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"Understanding the NDR in 2030" by Booi and Tsibane: a rejoinder

The NDR, a concept with rich historical significance, has been the most loosely defined. Unless otherwise changed, the ANC's POLEDU material explains the NDR as "the process of struggle to transfer power to (we) the people. Such power is political, economic, and social control." It articulates the objectives of the NDR as the creation of a national democratic society that is "non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, united, and democratic." 

Therefore, the five objectives are not just what the NDR stands on but also serve as crucial guidelines for the struggle process as the revolution unfolds. These objectives, which aim to transfer political, economic, and social control power to (we) the people, are the standards by which the NDR is measured or benchmarked in an ANC context. 

To this end, the entire gamut of the ANC's monumental documents, from the 1923 Human Rights document to the 1996 Constitution the ANC adopted at the 50th National Conference in 1997, is congruent with the objectives of the NDR as a struggle process. The adoption of the 1996 Constitution, as an outcome of a constituent assembly process in which the ANC commanded a majority, marked the transfer of power through a universal franchise to us, the people, a momentous event in the NDR journey.  


The transfer of power, through the legislative and executive authority vested in the democratic institutions of Parliament and Executive Authority, created institutions of the state, manned by freely elected representatives, was the trigger process to guarantee the liberation promise to (we) the people. The principles, founding values, bill of fundamental rights, governance directives, cooperative government principles, and the accountability ecosystem articulated in the Constitution provide frameworks within which the NDR objectives could be legally enforceable and implemented as a state program. 

 

The state's judicial authority, vested in the courts, plays a significant role in the NDR. The apex officers, the judges, are appointed through a process that ends at the apex of the accountability ecosystem where our (we, the people) freely elected representatives are. Independent as it is, the judiciary draws its legitimacy from the public power 'we the people' have institutionalised in the state and its agency, thereby ensuring the NDR's adherence to democratic principles. 


It is, therefore, not the NDR, which is a two-stage process, but a socialist revolution. The NDR is one process of transferring power to (we) the people in our non-racial and non-sexist character. The NDR has not pronounced the class character of "we the people". On the contrary, it sees "(we) the people" as its motive force. The NDR is about creating a National Democratic Society. Importantly, it does not impose any obligation for that society to be socialist or otherwise as long as it is non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, united, and prosperous. 

 

The tools and programs used to achieve the NDR objectives are not tools for a socialist stage of 'other programs or ideological orientations' but programmatic interventions through state organs to advance towards an NDS. 


It is essential not to be ideologically mischievous. The NDR should be allowed to articulate its optimisation phases without derailing its march towards an NDS. If that society were to become socialist, it would be the outcome of a markedly different process that is not mutually exclusive to the NDR's march for a different result, except for the unwavering commitment to NDR objectives. The Chinese trajectories demonstrate how a steadfast focus on objectives as noble as the NDR's can yield a prosperous society with sovereign dignity. 

 

Wa ni twa mos!!!

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