Recently the Constitutional
Court announced that the government’s refusal to
give a visa to the Dalai Lama (to come to Desmond Tutu’s 80th
birthday last year) was unconstitutional.
Was there ever any doubt that this was a quintessential case of
Triumphalism? I mean, if there was ever
a case of shooting Bambi, this was it! It
was the ANC sucking up to China
and nothing more. Hooray for the
Constitutionalists who challenged it, and won!
The Arch joked that the Dalai Lama could now be invited back
– for his 90th birthday party!
This reminded me of an old adage that politicians think of the next election, but statespersons think of the
next generation. I have to say that
in my view, too many politicians are mere triumphalists, whereas constitutuionalists
tend to be statespersons.
We are on the ever of the ANC’s next leadership
conference. The party has rejected efforts
by both business leaders (from the private sectors) and church leaders (from
the voluntary sector) to add value to the decisions that will be made. Nevertheless, many delegates are still people
of faith and many of them also realize the supreme importance of public-private
partnership. The composition of the
conference delegates will be subjected to various kinds of analysis. In my case, I am still beating the drum that
some of them will be triumphalists and others will be constitutionalists. But in what proportion?
One optimistic note is that perhaps the most triumphalist of
all – the deposed leader of the ANC Youth League – has been sidelined. This bodes well for the outcomes.
Yesterday’s Business Day carried an article by Carol
Paton called What has changed from
Polokwane to Mangaung? (In other
words, from the last leadership conference which led to the removal of
then-President Thabo Mbeki, til this one.)
It was very insightful…
“In essence, what the
Polokwane leadership has achieved in the past five years is to stop the
post-1994 trend towards modernization and return to a world in which it is
believed that a command-driven approach works best – and one in which the
liberation movement and its interests are paramount.
“At the most obvious
level, this has meant a significant shift away from constitutionalism, at least
ideologically, but also in practical ways, such as the party’s attitude to the
judiciary, the criminal justice system, policing, state information and
intelligence and, more recently, the economy.
Many of these developments have been criticized and challenged by civil society
organizations, intellectuals and the opposition.
“In a less obvious
way, what the Polokwane leadership has also achieved is to refashion the
party’s relationship with the government, making itself the more significant
and important partner. So while, during
the presidencies of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, it was the government that
took the lead in policy-making, drawing on the expertise and knowledge of
public officials, ministerial advisers and experts in various fields, the ANC
now has primacy in the making of policy.”
I found this to be very relevant. It illuminates how potent Triumphalism has
become. Minister in the Presidency
Trevor Manuel is quoted as saying: “The
system as it is doesn’t work because it structures a relationship between
people in the government and people in the ANC, but there is an asymmetry of
information between them which is quite profound. For example, we will have people in
government making proposals on nuclear energy and ordinary branch members
(having) no idea of what they are talking about”
The Grapes of Wrath
Triumphalism is rooted in the structural inequity that South Africa
cannot seem to shake off.
This has been highlighted of late by striking farm-workers
in the wine-growing region of the Cape. They want a 100% increase in pay from the R75
per day they earn now ($10). The estate
owners say that they cannot sustain such an increase and remain profitable. This is a stand-off. You can’t run a business without a profit;
but you just cannot live on R75 per
day either.
There are still people around who are not fatalistic, who do
not accept that “poverty is part of life”.
And they/we are increasingly disappointed that the expectations that
rose with the dawn of Democracy have not materialized. The gains to date are largely because of
government largesse – with 15 million citizens now on some kind of direct
government aid. (That is more people
than there are in the work force – producing.)
Not all of those who still envision and champion change are Triumphalists,
who have a short-sighted tendency to think of the next election as opposed to
the next generation.
If C4L wants to champion Constitutionalism during the next 2
years, in the run-up to the next elections – among those youth who have never
voted before – then we cannot ignore these “grapes of wrath”. There is just no getting around the need to
bridge this gap – to validate our message.
But how? Corruption is but an
economic way of looting and burning. It
is not thinking of the next generation.
It is becoming the fashion – but it is not Style.
This week, Desmond Tutu was speaking at the memorial service
for Kader Asmal. Minister in the
Presidency Trevor Manuel (quoted above) had also spoken. Tutu got quite animated and asked “What has
happened to us? I mean, what has happened to us that we can just go on going
on? What is the matter with us?” He said
that he had spoken to Trevor Manuel earlier and said, “You don’t belong in this
government”.
Then he said: “Trevor, you tell your boss, that this old man
who said he was retired, I am going to come back. No, I am not going to come back… But there’s
at least one thing that I can do which doesn’t need anybody’s permission – I am
going to pray. You tell him that this
old man is now going to pray, like he prayed for the Nats” (the apartheid
regime).
Thinking globally
Here is a thought from a recent
article in TIME magazine called Africa Rising: “With a very few notable exceptions, our leaders are not part of
accountable governments,” says Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, chairman of
the international mediation body and rights watchdog the Elders. “It's still,
if they perform abominably, so what?” The continent's leaders are, by one
important measure, less accountable than they were in the past. Since it was
set up in 2007 by a Sudanese telecom billionaire, the Mo Ibrahim Index of
African Governance has recorded a striking divergence: material improvement
along with political deterioration. This year, for the third time, Mo Ibrahim's
foundation declined to award its $5 million prize for African leaders who leave
office peacefully and democratically. “We are not completely out of the past
and into the future,” says Ibrahim.
Acting locally - charity begins at home
C4L cannot find this way through the
gauntlet alone, and obviously it is not the only one looking for the way
through! But a reliable road map has not
been found. The Jobs Fund has been a
huge disappointment and the Community Work Programme in C4L’s experience has
been more of a spawning ground for corrupt triumphalists than anything.
My gauntlet metaphor may mean more
to Canadians than Africans. As C4L runs
down this metaphorical corridor, it has triumphalists pounding it on the Left and
constitutionalists hammering it on the Right.
They are both correct – the Left saying that the white right has become
fatalistic and hardened its shell around its hold on Capital. The Right saying that there is no future for
social justice if it means putting the rule of law on the altar and if South Africa
going down the road of (God forbid) a president-for-life.
On the left, C4L’s Livelihood Security Unit has become the
“centre of gravity” for 2013 programming.
It continues to incubate enterprises run by youth in the “green
occupations” (including solar but now broader).
This includes entrepreneurship training.
This is what C4L is doing about the glaring gap that has caused the
“grapes of wrath” scenario to unfold.
This unit is attracting some donor funding, but it only offers some of
the ingredients for enterprise development.
Others are micro-credit for the tools and equipment youth need, business
mentoring, and linkages to market opportunities in the formal sector. Combined, these offer youth a hand up – not a
hand-out.
On the right, C4L’s Opportunities for Youth Programme is
positioning itself to influence youth who have never voted before, in the
run-up to the next elections in 2014 (that is, youth who are 16 – 21 years of
age today). But this voter education has
to be delivered very judiciously and as inconspicuously as possible! Even though it is civic education, not
politics. C4L will have to use tools
like social networking, blogging and cellphone sites – where youth congregate
virtually. This is not the kind of work
that lends itself to grantseeking – few Donors will want to risk it. So we ask you to consider pledging support to
this cause for the next 2 years, or to make a one-off donation to help get it
going in early 2013. Please keep this in
mind as you are closing your accounts for the year.
Remember that gifts in Canada
can be sent through:
St Paul’s United
Church
PO Box 88
Warkworth,
ON
K0K 3K0
Please mark the gifts “for C4L outreach”.
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