“Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The
revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and when
they can pick it up.”
Hannah Arendt, 1989 Thoughts on Politics and
Revolution[1]
Faced with perhaps the greatest post-Apartheid
crisis of leadership and governance that the democratic dispensation has
endured, the South African left are largely unable to find a coherent voice,
and are hence unable to mount any serious programme of action to remedy the
situation.
The situation, however, is clear if one follows
the money. The recent cabinet reshuffle is a thinly veiled attempt to follow
through on a series of attempts to green-light the R1 Trillion nuclear deal.
Indeed, no sooner than the new Minister of Finance had been appointed did he
declare his support for the deal. The nuclear deal follows a long line of
scandalous corruption expose’s, disastrous maladministration debacles and
numerous attempts to take control of the various institutions that make up the
state complex, by the current ANC government, led by President Jacob Zuma.
It is true that there are many dimensions to
the crisis that South Africa finds itself in, in general. Economic growth is
marginal, almost at a stall, unemployment and inequality are at unacceptable
levels, the various institutions and organisations within the state that are
tasked with delivery have hollowed out from within and regularly failed
dismally to meet public demand, some parastatals (such as South African
Airways) have required large bail-outs despite poor leadership and constant
failure to meet their own targets, strikes and protests are regular features of
the South African political landscape, and the political decision-making is so
unpredictable that it regularly sends shockwaves through the economy. To add to
this, the ruling party has all but fragmented and split from within, and the
ANC is now in a pitched battle with itself while the nation looks on. It is the
worst of times for South Africa since the heydays of Apartheid.
Yet it is undeniable that the pending nuclear
deal, which the president needs to sign off on before the December 2017 ANC
presidential election presents the most immediate threat to the medium and long
term future of South Africa. To ignore this central reality is to ignore the
fact that every other social agenda relies on the security of the public purse.
Whether one talks of free or semi-free education, healthcare, public transport,
social housing, and so forth, the reality is that a deal that is likely to
induce crippling debt would thwart every other agenda that the left raises its
voice in support of. So this is a time when anyone who is familiar with the
political history of South Africa would legitimately expect that the left would
be on the march. Yet it isn’t so. The question is why.
In order to understand the South African left
you need to rewind back to the events of Polokwane in December 2007, where the left played a
critical and key role in ousting then president Thabo Mbeki from the leadership
seat of the ANC, and handing it over to Jacob Zuma. At the time, Jacob Zuma was
already a divisive public figure. He had over 700 counts of corruption pending
against him, most related to the ‘other’ deal that went awry in South Africa,
the famous ‘arms deal’. He had also been previously forced to step down from
the vice presidency after the 2005 Hilary Squires judgment, in which he was found to
have had a “mutually beneficial” relationship with Schabir Shaik, who was found
guilty of corruption and sentenced.
At the time, the South African left
rationalised the ANC’s internal coup at Polokwane by claiming that Jacob Zuma
would restore the agenda of the left and revive the famous post-Apartheid
Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which had died under the
neoliberal policies of Thabo Mbeki. Jacob Zuma, we were promised, would be our
Hugo Chavez, our Evo Morales, he would put the left agenda into motion and
rescue the poor from their margins and bring them into the centre. They would
be priority number one, and Jacob Zuma – the ‘consensus builder’ – was the one
to do it because he was not like the ‘arrogant’ Thabo Mbeki who they viewed as
increasingly more autocratic in nature.
The South African Communist Party threw their
weight behind Jacob Zuma. The Council of South African Trade Unions and the ANC
Youth League also threw their weight behind him, with Julius Malema – the leader
of the ANCYL – and Zwelinzima Vavi – the leader of COSATU – declaring that they
were willing to “kill for Jacob Zuma”. Mathews Phosa and long list of ANC
leaders that sit within the ANC National Executive Committee also loudly
proclaimed their support for Jacob Zuma. Prominent activists such as Zackie
Achmat also supported Jacob Zuma, declaring that he should be given a chance to
govern and be judged on that.
There were very many leaders who convinced
South Africans that they should judge Jacob Zuma on his performance. He drew
the SACP closer to the centre of power than they had been under the latter
years of the Mbeki government, as well as COSATU, and they became central to
his leadership. For the left, they were given the pound seat under Zuma, and
they readily took position. At the time there was little critical reflection,
there was an eagerness to get on with it and rhetoric took precedence over
analysis. There was scant hesitation on the part of the left and they proceeded
to mount an impenetrable defence of the new President and his leadership, of
which they were a part.
Fast-forward to 2017 and the ANC alliance with
the SACP and COSATU lies in tatters. The vast majority of prominent leaders who
stood by Jacob Zuma – even those who professed to be prepared to kill and die
for him – are now his most vocal critics. Just yesterday the SACP called for
his resignation, despite the fact that they were the biggest winners in last
week’s cabinet reshuffle. They now profess deep outrage at President Zuma’s
actions and insinuate that his decision-making has proceeded in a manner that
goes against the ANC’s traditions of consultative governance, that he is in
effect making his decisions without them, and by implication, with others that
lie outside of the ANC fold.
Yet the intellectual and activist left have
found themselves unable to mount any serious programme of action against
President Jacob Zuma’s leadership. Their first explanation is that having made
the mistake of throwing their support behind Zuma at the outset; that they need
to be more reflective of their actions now. Their second explanation is that
the Zuma leadership represents an ideological project, which necessitates
accessing the national treasury so that they can have greater control over how
funds are dispensed in service of the poor. On the face of it, these
explanations seem to make sense. Yet there is far more to the left’s reluctance
to take action against President Jacob Zuma.
It can be better understood by examining the
consistent pattern of behaviour that has emerged over the years, as each and
every scandal around the president and his leadership has hit the headlines.
With each new scandal and failure, the initial response of the left is to
profess outrage and unhappiness at the most recent turn of events. That is,
their shock is vented and it is unmistakeable that they are unhappy with the
situation.
Thereafter, however, when public calls to
action are made, the left retreats into hyper-theoretical analysis and begin to
demand that without a clear programme of action that addresses the underlying
systemic problems (as they see it) in our government and economic system, they
cannot throw their support behind any programme of protest action. They also
raise doubts about who they may be asked to partner with – typically associating
any centrist dissenters with the agendas of the private sector and big ‘monopoly
capital’ – and flatly refuse to join hands with them. They refuse to compromise
what can only be termed as their ‘ideological purity’, for the sake of
convenience. “What will come next?” they shudder, and retreat into long-winded
conspiracies and theoretical meanders, avoiding taking any action in the end.
In their view, and it is plain to see if one
witnesses the interactions between prominent left intellectuals, academics and
activists, that they desire a coherent programme of action before budging an
inch off their seats. That they are not willing to join with a rag-tag mixed
bunch of ordinary South Africans and different interest groups to see through
an issue-based agenda. Without a clear ideological programme, they aren’t
interested in wading into the space of action. Indeed, they are consistent in
this position, as it is also the position they adopt towards the student
activists who have been protesting for free and ‘decolonized’ higher education
in South Africa. Ironically, many student activists who have themselves been
abandoned by the left take up the same position towards any attempt at a broad
public coalition to oust the Zuma leadership. It is indisputable, however, that
all and sundry who occupy this position believe deeply in what they profess to.
Yet if one looks behind the ideological
posturing, and the desire for a coherent political project as a pre-requisite for
action, there is a stark reality that cannot be ignored. It can be understood
by asking why the left were so quick to jump into bed with Jacob Zuma in the
first place. Despite the mea culpa’s that abound in left discourse – that they
were too quick to throw their support behind Zuma and are hence being more
careful now – the reality is somewhat different. If one reads between the lines
and looks past the pretence of ideological purity, this has everything to do
with power.
Simply put, the left threw caution to the wind
in their early support of Jacob Zuma because they saw him as their opportunity
to gain power. Now, when faced with the abject failure of his presidency, they
are unable to see a clear way to power by joining hands with the rest of
society and committing to an issue-based programme of public action. Hence the
reticence to proceed without a clear ideological framework, hence the suspicion
of actors from other sectors in society who they fear may hijack the momentum
and marginalise them. They are not refusing to take action due to a preference
for ideological consistency; rather they refusing to act because they cannot
see clearly how they gain significant political power through becoming part of
a broader, issue-based movement for change.
Were the situation different – i.e. if the left
were unified and strong, and could mobilise broad-based public support – they would
no doubt be hurling themselves headlong into protest, convincing the rest of
society (like they did before) to trust that they would work out their
ideological programme when they were in the driving seat of power and could
make things happen. The high levels of navel-gazing and introspection that the
left are currently engaged in, ad nauseam, would be swiftly put aside and
reconciled as critical to the pragmatics of power.
In respect of the claim that the Zuma
presidency is guided by an ideological project, the reality is that this
ideological project never materialised in any significant shape or form over
two terms under Zuma. It is not a sincere ideological project; it is merely a
smokescreen for accessing the treasury to guarantee the financial gain of Zuma’s
large patronage network within and outside of government. The nuclear deal is
central to this agenda, and that is why it alone presents South Africa with an
immediate crisis of gargantuan proportions. It is effectively the ‘check-mate’
of the Zuma presidency, and even if he is removed as ANC president at the end
of the year and recalled, once set in motion, a deal as large as this will
prove very difficult to undo.
With the exception of very few on the left,
such as the Alternative Information and Development Centre who put out a
statement calling for the left to put their differences with the rest of
society aside to stop Zuma’s leadership and the nuclear deal, the overwhelming
response from left wing intellectuals and academics has been to refuse to be
seen to be part of any public action that is led by those who have taken the
first step. They are even unwilling to enter the space of action and
collectively formulate a vision that they can be comfortable with; which in
reality is how most sincere, practical political projects are formulated. They
have adopted an attitude of distrust towards the groups who are taking action,
instead of engaging them and working out their differences.
Although it is a great pity that the left
cannot be seen to reduce itself to engagement with those of other persuasions,
including ordinary South Africans who are largely unable to engage in deep left
wing theoretical debates, it is the left that will suffer most as a result of
their inaction. Throwing themselves into the space of action offers them a
critical opportunity, that is; to reconstitute the heavily fragmented left into
a cohesive public force for change. Nothing unifies as much as broad-based
engagement does, it is a testing ground where issues and interests can be
resolved in the space of action. The immediacy of action forces a pragmatism
that many on the intellectual front of the left are so far away from that they
have essentially made themselves irrelevant. This is true not just in South
Africa, but in many other parts of the world right now, hence the ironic
adoption of left-wing discourse by those within the alt-right.
Yet the leadership vacuum remains, and it will
be captured by those who are willing to get on to the streets and engage with ordinary
people, mobilise them, and give them a structured approach towards achieving
the goals of their cause. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and this is
especially the case when crisis has arrived on society’s doorstep. The space of
action contains the fire that forges the new ‘steel’ of movement. Movements cannot
be built in theory, from afar, they need to be built with real people – warts and
all – and diverse sets of actors, in order to be effective enough to contest
power.
In the end, the left’s worst nightmare – that of
a country that continues to be driven by a liberal agenda – may become a
reality precisely because they refuse to act. And it is predictable what they
will do. They will snipe from the side-lines, pointing out all the theoretical
reasons why whoever is ruling is moving things in the wrong direction and will
ultimately fail to give South Africans the future they desire, but the reality
is that they have abdicated their first responsibility. That is, the first
responsibility of anybody who is engaged in the political domain is to society
itself, and not to grand ideologies or theories, or to their need to retain the
respect and admiration of their peers (which is to whom most internal debates
on the left are directed). The first responsibility of political actors is to
the people, and not just to power; it is indeed strange and surreal that the
left itself needs to be reminded of that, but here we are.
[1] Full quote: “Revolutionaries
do not make revolutions! The revolutionaries are those who know when power is
lying in the street and when they can pick it up. Armed uprising by itself has
never yet led to revolution.”
No comments:
Post a Comment