RSA democracy is a product of a political settlement.

This was published in TimesLive on 11 September 2024 under the same tile.

 Whenever there is a discourse about the 'outstanding' aspects of the liberation struggle, there is a tendency to view South Africa from a presumption of a liberation struggle that was fought, won, and ended with a treaty. A case has been made that a National Democratic Revolution, which transfers (political, economic, and social control) power to the people, has hastened the arrival of a post-1994 South Africa. 

Closer interaction with the facts about the build-up to 27th April 2024 and the signing of the 1996 Constitution reveals a historical record sharply at odds with the dominant narrative of a liberation struggle that was outrightly won. One of the most exciting narratives is the enigmatic representation of uMkhonto we Sizwe and mass action as decisive in ushering in the political settlement and accord. In reality, the end of apartheid was a combination of it being a crime against humanity, its ANC-led isolation from the world, the legitimacy crises it faced inside the country and amongst its beneficiaries, and the convergence of leadership missions of those history ordained to be catalysts of its demise. The 1996 Constitution, a key outcome of the settlement, played a significant role in shaping the democratic order of post-apartheid South Africa. 

Staged in a global context that was characterised by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union and an end to the Cold War, a unique trust relationship between a Nelson Mandela-led ANC and an FW de Klerk-led National Party- an apartheid state establishment, the settlement had a better political shelf life. This complex also existed with local business, capital, and geopolitical interests about RSA as a still strategic trade route connecting the West with the East. The most significant risk was the concretising cloud of power-wielding players, including domestic and international actors, starting to shape South Africa's political outcomes with no deterministic power. Despite the monopoly of violence it still commanded, the state as the centre was crumbling. 

The global firmament of 'peace through strength' under which the end of the Cold War is attributed did not leave the South African politico-military establishment outside of it. The preponderance of 'doves', who were proponents of negotiation and compromise in the RSA military and national security establishment, the crisis of the US as a single superpower, and how the international and diplomatic prowess of the OR Tambo-led ANC leveraged on the balance of forces made the political settlement we have the best option to deliver the liberation promise our Constitution has now made legal. 

Whilst all adversaries at the CODESA negotiations had multidimensional strategies to liquidate apartheid and colonialism, how the country ultimately got into a political settlement will always define the cadence of transformation and its democratic order. Such was the force of 'peace through strength' firmament that it was of cardinal importance for FW de Klerk to hand over to a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, and 'united' South Africa a legislative framework that did not contain any of the apartheid legislation. In statute, when South Africa voted, there was no national apartheid legislation, save for structures that served as its template of domination. This, the National Party 'quipped', was left to a new South Africa to fracture. 

The back-and-forth conversations between Nelson Mandela and several National Party Cabinet Ministers and leaders of the official opposition, the briefings to OR Tambo through secured and protected channels, the ANC and Apartheid State C-Suite conversations, which included the much-reported Thabo Mbeki-Jacob Zuma and the Neil Barnard team remain the least celebrated catalysts of the political settlement. That the conversations were happening under a PW Botha government and the evidence of statutory reforms of apartheid under him should indicate how far back the demise of apartheid was already coming, save for the mission to safeguard the templates of economic dominance. The incompatibility of PW Botha in concluding the settlement and the need for a dovish leader should not exclude his stewardship of the process since he took over as Prime Minister. This does not absolve him from the murderous escapades and assassinations ordered under the rubric of him being the then commander-in-chief. This includes FW de Klerk. 

The call of leadership to the cohort that presided over the complex politics of South Africa, from both sides, more pointedly the government and the ANC, required a behaviour which embraced deliberate duplicity and hostility. To both sides, this duplicity got interpretations, most of which were strategically leaked to the media to undermine the process, which characterised those involved as collaborators, sell-outs, and, at worst, treasonous. This theme continues to be invoked, and outside its context, to judge the beyond then politics. The brute truth is that the political or otherwise logic of the moment unleashed in those threading the settlement of radical state reformers; some did not know they were. None of them, if they were genuinely seeking a political settlement and were persons of integrity, would have had the desire to surrender power and others to compromise on their imagination of power. 

Suppose a moment in history exemplifies the Nobel Peace Prize-worthy peaceful character of Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk. In that case, it is how they navigated the context of duplicity and hostility that their roles demanded of them, with a measure of integrity to each other and the responsibility they had over the people of South Africa. Their humane side resonated with the nation, making the settlement possible and giving peace a chance.

History rhymes more than it repeats itself. It is a guardrail to protect human circumstances from dogmatically believing in the perceived newness of what would have otherwise happened, just rhyming in the present. Like seasons of nature, what changes in human events is time and agency; the rest are episodes of the same movie of humanity. The configuration of who is powerful today is more constraining to how any national dialogue on what is outstanding of the liberation promise can be put in the centre of politics without upsetting what has since emerged as the establishment. The new holders of political power context is more complex than in the past; their hold on power is far less secure…and their tenures are more vulnerable and shorter. The basic structure of the Constitution, the certifying principle, and the structure of economic exclusion rhyme with a context we have gone through; the dialogue must avoid being a Tintswalo and parent the democratic order. 

Those who will be at the dialogue should be acutely aware that never in the field of human conflict have so few had the potential to do so much damage to so many. As we profile participants in the dialogue, we need a weighted scale to determine the significance of the quality of the dialogue away from the quantity of representation. The difficulty of regimenting and controlling interest is genuine. CUT!!!