Post-liberation mid-course evaluation of South Africa is here. The state has a legitimate government system. A constitutional democratic order with profound liberal order characteristics is theoretically in place and practically under construction. Systems that undergird it are a cultural necessity out of which the order's norms and standards could be habits that ultimately instruct a national value system.
Africa's anti-colonial struggles required, which would have been pure to 'decolonise' state, a social mobilisation posture that targeted institutions and frameworks that made colonialism work as an order. Consequently, a general disrespect for the colonial order and its foundations took an uninformed populace hostage, discrediting and undermining what made the order function, including its science. The outcome of this has been a clear and gradual loss of battles in a war against what made order functional, a condition whose manifestations include a decimation of generic administrative processes whose embrace should be sheer common sense.
The general mistrust of order, its procedural demands, and the need for monitoring and evaluation is the virus of doubt that has widened the trust deficit between societies that became victims of the substantive intents of colonialism's procedural power and prowess. The objectivity of procedures lost credibility at the altar of how the substantive objects of colonialism depended on the pacifying influence of compliance demanded by 'order' that came with the colonial system.
The political pushback against the power that established the colonial order has also threatened the stability of post-colonial conflict stability required by resultant democratic orders. In some instances, freedom from the productivity demands of government systems and thus order meant the continuation of contextual fights that undermine the edifice of administration. A case in point is the rejection of inspection in schools. The historical memory associated with this has been ritualised to only mean entrenchment of apartheid education when current order intents include system efficacy and improvement.
The disintegration of hierarchies as a necessity for the stability of an order has maintained the managerial and administration function in society as the most visible casualty of ascending anarchy which became the antithesis of order. Views on bureaucratic necessity in an order, need for pedantic work procedures designed around policy intents, odious personnel administration processes, financial administration processes bordering on basic bookkeeping and transactional accuracy demands of public accountability became political planks on platforms of an ascending political elite socialised to see order as being equivalent to apartheid. The lowering of standards and barriers to entering the public and/or civil service attracted into the crankshafts making any order work, those that would recalibrate the order to equilibrate at dangerously low benchmarks of competence.
This war on order has been driven by individuals' interests for a while, most of which were instructed by self-aggrandisement instead of public service.b Interests being the currency of politics, concepts to ritualise some of the mediocrity were bastardised away from the noble meaning into political sentiments that undermined their post-colonial liberation worth. Plausible intents that were carried into concepts such as affirmative action, transformation of public service demographics, and black economic empowerment could not be decisively distinguishable from nepotism, corruption, and ultimately state capture as political sentiment grew into the core bulwark in the silent war against order. In fact, public policy also lost the battle to political sentiment.
The gradual lowering of national exit examination pass mark to below 35% if gerrymandering is not factored in has bred a generation of South Africans that went through school as a socialisation process not attached to the competency requirements of a sophisticated economy we have. Whilst the hypothesis to lower standards might not have foreseen the contribution of this to the war against order, the posture of the inherited generation towards productivity might have pegged the country on a below 35% competitive benchmark and entitlement-based socialisation. This might account for post-apartheid billionaires concentrated in the services sector, with industrialisation being the most significant casualties in this war against order.
The capacity of the public service to go on a strike, notwithstanding the nobleness of the demands necessitating the strike, has increased the uncertainty of who the state is for a while. Because public servants constitute a nation's bureaucracy and, by extension, a critical mind of the state, a strike by the public service can, and arguably so, be a strike against themselves if it is not a continuation of the war on order. Whilst the public service is expected to be the embodiment of the order any democracy requires to be stable, as a subject of the science of Public Service, post-colonial public servants have, in their war with the order they ideationalised as an enemy, have in fact become the frontier where the war on order is intense.
Building a stable order does not proceed linearly; in fact, it is a multi-dimensional human endeavour whose success will always be a function of the wars humanity wage against disorder for the sake of order. The extent to which thinkers in society protect the order established by functioning conventions is what a democratic order requires. If public policy decisions based on evidence could upstage political sentiment and post-liberation rhetoric, peace between order and society will return. Reversing the war on order requires the collaboration of a society's professional and scientific community. CUT!!!
🤷🏿♂️Good Morning, South Africa
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