The th!nc Foundation

The launch of the uMkhonto we Sizwe political party has upended the normality of established electoral politics. As the liberal establishment is consolidating a consensus on the possibility of a liberal right coalition government, the politics of the historically marginalised are also consolidating into an anti-establishment bloc. Consequently, the post-apartheid political accord seems to be more in crisis than ever. What is emerging is not discontent with the country's politics but how those politics are recalibrating or fracturing the templates of economic dominance.  Since the adoption of the 1996 South African Constitution, the outcome of the negotiations, which is the primary source of law in the Republic, there have been calls for its review to address the economic transformation gaps it purportedly has not filled. The dominant economic paradigm is that the state should use economic policy reforms to substitute for radical economic transformation and support institutional cha...

  One of the greatest miscarriages of apartheid South Africa was its inability to produce out-of-homeland leaders, men and women, who would enjoy the legitimacy to be entrusted with the comprehensive project of liberating South Africa. The African National Congress, because of its then hegemonic prowess and timeless monumental policy documents, had occupied this space. Its leaders would be the personification of what it stood for, with Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela arguably standing out as its most popular towers. The legitimacy of colonialism and apartheid has always relied on its acceptance by black people and, by extension, their leaders. The quest to purchase and repurpose black discontent about being dominated has always been fought through those they agree are their leaders or those imposed as such.  History records in South Africa, many in leadership have made it their business to derail the comprehensive liberation project at the altar of self-aggrandisement. To th...

 Published on 10 December 2023 in the Sunday Times. A study on the Black Middle-Class Report by the University of Cape Town in 2020 shows a dramatic growth in the black middle class, eclipsing that of the white middle class. It reflects on the segment’s significant and continued rise, the nuanced changes over the years and trends likely to influence and entrench the sector as the foremost market, consumer or otherwise, into the future. Whilst the report focussed on the economics of this class, the soft (social, political, and cultural) power issues, which are somewhat underplayed, might be decisive in defining society’s decision about who should govern South Africa. They might be the authority to define “the will of the people” and which party best represents that will in the current phase of the country’s political development. Expanding the middle class has always been the key to realising a modern and prosperous society. It is required to transform the economic growth model an...

South African black business leaders have been decrying the post-1994 Establishment (mainly political) for not having been serious about Black Economic Empowerment. They argue that current efforts do or will not recalibrate the templates of economic participation, exclusion, and dominance. Notwithstanding the promulgation of a regulatory framework to advance BEE by the government since 1994, the voices of discontent at how the government has managed this policy have grown acutely louder in the 6th Administration. As the true economy is experiencing structural growth challenges and underperforming to ignite better GDP per capita, an opportunity to be frontal in dealing with economic transformation grows proportionately. Unless economic transformation (or freedom in other parlances) is reconnected to the broader comprehensive liberation project and promise in the Constitution, which the upcoming elections are still about, it will be a own goal to celebrate any change in the political lan...

“Using metaphors and parables remains one of the greatest assets in the African education system. Supported by a rigorously used system of storytelling and the use of symbols, metaphors have for centuries provided indigenous scholarship about and for African civilisations. The intellectual resilience of African wisdom cues and philosophy-endowed idiomatic expressions have served as repositories of community values and anchored a normative environment comparable to the recorded philosophy of other civilisations. This use of metaphors creates a rather neutral platform for African societies to reflect on themselves about presented phenomena". "The living experience of society develops mores, norms, and values out of which societal attributes get entrenched as practice. Some of these become stimuli depending on whatever momentum their applicability flows with. As Africans return to the global power or order architecture and start to become a factor in creating a space for their c...

While the problem of leadership has always been the liberation movement's growing problem from a necessity point of view, it has now taken on the character of an inescapable concern. Through leadership quality, society can have a dialogue with itself about the future. Given that leaders are, and in a materialist doctrine sense, 'products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed leaders are products of other circumstances and upbringing, we tend to forget that leaders of organisations change circumstances and the leadership environment'. The African National Congress has, in the last three decades, been in a complex dialogue with itself about what value system it wants to project itself as representing now that it commands the state power. In the vortex of policy pronouncements and preoccupation with the deconstruction of the apartheid system, the liberation movement believed in the persuasive potency of its documents, notably the eye of the needle, more...

To the naked and innocent eye, the logic of the ANC's appeals on a debt collection issue puts the ANC in gross disrepute. It puts into question the calibre of leadership, especially the financial management capability, past and present, of the ANC on trial in a court of public opinion. As the ANC tries to explain the real issues, and it has not done well, it is simultaneously losing the information war. It is doubtful if there is an awareness that this might be a battle where media interest is not in the facts of the case. The known facts are that the ANC received a service from the complainant, the service provider raised an invoice, and the ANC has not honoured the invoice. The service provider exhausted all avenues to get paid, and getting a court order was the only way its claim could be legitimate. What is unclear in the public space is why the ANC would go to such lengths to appeal the judgements on this matter instead of paying. The belief in the correctness or winnabil...

The real narrative watermarked in all these dysfunctions of leadership and organisation is the collapse of the liberation movement leading South Africa. With all the pain that goes with it, South Africans are resigned to the reality of a post-ANC-as governing party dispensation, unless a miracle happens. The Tshwane and other municipal jurisdictions' experiment has made this expected not-so-bitter pill to swallow, either in the immediate 2024 or the 2029 chapter of the same thing. To accept the inevitability of death is what drives humanity to think beyond the comfort of false immortality. Thinking or imagining life beyond your physical existence on earth drives legacy thinkers. As members of the ANC, we must start considering our relevance in a post-ANC-as-governing party context. It took the ANC Western Cape almost 25 years to have a pseudo-united PEC. Given the liquidity challenges courts are exposing, the new wonder is what it would take for a not-in-government ANC to recover. ...