Nkosana Sibuyi

Posted by Nkosana: 23 December 2011

The African National Congress (ANC) shall celebrate hundred years of its existence on 8 January 2012 at Mangaung, Free State. The current balance of political discourse points that December 2012 would be profoundly different from December 2007. Simply put, other things being equal, it makes functional sense to reflect on the strategem and tactics employed prior to the Polokwane ANC National Conference. Markedly, President Jacob Zuma was the necessary tool used to remove former President Thabo Mbeki from power. He was an effective instrument to fight and defeat what was perceived to be a common enemy. It was undoubtedly through Zuma’s exhibition of victimhood that Mbeki was forced to reach his Waterloo. Consequently, Zuma was chaperoned to the ANC presidential leadership. Expectedly, Zuma has served his purpose. Equally, Mangaung may be worse than Polokwane.

Sol Plaatjie’s celebrated tome, Native Life in South Africa, reflects on the desolation, indomitable spirit of resilience and socio-political polemic towards the de-establishment of apartheid colonialism in South Africa. Bessie Head writes in a foreword to the book that “most black South Africans suffer from a very broken sense of history. Native Life provides an essential, missing link. This book may have failed to appeal to human justice in its time, but there is in its tears, anguish and humility, an appeal to a day of retribution.”

As the country negotiates its way towards the centennial celebrations, there are sequences of underlying challenges facing the ANC in the current conjuncture. Schematically, this boils down to seven theses characterising the superstructure of contradictions inherent in societal evolution and development.

Thesis One: Lack of organisational unity remains the ANC’s nemesis. It is its Achilles heel. It is because the ANC is dead. The paucity of unity in action is palpable. The dearth of unity of purpose is real. It has degenerated. It is obliterated. It is like holding water in our hands. It would slipup.

Thesis Two: The decadence of reverence and decorum for organisational principles has of late, become the defining distinguishing feature. These are the glue that irradiates and opens vistas for an organisation formed on 08 January 1912. The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), has, for some time, rightly or wrongly, been perceived to be a kingmaker in national conferences. It is as if the youth (ANCYL) does not want to leave the outhouse. They have without any doubt occupied some kind of twilight world. One is reminded of the old age adage: humility costs nothing but it pays. It is a perilous cliché. If anything, plotting regicide has assumed an accepted strategy. Conceivably the uncomfortable truth and questions to be posed are: What is the South African experience since 1994? To what extent has the ANC emulated what the National Party did in 1948? Is it appropriate to blame all perceived bad things on the apartheid system? What questions did the ANC ask? What questions did they avoid? What are the contradictions and complementaries?

Thesis Three: Organisational Discipline: Owing to the lack of leadership and organisational discipline, Julius Malema moved to close the vacuum. He became an imposing voice on many issues in the national and international discourse. He sorely defined who the ANC become and perceived by the rest of the world. He was seen through the prism of ANC’s modern history. For instance, Malema’s transgressions, of which he was found guilty, are not much severer than the humiliation he exhibited against former President Thabo Mbeki. He was a useful mascot at the time. He equally served his purpose. Men and women of honour within the ANC however remained inaudible when Malema meted out his ignominious impudence against the sitting president of the country. The ANC grossly failed to deal with this. It is not unexpected. But it is unacceptable.

Thesis Four: It the Leadership Challenge. Every country gets the types of leaders it deserves. Robin Sharma, the renowned leadership expert, in his book The Leader Who Had No Title reflects on the significance of sustaining and deepening leadership transformation. Further, Sharma contends that “too many among us blame outer forces for resistance to mastery we show in our lives versus our inner fears and our weakest beliefs. And, sadly, it’s become more popular to be popular than to be ethical, brave and good. We’ve forgotten the leadership responsibility that our culture once knew. We’ve neglected what it means to stand for something bigger than our lives.” The paucity of leadership in the ANC is reflective of the moral repugnance in the national social fabric. The selection of political leadership, leadership options and possible directions must be reviewed in the face of the current geo-political realities.

Throughout its existence, the ANC was led by icons of unimpeachable integrity. As a general matter, the leadership has, ad nauseam, surprisingly deteriorated since the ANC assumed power in 1994. In a sense, the ANC has been transformed by the very same institution it sought to transform. The state is such an institution. In such cases, this could, amongst others, be attributed to what Professor Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda (better known as Zakes Mda) calls instant gratification and conspicuous consumption as intimated in his Steve Biko Memorial Lecture in 2001. Today’s leaders are not a replica of yesterday’s leaders. The ANC is failing to lead. They are leading the ANC and country like ruffians. The focus of leadership revolves around self-preservation than “to stand for something bigger than our lives.”

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the former Special Advisor to the erstwhile United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan took this argument further arguing that “the world is held together, however precariously, by the vision, leadership and struggle of its leaders who are committed to a world of justice, equality and rule of law.” It is this leadership galvanising idea which would lead to the achievement of the summum bonum-the highest good. This controlling idea must take place within the realm of human consciousness. It must focus on the power of the mind. The mind must wonder in the right direction. The development of strong minds, without doubt, does immensely contribute to the building of a resilient country. It may as well be that this has to do with the identification and resolution of leadership complex phenomena.

As we gravitate towards Mangaung, a number of questions have arisen as a result of the current actualities and practical realities: In what way will Mangaung resemble Polokwane? Put differently, in what way will Mangaung be better or worse off than Polokwane? To put it mildly and consistent with the current political reality, in what way would the outcome or contradictions arising from Mangaung give birth to the emergence of a break-away political party as it equally manifested itself post-Polokwane? Would anything born from the ANC sustain itself or assume the role of a flat spare tyre in national and oppositional politics? Put in other words, the answer and truth immanent in these questions lies in between. It is about making a distinction between the general and particular, abstract and concrete, prognostics and agnostics, essence and phenomenon. Naturally, these questions, the current dimensional circumstances and confluence of major possibilities will therefore assist in responding to the old age question posed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: What is to be done?

Thesis Five: The ANC’s exercise of power is clearly daffy. Cadre deployment policy is a warped logic going against the modicums of meritocracy in both public service and private sector . It goes against the basic canons of insulation, obligation and connection of the public servants to close the yawning chasm between policy development and implementation. Senior appointments have tended to be political at the expense of competence and merit. It is a particle of reality that could degrade the essence of ideational dominant worldview owing to the lack of system in the chaos.

Thesis Six: The ANC is no longer led by ideas and sophisticated understanding of complex issues. It lacks the individual and collective imagination to respond to the rapidly changing global polity for a better South Africa, Africa and the world.

Thesis Seven: The ANC will never be same again. What would happen to the ANC when it loses the national democratic elections? A candid response to this question is that it will afford the ANC a possibility to cleanse itself. Like an ocean, the ANC would have a self-cleansing capacity. It will recognise the centrality of unity of purpose, unity in action for change and refine its tactless strategic political approach.

The theses characterising the superstructure of contradictions outlined herein bespeaks practical confirmation of the correctness both of decorum and integrity in public life. The dialectical connection between the antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions societal development provides a possibility to achieve sommum bonum-the highest good, public good. The achievement of this unique need provides an inestimable advantage and therefore constitutes an ineluctable part of the solution to the paradoxes characterising society. Simply put, the highest good must not be allowed to happen independent of human consciousness, bubbles and busts. The essential argument in all this is that building the social cohesion, regeneration and redefinition must be driven by the public good. This will consolidate the connection with the universe.

The questions remain: What is to be done? But do these prestidigitators exist? We need to test our resilience. It behoves on humankind to replace of a system driven by instant gratification and conspicuous consumption. As human beings who can think, we have the possibility and obligation to build a new consensus on human development and civilisation. Practically, this affirms human capabilities to resolve the superstructure of complexities and ambiguities inherent in human evolution. Consequently, the deconstruction of the contradictions and challenges, must, of necessity, be in the interest of constructing a society premised on insightful social mechanism consistent with the perspective presented by Sol Plaatjie on Native Life in South Africa. Nuanced challenges and issues cannot be simplified through anecdotes and tyranny of the sound bites. This would help construct a South Africans devoid from a very broken sense of history.

REFERENCES

1. Jeffrey D. Sachs. 2005. The End of Poverty. How we can make it happen in our
lifetime. London: Penguin Books
2. Professor Zakes Mda. Biko’s Children. Steve Biko Memorial Lecture. 2001
3. Robin Sharma. 2010. The Leader who had no Title. New York: Smon and Schuster
4. Sol Plaatjie. 1982. Native Life in South Africa