course and direction of public policy. In their matured state, BPI-type coalitions should not have borders that exclude other people committed to the ideals of the Constitution, which are by extension the liberation promise. As self-formalized groups which demand 'hardware' of the liberation promise such as 'land expropriation (or restitution) without compensation, 'radical economic transformation', 'defined set-asides for historically marginalized race groups', and 'hardcore Black Economic Empowerment through deliberate state procurement programs, the coalition should operate where it re-articulates 'hardware' to be compatible with the ideation 'software' whose impact is inter-generational as well as focusing on value anchored interventions.
As a consequence, these coalitions should as far as possible avoid being membership organizations. They should rather be organized and managed through a corporate entity that invites individuals through a process, as well as recognizes them as patrons to the coalition. Efforts should be made to invite organizations as components of a pool of participants in a broader complex of entities within which these coalitions operate and have a sphere of influence. The goals of such bodies should be broad enough to allow those that repent to either way of its right and left continuum of policy positions, to feel accommodated and wanted. It will be the penumbra of groups and individuals that would drive a commitment to the liberation promise as delivered by the Constitution.
Whilst the liberation promise should be an all-South African Affair, the reality of it reversing gains of the apartheid advantage to some will surely lend it into a collision course with their objects of sustaining templates of economic dominance and control. The coalition of the like-minded should thus work at creating a (public) atmosphere that will constitute pressure on those that govern the country, and those that 'rule' the market, including its value chains, without the coalition being explicitly clear that its agenda is, in fact, fundamental social change at all costs.
The time might have now arrived for BPI-type organizations to move to the next stage after the proverbial cocoon and fly above the maze of policies we all agree are ideal to shift the ideation frontiers of South Africa. The time for seminars and representation of ideas at policy decision centers has arrived. The consolidated team of thinkers within the arguably influential chat group requires a formalization of the platform into a legal entity capable of being contracted where feasible. These patrons and engagement partners should find a way to work on thus making the BPI more about itself.
WHY ARE WE RECEIVING THIS
1. There is a consequential policy process of the governing party coming up, and it might well be the last one when the ANC is the governing party, and yet we have not as a platform taken direct interest in influencing the space.
2. There was a electoral bill parliamentary process which was going's on and we did not make any submission as the BPI,
3. And many others.
It is the hope of this rendition to start a genuine in-BPI discussion on how to we take our respectable influence in society to another level.
🤷🏿♂️Inkomu.
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