Since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has been suffering from the loneliness of the 'us' and 'them' syndrome, which characterised much of the 19th Century after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In South Africa, this has played itself with race as a dominant vector of all manners of analysis. For most of the 19th century it has been 'swaart', 'rooi', and 'ANC' 'gevaar', and its matching responses of 'kill the boer', 'one settler one bullet' and 'dubul'bhunu'. The 1990 to 1996 political 'accord', 'settlement', and 'compromises', which culminated in the present Constitution, aggregated the diverse political emotions into a legal edifice from which a constitutional and democratic order would be established to reconcile all protagonists' interests.
The period before the
1996 Constitution was characterised by the anti-black majority rule,
anti-communist takeover, anti-colonialism, and anti-apartheid themes as drivers
of the various human political coalitions. In contrast, the 1996 Constitution
introduced non-apartheid, non-colonialism, non-majority domination, non-racism,
and non-sexism as themes instructive to a future South Africa. The new themes
were chiselled into the Constitution, which has become the country's supreme
law, thus making most of the pre-1996 themes illegal to pursue or aspire
towards.
The necessity for
tensions and conflicts based on the pursuit of what is inconsistent with the
Constitution placed a burden on finding new enemies for old and new human
coalitions organised around their unique interpretations of the new themes the
Constitution guarantees. The political settlement of 1996 created a new
constitutional, democratic, and political order without fixing the underlying
problems which necessitated the very settlement. Templates of economic and
socio-economic dominance, which, arguably, seemed to have not been in the
purview of those that calibrated the political settlement, accord, or
compromise were left intact. The result was that those in the vocation of politics kept fighting
and, in the process, found new enemies or what they could be anti towards.
Naturally, new or
historical, those still wielding power and authority would be dominated by a
never-ending search for new enemies and a demand from the (somewhat made
irrelevant by the settlement) warriors that everyone becomes more indignant. As
the Reconstruction and Development of society assume centre stage, its logical
end, which is supposed to be equal opportunities with guaranteed outcomes,
those that benefited from what humanity was against would see this as a
threat to the status quo. Without a cause to be against, the
political establishment in South Africa has had to manufacture or find one with
which society could be distracted from demanding the true liberation promises
of the Constitution.
Intractable as they were, anti-corruption and anti-state capture were elevated as policy targets the whole-of-government and national narrative would be preoccupied with. It assumed more than just a criminal justice affair character but grew into a political and social capital-discounting national problem for politicians and political parties. Driven by the economic right-wing establishment, it became an easy process to simplify and weaponise against any radicalised economic transformation program. It became the hammer that made any attempt at touching the templates of economic transformation the proverbial nail. In the process the state as an institution became the hammer, those elected into government got absorbed by its algorithmic power to exclude.
The anti-apartheid
struggle wrote the script that was followed in packaging warring parties in the
economic transformation battles of RSA. Instead of a black-and-white battle
that was liquidated by a post-1996 legal non-apartheid theme, (a racialised) 'monopoly
capital' found its way into becoming the central theme to be fought as the new
enemy, and the response thereof targeted those fighting it as the corrupt and
state capturers. State institutions got entangled in this war on everything
that could be classified as state capture and corruption to levels where those
who controlled the state would determine the cadence and character of political
contestations. Whoever controlled the ultimate narrative won the context of the
war and never the issues raised as the reason for the war. Elaborate and
mega-funded commissions of inquiry established and created content to pursue
those implicated, albeit with disastrous prosecutable evidence, save for
reputationally costly prima facie evidence with diminishing chances of being
winnable.
With government being
the ultimate prize of politics, the battle for control of the governing party
intensified through the war on corruption and state capture. Strategic think
tanks and sophisticated lobby groups targeted the governing cognitive elite to
battle it within the party and recalibrate policy postures towards protecting
the established templates for managing the economy. Seen as a whole, the
anti-corruption and anti-state capture war involved a very particular and very
skewed distribution of costs. These battles sprawled propaganda to append
post-apartheid gains of the democratic state as outcomes or perpetuation of
corruption and state capture intensified, sometimes at the unconscious
acknowledgement of the governing elites.
The gains of the war on
corruption and state capture started to be inextricably linked to successes in
taking down individuals who were nodes of the transformation encapsulated
within the liberation promise of the Constitution. Society remains confused as
neither of those involved in the war gives an honest account of their victories
and defeats, except for the spin doctoring and obfuscation of what is really
going on. The proliferation of political parties established by those whose
excommunication from the Establishment creates further polarisation of the true
intentions of the anti-corruption and anti-state capture battles. The
carelessness with which these battles were fought, notably the biased
application of sanctions to selected individuals, made these battles and fights
suffer a credibility crisis. Through the new political parties being formed,
strong emotions have effectively been stirred up and manipulated by political
and true state capture and corruption actors.
The magic question is
how society rescues itself from the abyss of disintegration at the altar of
manipulated anti-corruption and state-capture altruism. Unless the thinkers
start questioning the politically managed martial law where dissent is easily
classified as an anti-one leader or an antidote to 'reoratakaofelaism' that
does not question, the risk of the anti-corruption revolution eating its
children is high. Such battles have social and political capital costs, and a
democracy can take a long time to recover lost ground. 'Reoratakaofelaisms' and
'agonayatshwanalewanaisms' tend to turn benevolent leaders into unmanageable
dictators if the social and political costs of their 'wars on issues' are not
computed. There is, therefore, a need to broaden the base of those that input
into the centre. The more agreeable the centre is in what it is doing, the
greater the risk is for a country to be run by a coterie of leaders who share a
common ignorance. Wilful ignorance has collapsed great democracies. CUT!!
Well stated
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