Can the leader of society role be resuscitated through civil activism? Another perspective.

The thought of possible coalition governing arrangements by the 'liberation party' (the ANC), the implicit support by South Africa's civil society and other political parties, and the endorsement of the process by the economic establishment is a good sign about the health of our democracy. This might be the clearest answer to the inconvenient question the governing party is grappling with “Is it time for political power to taste the care or hands of new curators as it has been slowly but surely changing hands at the sub-national level of government? What up to this phase of the 30 years of democracy "may have seemed like an abstract and inchoate challenge has suddenly become real, urgent, and perilous". 

In response, genuine members of the liberation complex, who were organised differently during the anti-apartheid struggle, are already organising themselves into ‘leader of society brigades’ outside the ANC as a political party contesting for state power. Sprouts of former anti-apartheid activist-led civil society movements are maturing into organs of people’s power capable of utilising the legal space created by the Constitution to allow all forms of social mobilisation to extract its promise of liberation. The liberation promises in the Constitution as a gain from the anti-apartheid struggle propels the need to resuscitate or enhance the activist resilience capabilities of the civil society movement to pre-1994 levels.

New forms and levels of activism in defence of what the Constitution promises society as the freedom they fought for is what the South African state and the economic establishment must now be ready for. The gradual shift of the ANC cloak that it has patent rights to what is good for society is no longer enough to pacify social activism against the government of the day. This reality might release appropriate activism required to recalibrate the democratic order to be about 'we the people'. The supremacy of 'the people' as beneficiaries of the supremacy of the Constitution constitutional order will be tested as proxy activism to protect the status quo is being liquidated. 

The UDF40 celebrations process invokes this history and offers immediate near-memory lessons of how the democratic order can be defended or challenged with nuance to its true beneficiaries. Unless it is not a 'proxy' to create platforms for those 'put aside' by 'power is in the branches' phenomenon of the liberation movement's democracy, the civil society character of the UDF with a proper national agenda is still the best ever in South Africa to move society against any injustice, however benevolent those perpetuating it are. Through the platforms it might create, the UDF40 process might reverse the 'generational genocide' that followed the 'Polokwane pustch' and restore into South Africa's mainstream politics leadership from that era to deal with the real interests of (we) the people. 

The unconscious migration of the ANC away from being about the interests of '(we) the people', all South Africans, and not its branch delegates, has unfortunately cost it a significant portion of its hegemonic influence over South Africa's politics. It has instead gained the greatest number of citations as to what needs to be opposed and removed. Fortunately, its past activists, who are inherent ‘leader of society brigade’ material, lived and still understand what the ANC meant in its strategy and tactics document when it directed during the anti-apartheid struggle that,

 

“In order for it to exercise its vanguard role, the ANC puts a high premium on the involvement of its cadres in all centres of power. This includes the presence of ANC members and supporters in state institutions. It includes activism in the mass terrain of which civil society structures are part. It includes the involvement of cadres in the intellectual and ideological terrain to help shape society’s value systems. This requires a cadre policy that encourages creativity in thought and in practice and eschews rigid dogma. In this regard, the ANC is responsible for promoting progressive traditions within the intellectual community, including institutions such as universities and the media”.

The current phase of consolidating the democratic and constitutional order expects former anti-apartheid activists organized under an ANC-led liberation movement united by the objectives of building a non-racial, non-sexist, united, and democratic South Africa to build organs of societal mobilisation to protect the reversal of gains made. Completing and curating the liberation promise is now a patriotic duty deliverable from within any social formation, the strategy and tactics document foresaw this and directed sector by sector infiltration.

History and experience teach those great liberation movements investing in thinkers and beyond the 'ngoku' generation's approach to politics "can make many mistakes—lose economic transformation battles, lose policy wars, lose allies, even their hegemonic edge—and still triumph in long-term contests", if they rearrange how they pursue what defined the logic of freedom. In the contest for advantage to stay a relevant leader of society, among other civil society formations, it is not the liberation movement’s history in ushering the democratic order that makes the crucial difference but the fundamental qualities of a leader of society it is, and the characteristics of an organisation it has institutionalised in society to generate appropriate societal energy to make South Africa great again. 

The distinctiveness of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle outcome, punctuated by a choice to celebrate Freedom Day instead of Independence Day, is indicative that the founding leaders of the constitutional and democratic order were au fait with the implications of characterising political settlement as freedom rather than independence. It is freedom because there was no foreign coloniser when the settlement was reached. The constitutional order, which defines South Africa’s ability or capacity to be democratic through a combination of the legislative, executive, and judicial authorities that were defined as independent of each other, confirms on paper freedom rather than independence. Political parties have thus become conduits of tendencies and interests in society, and they are not necessarily society. At best, they can claim to lead society in one or more aspects where leadership could not be diffused as a creation of society itself.

The organisation's strength is that the pre-1994 mass democratic movement is the building block through which an activist populace focused on extracting the liberation promise of the Constitution from the state could be built or anchored. The time to embrace the reality that being part of the leader of society brigade is not dependent on being in government but being enabled to articulate the interests of society through demanding accountability from those that govern. The temptation of state power has impacted activism that should have been developed and curated to play a vanguard role in defending the liberation promise guaranteed by the constitutional order. This was and still is a lost opportunity of gigantic proportions.

ANCness encapsulated in its monumental policy documents and ultimately converged into the 1996 Constitution of South Africa is an ideological firmament the ANC can unfortunately no longer claim as its own alone; it is now a national project open to ownership by all those who live in the country. Continuing to think of the liberation promise as the exclusive reserve of just under one million members in a 60 million population country can only shrink the hegemonic power amassed over a century. The looming coalition government arrangement should also trigger an interior to the ANC conversation on how to be a political party supported by a liberation-promise-in-the-Constitution protecting civil society movement. 

To assure '(we) the people' of social justice and human dignity, South Africa needs a more than government civil society movement and individuals committed to being part of the leader of the civil society brigade to define what is just. Through the activist endeavours of this brigade, social justice can manifest in allocating services, goods, power, opportunities, wealth and rights to society.  CUT!!!