Only some political
revolutions get to be completed. Because all revolutions end up with a
settlement by elites and incumbents, they have become an outcome of historical moment-defined
interests and less about the actual revolution. This settlement often involves
a power-sharing agreement among the ruling elites and the incumbent government,
which may not fully address the revolutionary goals. When the new power
relations change, the new shape they take almost always comes with new
challenges. As the quest for political power surpasses that of pursuing social
and economic justice, alliances formed on the principles of a national
revolution suffocate.
The
ANC-led tripartite alliance's National Democratic Revolution is incomplete. The
transfer of the totality of the power it sought to achieve still needs to be completed. While
political power is arguably transferred, the checks and balances which the
settlement has entrenched in the constitutional order have made the transfer of
economic power and social control subject to the rule of law. The law that the
rule is about is the new terrain of contestation as the forensic analysis of
power, a detailed examination of power dynamics and their implications gets
intense. The ideology of power in the law, most of which is the basis of common
law despite its contested origins, creates systemic tensions between the
liberation expectations and the liberation promises the law guarantees.
As
the true nature and character of the law and precedents it relies upon to give
expression to the judicial authority and power in the total state negotiate a
relationship with the liberation promise in the constitution, the undergirding
colonial power of law, which is privileged, trumps those that are historical
victims of the power it carries. The African liberation movements, most of
which still do not have a self-standing thesis of an African State save for an
antithesis of a colonial state, are in a perpetual race to posture legitimacy
in how they perpetuate their coloniality. This includes the post-colonial left,
whose image of leftist politics does not have a historical originative African
context. They are left in the image of other civilisations. The right of the
left has, for a while, made the left aspire for non-African.
Although
theorised as ideological, the tensions in the alliance also question the
basis of the left, which those claiming to be left use and argue. Only some people who profess to be left are indeed left ideologically. They might be left of
the incumbent right and potentially still within the catchment of the right. Given
the character of the RSA Constitution, the SACP's decision to consider
contesting for state power is arguably a declaration of readiness to enter into
a compact with the ideological thrust of the constitutional order. Its
profoundly market-oriented treasury prescripts, subject to defined
thresholds for any amendments, make the SACP an interesting contender.
As
the revolution advances, so do class interests. In an election contest
determined political power democracy, change is an omnipresent constant capable
of distorting the balance of power in sovereign terms. The loss of
absolute power by the ANC through an election occasioned a coalition
government. The governing arrangements that led to the GNU being contested by
the alliance have taken it closer to its rapture with the possibility of
severing ties. What held the coalition together was its consensus on the NDR as
a process of struggle and the objectives it was pursuing.
In
its strictest sense, the NDR has the objectives of non-racialism, non-sexism,
democracy, unity, and prosperity. These objectives are predicated on a social
justice, human dignity-based, and human rights-anchored democratic order. The
success of any ideological orientation will forever be based on the will of the
people as expressed in election outcomes. The NDR is thus constrained by the
extent to which those with state power define or interpret its five pillar
objectives. The interpretation of the revolution by self-professed leftists
that are left of a right many aspire as the absence of a business case for actual
left politics in RSA compromises the destination. This condition is omnipresent
in any discourse about the renewal of the ANC.
Therefore,
the various revolution versions can not breathe in South Africa. The
indefatigably defended templates of socioeconomic and economic domination suffocate
the NDR in all its interpretations. These templates limit "we the
people's" freely elected representatives to establish a society based on
democratic values, social and economic justice, and fundamental human rights. In material terms, the South African revolution has been unable to dislodge
race and class as vectors of analysis. How the demographics of poverty,
inequality, and unemployment manifest themselves has kept the RSA politics more
racial than beyond race pragmatism.
The
NDR has become an ideological vortex that few in the ANC understand. To the
SACP, it is "the shortest and direct route to socialism in South
Africa". To the ANC, it represents a framework with which it can justify
its policy intents without committing to any ideological path. It has for a
while been normative to the struggle to emancipate "we the people". If the ANC is not clear about what it means by a National Democratic Society,
it can easily misunderstand or misrepresent the existential risks it faces and
the options it has for addressing them, including its ambitious renewal
program. The ideological contest for the soul of the ANC, especially within the
context of its progressively growing geopolitical significance, is intense and
requires an OR Tambo standard of ideological clarity.
In
this pursuit of the NDR, the ANC has compacted with a constitutional order that
operates on the people's will within a multiparty democratic system. When
operating outside of being one-party dominated, the constitutional order
anchors a legislative authority that promotes co-governance through a
proportional representation system whose zenith might be a perpetual coalition
government. The system elevates the rule of law, the supremacy of the
constitution, and a fully independent, life-tenured judiciary with the power to
create precedents with the force of law. To the extent that the decisions of
the legislature and executive are lawful, they cannot be implementable.
The constitutional
order, in managing regional and subnational rigidities, further distributes or
decentralises essential functions and competencies between the three spheres of
government. The multiple subnational jurisdictions with variously sourced
political mandates continuously spawning new permutations are challenging the NDR. The form and character of the democratic order
structurally compromise the power and legitimacy of a central ideological
posture.
As
the centre pursues an ideological agenda, the corresponding regional autonomies
with defined jurisdiction-based authority have diffused, making
it difficult to put in line without usurping human rights. This condition has
also disintegrated the liberation movement as a centre that could hold. The
multiple racial, ethnic, and class characters it has grown to be have matured
to a point its renewal might have to acknowledge their force. The construct of
a unitary ideological state might have to be abandoned in favour of a federated
ideology construct. Identity politics is a reality. Those fighting it will be
defined as irrelevant as regional or virtual power blocs are organised in race,
class, and ethnic identity terms. The new demon might be the anti-identity
recognising national as the historical demon of tribalism ascends.
The
inconvenient reality is that a theme woven throughout our history is a deep
mistrust of being a united nation. Despite the shifts the constitutional order has
imposed on us to be a sovereign and united nation, our population retains great
faith in the availability of opportunity and the power of narrow and
ethno-national self-determination. No matter how we account for the loss, as a
historical reckoning of accumulated losses from colonialism, apartheid,
institutional racism, post-apartheid corruption or as a forward-looking
reckoning of the cost of leaving the system as it is, South Africa is suffering
enormously from leaving so many behind.
In true revolutionary terms, especially the post-apartheid liberation promise, fully realising our constitutional order's potential would change not just the ideological vectors of society but also the heart and soul of the nation and country. The NDR, if it is indeed an ideology, is an ideology, a paradigm, an institutional system and a worldview that the post-apartheid democratic orders' ANC membership have been born into by the historical privilege the ANC had for masterminding the ultimate demise of apartheid. Plausible as the NDR objectives have been, they can only move people toward meaningful change if they yield material change in society.
The
context of the reigning constitutional order makes it insufficient not to be an
activist pursuing the NDR objectives. However, it is important to be opposed to
anything that thwarts the attainment of the NDR and demonstrate such opposition
in your words, deeds, and actions. For the nation to thrive, we must first
change the NDR narrative. Current strategies focus on the established
constitutional order as the problem rather than intractable templates and systems
of socioeconomic domination. It is these templates that make us continue to
live in a world that for centuries has dehumanised, ostracised, murdered and
otherwise violated the human rights of many. Instead of splintering into
enclaves that antagonise each other as ideological, class, race, worker, or any
other tribe, we must come together as a society to find the keys that open the
interlocked systems that are so tightly bound our history of injustice that
there seems to be no way to unlock or loosen them. The NDR must first breathe
for it to be completed. If it breathes, it will shake the unseen skeletons of
dominance central to its operation. We should make it viral. CUT!!!
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