Thought Factory: The Legacy of Polokwane: A Deepening Generation Ga...

Thought Factory: The Legacy of Polokwane: A Deepening Generation Ga...: When the ANC toppled its longest serving president in Polokwane in December 2007 at its 52 nd National Conference, the internal ‘coup’ was...

The Legacy of Polokwane: A Deepening Generation Gap

When the ANC toppled its longest serving president in Polokwane in December 2007 at its 52^nd National Conference, the internal ‘coup’ was both celebrated and denounced in equal measure. The images of an internal party revolt, which manifested in open jeering, singing and toy-toying - directed at the then ANC leadership - shook the entire nation. Jacob Zuma was elected party president, and a new National Executive Committee (NEC) (which eventually recalled the sitting president Thabo Mbeki the following year) was voted in.

To many ANC loyalists, it signaled the beginning of the end of the ANC that they knew and loved. For them, its carefully cultivated post-liberation identity, which emphasized its moral authority, professionalism and dignity, was now giving way to populism and crudity instead. To the supporters of the ‘coup’ a new, left-leaning leadership that would faithfully represent the burning needs of ‘the people’ was set to emerge, and Jacob Zuma was the ideal leader. He was consensus driven and representative of the everyday common man.  He was not like the erstwhile ‘stuck up’ intelligentsia that had previously held the reins of the ANC.

Polokwane set in motion an irreversible change, which has ultimately led to the conditions that we find ourselves in today as a country. At the time, I was moved to write an article, which was entitled “Zuma’s precarious balancing act” by the Weekend Argus. In it, I warned against the dangers of mobilising the mob as a force in South African politics, because its dangers had the potential to quickly outweigh its expediency and short-term benefits. Perhaps it was the unbridled arrogance and peculiar over-sensitivity to criticism of the new ANC NEC that allowed it to overlook the dangers of the path they had chosen to tread. Perhaps it was short-termism or short-sightedness. Whatever the case, the new ANC NEC failed to grasp the relevance of what had transpired at Polokwane, and what it had unleashed in our political sphere.

The generational gap that had grown between older anti-apartheid era ANC members, and its newer, younger, more outspoken youth base; had reached a critical point. The new ANC NEC had mobilised this frustrated, impatient constituency as a vehicle for its own convenience, but failed to address the core issues that the youth were concerned with. Julius Malema, then leader of the ANC youth league, proclaimed his support for Jacob Zuma with the words that he was “prepared to kill for Jacob Zuma”.

The middle classes – and especially whites who have never been able to shake the fear of black uprising – drew a collective breath. The “kill” rhetoric had been invoked again. The revolutionary “kill the boer!” rhetoric had already created consternation and a reaction from various elements of civil society. Now, the youth league (and the leader of COSATU; Zwelinzima Vavi) had invoked violent imagery in their defence of Jacob Zuma. The message was ‘hands off our president, or else!’

When pushed to clarify exactly what the ‘or else’ part of their message meant in real terms they both retreated into semantics, equating their ‘willingness to die’ for Jacob Zuma with their ‘willingness to kill’ for him. Notwithstanding that this made no sense at all – that a willingness to die for beliefs did not equate to killing for them – it was swallowed up and readily digested by a public who just wanted things to return to normal, and for all this talk to go away.

This absurd reasoning has since characterised much of the ANC NEC’s stance on every issue that has presented a challenge to them. For a period of time, the ANC youth league went along with these performances, acquiring an autocratic aura where scathing proclamations dominated their communications, instead of well-reasoned arguments. No distinction was made between evidence and anecdote, or between theory and practise, and a politics of irony and whitewashing quickly entrenched itself. The ANC had become an impenetrable fortress, “a revolutionary house”, carefully guarded by a paranoid NEC, SACP, COSATU and Youth League. However, internally it was a house divided, and it never quite recovered from the ruptures that Polokwane brought with it.

Ultimately the cracks began to show. Julius Malema and Zwelinzima Vavi found themselves increasingly side-lined and outmanoeuvred (and even in conflict with each other). The unholy trinity that the ANC prides itself on has now all but disintegrated. Now only a farcical enactment of unity remains, propped up by empty rhetoric and tired, outdated, self-referencing clichés. But the lesson that Polokwane brought to a younger generation of marginalised, frustrated cadres was not forgotten.

Whereas there were only 13 service delivery protests in 2004, by 2012 there were well over 400, averaging around 100 per year leading up to the present***. While people may vote for the ANC, they have learnt that the only way they can get the ANC to act on its electoral promises is through open confrontation, and even violence. This, simply put, is clear evidence that our democracy is failing the very people that it was intended to represent.

“You have to fight for what you stand for” is Julius Malema’s clear message to the large, emerging youth bulge demographic. The EFF is not another COPE. It is not a DA. It is the first truly representative black opposition movement in parliament, and it has clearly demonstrated that it intends to achieve its vision through open confrontation and direct pressure, not negotiation and compromise. It will go the extra mile to bring about the changes it seeks, and won’t take no for an answer. It is very consistent with its origins. The lessons that Polokwane taught the next generation, is that change can be effected through open confrontation, intimidation, provocation and unrest.

The next generation has a few more lessons to teach the self-satisfied ex-heroes of the struggle who - despite their best efforts - cannot remain in power forever. The challenges will intensify, and we will reach new breaking points. The writing is on the wall; a new force has emerged and it will seek out and exploit every opportunity that it can to topple the ANC leadership that it believes has betrayed them, and the leader and leadership they helped put in power.

The only long term survival strategy that the ANC can realistically adopt is to draw the EFF back into its fold. In order to do that, a repeat of Polokwane is required. But it will have to take the form of many small Polokwanes such as what we recently witnessed in parliament. They will snap at the heels of the president until he slips and falls. Then they will go for the jugular, and the very man they swore to “kill” for will likely become their most celebrated victim, even more than Thabo Mbeki, who now cuts a very respectable figure by comparison to the man who replaced him.

The chant, “pay back the money!” has already rooted itself firmly in the collective psyche. It will be followed by other chants, and in the same way as “Umshini-wam” was invoked as a rallying cry to defend the president, these new chants will increasingly draw attention to the hollow spin doctoring that our politics is now infected by. As Julius Malema put it in an interview with e-tv, “It is the beginning of many, many actions to be taken against President Zuma, so that he is held accountable”. Ironically, Polokwane means “place of safety”. After December 2007, no place is safe anymore in South Africa, not even parliament, and we had all better get used to it. 

***Assessments of service delivery protests vary between sources and different criteria are used to classify them, so the figures accounting for service delivery protests in South Africa are to be regarded as rough approximations of a general trend i.e. the figures for different years are not directly comparable. The figures cited in this article are taken from an Institute for Security Studies media briefing entitled "Community Protests 2004-2013: Some Research Findings" released on the 12th of February 2013 by the Social Change Research Unit, Authors Prof Peter Alexander, Dr Carin Runciman and Mr Trevor Ngwane (see https://www.issafrica.org/ and search for report). Note that the other often used data set is called Municipal IQ (see reference 3 below).

Some additional sources are listed here for the reader:

1. http://mg.co.za/article/2014-02-12-research-shows-sharp-increase-in-service-delivery-protests

2. http://www.cetri.be/Rebellion-of-the-poor-South-Africa?lang=fr

3. http://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/documents/Jolobe2014-CrisisLocalGovernment.pdf

4. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Study-finds-protests-are-spiralling-20120617

5. http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/05/11/service-delivery-protests-on-track-for-new-peak-level-in-2016-

6. http://mg.co.za/article/2016-06-07-new-stats-show-that-nine-out-of-11-protests-a-day-are-peaceful

Exceptionalism, Hegemony and the UNSC Godfathers

Exceptionalism, Hegemony and the UNSC Godfathers

The United Nations secretary general Ban Ki Moon recently announced that the much awaited upcoming report on whether chemical weapons were used in Syria would indeed confirm that they were used. He also stated that President Bashar Al Assad had already committed many crimes against humanity.  He did not go so far as to accuse the Syrian government of the recent 21^st August chemical weapons attack, but the implication of the remark is significant.

A few days ago, the Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, warning the USA to respect the United Nations Security Council as the main authority that decides when, and when not, war can be waged in a non-self defence capacity by any nation. He also implored the USA to guard against inadvertently supporting Al Qaeda militants, who supplement the ranks of the opposition to the Syrian government (even though the extent of their involvement is disputed). He ended by mounting a scathing attack on the notion of “American exceptionalism”, which allows the USA to justify taking unilateral action on global issues of critical importance to planetary security and stability.

Putin made no mention of the deadlock that arrests the UNSC whenever conflict plays out in drastic and brutal measure, and requires an international response. Very rarely, if ever, do the Russians and Chinese see ‘eye to eye’ with the USA on what course of action is necessary or appropriate in these circumstances. Essentially, issues that arise over global and regional security concerns become ‘political footballs’ with which the small pool of key actors in the struggle for global domination play out their struggle to dominate each other. In the quest for power, the focus on what is best for a particular country or region is lost, and instead, a shameful display of chest beating emerges and takes centre stage, as the divisions in the security council play out.

Syria and Syrians - who have endured 100,000 deaths, 4 million internally displaced persons and 2 million refugees who have fled across the border, as well as chemical weapons, open warfare with conventional weapons in the streets of its cities and neighbourhoods, summary executions, torture, suppression of the press, siege and starvation conditions, the suppression of the press, and possibly myriad other crimes against humanity that will be revealed years after the conflict has ended - seem to be on the fringes of the spat that is playing out between China and Russia (and BRICS nations) on the one side, and the USA and France on the other. More recently, the Netherlands has thrown its weight behind the USA-France coalition.

So with Russia casting itself as the protector of the role of the United Nations and the rule of international law, it itself is then bound to act within the framework of the United Nations and international law. Surely this would also imply that if the Syrian government, admittedly a close ally and one of the last footholds of Russia’s regional power in the Middle East, were accused of being guilty of crimes against humanity by the highest authority in the United Nations (Ban Ki Moon), that it is then Russia’s duty to respect, or at the very least entertain the position of the United Nations.

But so far, Russia has refused to acknowledge that the Syrian government has committed war crimes, and has used chemical weapons, and has instead emphasized that its intelligence (i.e. Russia’s) indicates that the opposition is a hotbed of Al-Qaeda jihadists and Islamic extremists, and has accused the opposition of deploying chemical weapons in its own rebel-held territories to manufacture consent for an international intervention. In this, Russia is engaging in duplicitous diplomacy, and is in essence rejecting the UN-held position that the Syrian government is responsible for crimes against humanity. In essence, Russia is adopting a stance which emphasizes its very own sense of ‘exceptionalism’.  All that this reveals, is that Russia is equally prone to the very same hegemonic narrative that proponents of global hegemony adopt, when it suits their interests.

Bashar Al Assad has presided over the greatest human-induced tragedy of the 21^st Century thus far. It does indeed set a precedent for how the international community will handle such events in the future. A key question in this regard is, how far have we come in respect of ensuring that genocides, unjust wars and crimes against humanity are stopped while they are occurring? The biggest lament in respect of these tragedies – i.e. such as Kosovo and Rwanda – is that action is always taken too late, and that great loss of life ensues in the interim period where global power politics takes centre stage instead of the people who are being directly affected. Something is not working in the construction and the role of the UNSC. It is time to admit that and correct it. I would go further, and state that the UNSC needs to be drastically revised in terms of composition and that the right to veto is accompanied by the need to take responsibility and face penalties, in particular; when veto action results in the further facilitation, perpetuation and/or escalation of human tragedy.

In particular, any ‘godfather’ type protection afforded to states that commit crimes against humanity, by an ally in the UN needs to be acknowledged and prosecuted accordingly. It cannot be acceptable that a state can be accused of “crimes against humanity” by the highest authority in the UN, and at the same time receive protection by a UNSC member who goes further to dispute that these crimes are being committed by its ally. If Russia has clear evidence that the Al Assad government is innocent of these crimes then it should – as it required of the USA – make this evidence available to the UN and the UNSC members. Fair is fair, and if Russia argues that its only intention is to uphold international law and protect the role of the UN and UNSC, then it itself must abide by the findings and pronouncements of the UN, even when it disagrees with it.

The Russian attempt to thwart military strikes by the US on Syria has taken the form of a deal to get Syria to give up its chemical weapons for destruction. However, this has very quickly morphed into a protracted negotiations over what the conditions for disarmament would be. Syria now wants to be in charge of destroying its own chemical weapons stockpile. It also wants a guarantee that it will not be attacked by the USA if it gives up its weapons. Pretty soon, we will yet again be trapped in a series of scuppered disarmament processes a-la Saddam Hussein. It is clear that this whole charade is just an attempt to ensure that the imminent attack on Syria is thwarted, and to buy time so that the Syrian government can intensify its attacks on rebel held territories and positions. In all likelihood, the real calculation that is unfolding here, is how much time is required to obliterate and crush the rebels and opposition groups to the Syrian government. The Syrian government is hoping for a distraction, and the disarmament agenda is an ideal decoy. While the world will become locked, entangled and embroiled in negotiations with a government that has already committed numerous crimes against humanity over the course of the civil war thus far, it will continue to intensify its own activities.

On the other hand, the USA – now minus its own exceptionalism – will also ‘win’ its own victory. Obama can rightfully claim that he used the ‘threat of force’ effectively in this situation. If the goal is to rid Al Assad’s government of its chemical weapons, so that the potential of a regional escalation is reduced, then the USA has been very successful indeed. It has managed to get Syria to hand over its weapons without firing a single bullet, let alone a cruise or tomahawk missile. The political spin machines will have no problem turning this into a victory for the new mode of American exceptionalism; Obama’s threat of force and brinkmanship will be hailed as a new, cost effective method of enforcement.  The USA is still the policeman of the world, and Russia has successfully cast itself as a protector of international law and the UN. Everybody wins, except the Syrians that this is all supposed to protect, that is.  

What is clear, from recent events, including the Russian attempt to get Syria to give up and destroy its chemical weapons, is that the UNSC is a symbol of global ‘exceptionalism’ itself. It is a group of godfathers who decide for the world. Their battle for domination in a new world order is what drives global political wrangling over issues that are critical for global security and humanitarianism. It isn’t working for those who are dying, on both sides of the Syrian conflict. As a global community, we need an alternative and a new way of going about solving conflict-driven humanitarian crises that are of global importance. The movement of cold war actors into a ‘cold peace’ of sorts has done little to improve the effectiveness of the UNSC in resolving critical security and humanitarian issues. Instead, we’ve dragged a dysfunctional unit of the past too far with us. It’s time to seriously call into question the whole concept of the UNSC itself, and to decide what reforms, or even complete overhauls are necessary to improve the ability of the international community to act when it is needed to prevent loss of life.

As we enter a new era of global politics and global community and society, some critical thought needs to be given to what serves our interests best as a global community. Sovereignty must be respected, but so must international law and standards. We have the power to decide what kind of world we live in, and how best to handle our differences, as well as conflict driven humanitarian crises. Global institutions need to be constructed in such a manner that they reflect the new era we have entered into, so that they can be more effective in addressing conflict driven humanitarian crises as they occur, and not after they’ve occurred.

Undoubtedly, there will always be skilful actors who attempt to sway decisions one way or another in order to maintain or boost their influence on the global stage, but for the global community to be held hostage in this manner, while another global humanitarian disaster continues un-attended is disgraceful and unacceptable. Whatever ‘success’ stories are spun out as a result of the most recent turn of events in the Syrian war (i.e. giving up its chemical weapons; a big success for both the USA and Russia), the real losers are the Syrian people, and ultimately it is the failure to protect innocent people on both sides of the conflict from further suffering is what the UN and the UNSC will be judged on.

       

The Libya-Syria Intervention Question

It has become reflex to treat remark that foreign interventions in conflict do not work. It is extremely topical to refer to the current situation in Syria using Libya as a lens. The most common remark is that interventions do not work because ‘Libya is in a mess’. The logic is that Libya is in a mess because of the foreign intervention that denied the Gaddafi regime the opportunity to deploy its military in a full-scale attack on the citizens of Benghazi, who had come out onto the streets to express its wish for a change of regime, and the introduction of democracy.

Yes, Libya is in a mess. The state has fragmented, and its oil and gas sector has slumped, exporting only a tenth of what it normally exports. Militias have taken control of oil and gas facilities, and have taken control of local territories, and now openly contest the authority of the state. But is this a result of the foreign-led intervention in Libya, which denied the Gaddafi regime the ability to fight from the air, and provided support to the very same rebel groups who now control respective tribal and other territories?

In order to answer this question, several considerations must be made. Firstly, we have to address the question of what scenarios may have unfolded in Libya in the absence of intervention. Secondly, we have to address the question of whether the intervention itself is the cause of the fragmentation of the Libyan state. We have to address these questions together in order to establish the causality between intervention and state collapse in Libya with sufficient confidence. Failure to do so, is dishonest and misleading.

So let’s deal with the first question, that is; what scenarios may have unfolded in Libya in the absence of intervention. Let’s entertain the possibility that the Gaddafi regime was given the green light to go ahead and crush Benghazi, and route the “vermin” and “al-Qaeda” as Gaddafi repeatedly referred to the opposition. In the event of an all out military attack on Benghazi, only two outcomes can reasonably be envisaged. The first, and most likely, is that Libya would have then become the destination of choice for Jihadi groups from across the world, that the ‘rebels’ would have received piecemeal, basic support from other countries from within and without the region, and the country would have slumped progressively further towards civil war. Indeed, this is how the situation has unfolded in Syria. Hama and Homs were crushed by the Assad regime, and the country has devolved into a civil war within a short period of time. The outcome is 4 million internally displaced people and 2 million refugees who have fled across the borders, and a widespread humanitarian crisis has unfolded that now threatens to destabilize the entire region.

The second, and infinitely less likely outcome is that Benghazi would have been crushed and Libya would have returned to normal under the Gaddafi regime. In this scenario Gaddafi would have continued to strong-arm Libya’s various groups into an artificially cohesive feudal state, and prepared his son, Saif Al Islam, to take over from his rule. In this scenario, Libya continues to sail along as though it is entirely unaffected by the Arab Spring that continues to unfold across the region today. The second scenario is a far less likely outcome, and renders Libya a dictator state, that is; another accident waiting to happen in the region. In this scenario, Libya miraculously out-lives the horror of the crushing of Benghazi and sails off into the future as though it never happened. Hardly likely, actually; extremely unlikely. The stuff crack pipe dreams are made of.

The reasonable scenario, where Gaddafi would have ‘seen the light’ and stepped down and introduced real democratic elections was never on the cards. The proof of this is that he fought until the bitter end. So this, third option was never an option, and anyone who entertains this option has descended far beyond the aforementioned ‘pipe dream’ into the realms of childlike fantasy.

And to return to the original question; in the face of these two outcomes, can we reasonably argue that the fragmentation of the Libyan state is a result of the intervention? Well, nobody can argue with full confidence that they know how history would have unfolded, had particular events been different. That I acknowledge, but it still does not answer the question I originally posed. Is it really true that Libya is worse off because of the foreign intervention that essentially enabled it to break with the shackles of decades of authoritarian rule under a dictator?

In my view, Libya has not fragmented due to the foreign-led intervention. It has fragmented precisely because it has been artificially held together for decades under the violent and brutal rule of a dictator state. It is inevitable that no matter what political transition trajectory it adopted, that it would face a serious challenge in establishing real socio-political cohesion and introducing democratic reforms. It is my contention that wherever dictator-led or authoritarian regimes prevail for long periods of time over territories that are populated by diverse, heterogeneous groups, and rule through powerful centralized states that strong-arm the populace; that the collapse of these regimes inevitably leads the fragmentation of the state. This is simply because the state that people never trusted in the first place, and which held all the power, leaves a profound vacuum in its wake, and ordinary people would reasonably contest the remnants of it, even as it begins to reform. This is especially the case because entrenched interests work hard to hijack the process of democratic reforms to their own advantage. When people see the same state of old re-assembling itself they are quick to recognise the old wolf that now parades in new clothing. They then resist it, and hold onto the gains they have made. These gains are often territorial, especially if these territories have been gained through open, armed conflict in the streets.

That is, intervention or not, the fragmentation of dictator led and authoritarian regimes is inevitable when ‘revolution’ occurs, whether revolution is relatively peaceful (as in Egypt) or involves armed conflict (as in Libya and Syria). This fragmentation is more pronounced in countries such as Libya and Syria, because they are constituted of many, diverse tribal groups and clans. In Egypt, which is not as diverse, the general populace has split nonetheless; both sides (i.e. the anti-Muslim brotherhood and pro-Muslim brotherhood groups) profoundly distrust the state. This is precisely because the powerful centralised state is the main vehicle through which the revolution can be subverted or appropriated, resulting in more of the same ‘wolf’ in new clothing. And so, whether in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, etc. the same dynamic unfolds when the state is fundamentally challenged by revolution. It (the state) attempts to remake itself amidst the revolution, and this is what all revolutions would do well to guard against, even if it means fragmenting in order to prevent the state from regaining its hold over the people.

The argument I am making here is that when we view these revolutions through another prism (i.e. what the legacy of large, centralised authoritarian or dictator-led states entail for revolution), it becomes patently clear that intervention or not, some fragmentation and commensurate resistance and open contestation with the state is to be expected. Blaming foreign-led interventions for the collapse of the state, ignores the fact that these states were fragile to begin with precisely because their governments and the state were not legitimate or representative in the first place. It ignores the fact that four decades of dictatorship or authoritarian rule would collapse like a ton of bricks no matter which direction the revolution takes.

The difficulty with transitioning to democracy, is precisely that it involves building the strong socio-political foundation that democracy requires. In my view, this is precisely the focus that is missing in the debates on the middle east and north Africa right now. That is, we are not discussing what democratic reforms can help bring about meaningful change and stability; where pluralism is guaranteed, and where the old ‘state’ is prevented from regenerating the very head that the people cut off. But like a lizard, the state can replicate and reproduce itself relatively easily. Indeed, that is what states, like most institutions, do. An institution is an institution precisely because if an individual is removed, it can carry on regardless. It has many heads and many tentacles, which if cut off, can morph and replicate each other. The state survives revolutions, and this is precisely why revolutions are so difficult in the first place; when the people have removed the leadership it is only be beginning of the struggle against the state. Reform - or rather reformation - of the state is at stake, and contestation is inevitable as this process unfolds amidst the unwinding of the previous regime.

The reason why the explanation I have tendered for the fragmentation in Libya is significantly more honest, is that it can be applied across the board in the Arab Spring. By focussing on what kind of state people were rebelling against, and why, it becomes easier to understand why there is such intense distrust of the state, and especially new governments. People who have been subject to the blatant lies and manipulation of an unjust system are quick to recognise when the same factors they fought to remove begin to re-emerge. It does not make sense to lay all the blame for the ‘crisis’ in Libya on the UN-sanctioned intervention. In all likelihood, Libya would have descended into a full scale civil war that resembles Syria without the intervention.

So when it comes to interventions, the question is not whether it will ultimately lead to a complete, binding ‘solution’ to the crisis. Rather, the question that interventions are concerned with is simple; is the intervention going to save lives and prevent the further loss of human life by disabling the capability of a rogue government or state to act illegally and/or brutally. Expecting a foreign led military intervention to automatically lead to full democratic reform, without any bumps in the road, or challenges to the process of transition, is ridiculously naive.

I will use an admittedly crude example by way of analogy, to explain my orientation on the issue of intervention. It is often said that one should not intervene in a domestic dispute, as the risks of both of them turning on you are high. When I was a teenager, one of the men in my apartment block took his wife and children hostage in the apartment, and it was clear that he had lost his ability to reason and may harm them. At the time in South Africa, family killings were occurring at a high rate. A neighbour and devoted father of two little sons – a mild man who I often watched playing soccer with his two boys in the park – convinced the troubled neighbour to open the door claiming that he ‘just wanted to speak with him’. When he opened the door, my brave neighbour pushed the door in and entered the apartment, and managed to get the children and their mother to safety. He put his life at risk to intervene in that situation, especially as the troubled neighbour was armed with a handgun. If the couple divorced after that event, it had nothing to do with the intervention that my brave, mild-mannered, dutiful father and neighbour made, at great risk to himself.

At another time, in the same apartment block, my father helped wrest away a knife from a son who had become enraged and wanted to attack his own father with it. I have also acted in a similar fashion when the need arose. Amongst my friends, the weakest among us would nonetheless stand up for and defend his friends when attacked, even when outnumbered. It was what provided the social bond between us, that is; the ability to take risks to protect one another. This is a very human orientation, which I believe is shared by communities across the world, although admittedly to greater or lesser degrees. But if we are to form and belong to a global community that has norms and standards to which we all subscribe, then we need to be able to take risks for each other when it counts.

The principle for intervention was very simple in the social and political context that I was raised; if someone is being oppressed, is subject to intolerable injustice, and you have the power to help them, then you should make an effort to help them. In the South African struggle the most often heard slogan was, “an injury to one is an injury to all”. Even the Jihadis who migrate half-way across the world also respond to this logic, that is, in the belief that in Islam it is your duty to help people who are being oppressed. Across the world, when human cruelty rises its ugly head and escalates to dangerous proportions, the victims ask, “where was the world when we were being killed”. It’s that simple! If there is no world out there that can intervene to help people in need, then there is no human project, and there is no humanitarianism between us.

Talk, without action, is empty. Sometimes an intervention requires political action, at other times actions to provide aid and humanitarian relief, and in the worst of situations, to intervene militarily in an escalating conflict or gross human rights abuses. Indeed, the United Nations is based upon these principles, and should take the lead in producing global consensus on how to address human disasters, whether they are due to social, economic, political and environmental changes, or whether they result from conflict or result in conflict. But what if the UN cannot provide an adequate response to a humanitarian disaster because it is crippled by political wrangling, total absence, or alternatively - if not equally - by bureaucratic ineptitude?

In a free society, I, as a citizen have the right to act to stop a crime if the law isn’t present, or is incapable of acting. If a policeman is incapacitated I am still legally entitled to effect a citizen’s arrest if I observe and judge that a criminal act is unfolding before me. This, at the same time, binds me to the responsibility, that after acting, I should make myself available to be judged by my actions in terms of the law. As long as I act reasonably, and in the interests of the social contract, I should be confident that I will be judged fairly. That is, even if I am not acting in self-defence, the law should always make provision for acting in the interests of greater society. Why should it be different for global citizens?

When it comes to Libya, the broadly proffered notion that Libya is in crisis because of the intervention it underwent is spurious and misleading. It negates all attempts at establishing adequate causality, and chooses instead to ignore Libya’s historical dispensation, and the consequences of any fundamental challenges that the Libyan state (and other authoritarian states) may endure. It is (and should be) obvious, that the authoritarian, often dictator-led states and governments of the Middle East and North Africa have endured the challenges to their rule by responding with increased levels of instability and fragmentation. This is what fundamental change and revolution brings; periods of enhanced turbulence where periodic internal conflicts, state confrontations and disruptions of all manners - both positive and negative - flare up from their respective potentials in the aftermath of revolution.

Democratic reform is not just about holding elections, writing constitutions, and changing legal systems; it is fundamentally about changing the state - that is; it’s functions, processes, regulations and authorities, and thereby its institutions - so that a new society can be produced. Producing a new society, especially in a society where socio-political cohesion has been artificially enforced by state institutions and the rule of authoritarian and/or dictatorial regimes, is bound to prove a challenge beset by many and diverse setbacks. In any quest for a new society, struggle is inevitable. It cannot avoided.

Whatever help a society receives from outsiders in obtaining the freedoms it requires to negotiate its own transition to a new set of norms and practises is only just that, help. Ultimately, what transpires in such fraught socio-cultural, political and economic countries depends on how well they can organise, as a society, to face their challenges. If they are unable to do so, it is only a reflection of how devastated societies in these countries are as a result of the long terms under which they have endured unjust governments. Placing the blame for the failures of these nations to re-establish themselves adequately in a post-revolutionary environment at the feet of interventionists ignores the political history of these nations entirely, and seeks to establish the moment of intervention as the beginning of the causal chain of events that lead to the failure of the state. This is a patent analytical falsehood. The reality is that these states had already failed to meet the demands and aspirations of their citizenry. They had already crumbled from within and were disasters waiting to happen. Intervention may be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, but it is dishonest to ignore the oversized load that countries such as Libya and Syria were already carrying, which led to this mess in the first place.

Equating Libya with Iraq is even more ridiculous; these were entirely different situations. To start with, the intervention in Libya was supported by the UN. Interventions in sovereign states is a necessity in a globalized world. We cannot avoid the responsibility of acting to enforce global laws, else they become meaningless. When laws become meaningless, societies become corrupted, and all manner of abuses ensue. It makes the world more dangerous for all of us. It is this objective that interventions are concerned with, and not rescuing entire nations from the difficulties of political transitions that they must now negotiate because of their fraught histories. To campaign against any and all interventions on the basis that global hegemony is undesirable, or that only peaceful means will be effective, ignores everything that we know about genocide.

There will always be rulers and leaders who justify the use of unconscionable levels of force against their people. It does not always require chemical or nuclear weapons. In Rwanda, 500,000 machetes were enough to fuel genocide in which around 800,000 people lost their lives. The Syrian conflict reflects an abject failure of its own government. With 100,000 people dead, 4 million internally displaced and 2 million refugees across the border, and no end in sight to the conflict, it is clear that there will be no political solution that will emerge from within Syria. In all likelihood, without international involvement, Al Assad’s forces will crush both the opposition and all internal dissent that may emerge from within the country itself. The solution in Syria will not be political, it will be a military one, should Syria be left to its own devices. The anti-intervention stance, in this case, does not mean that any kind of peace will result. The implications of not intervening now is that the situation worsens, eventually drawing the entire region into its spectacular collapse. And as more information becomes available, and dribbles out of the Syrian state over the next few years, an intervention will likely become necessary in any event. As was the case in Kosovo, the world will avert its eyes just long enough for the brutality to result in another genocide, which after it is committed, cannot be undone. And then, all the wringing of hands in the world makes no difference to the families of the dead, should any of them remain. It will, and should, rest upon our consciences if we stood by and did nothing to prevent it, with all the evidence being clear that only more suffering can result from the path Syria is currently on.

Greening the Economy: Building the Skills Base for a Sustainable Transition

After a great deal of re-thinking the growth trajectory of the South African economy, the government announced its intention to significantly green the developmental state, mainly through interventions in the energy sector. Yet the meaning of 'greening' must be established before any reasonably coherent discussion can be held on the subject, for it means different things to different people. Some, for example, tend to think of 'greening' as establishing 'garden cities', implementing nature conservation programmes, parks, water-bodies and the like.

Yet this is a limited view of 'greening'. In its more comprehensive interpretation, 'greening' refers to achieving sustainability through decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts and resource exploitation, and broadening interventions to achieve the mutual sustainability of ecological, economic and social systems. A more subtle factor is also critical to understand about greening. It is that in an era of increasing and concentrated demand, resource scarcity is becoming a major limiting factor to growth. Therefore, developing the skills, innovation base and regulatory frameworks to be competitive in the next major global technological wave will determine the relative competitiveness of national economies as we migrate further into the new century.

Figuring out how to ensure growth (note - not just economic growth), while decoupling growth from environmental impacts and resource exploitation constitutes the 'business' of establishing policy, incentives and the institutional capacity to deliver on the implementation of green infrastructures, technology and innovation management, building awareness, improving skills and capabilities, and so forth. South Africa's dependence on cheap, coal-based energy, has resulted in it falling behind it's competitors in green and renewable energy sector developments. We have not built the skills or innovation base to cope with the ever increasing resource scarcity/price increase challenges that have assailed the 21st Century.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of greening will involve establishing the skills base that is necessary to sustain green developmental initiatives into the long term, and maintain competitiveness. This is where South Africa will need a comprehensive plan - one that builds skills and capabilities at the middle and implementation levels of our institutions. Government departments, industry sectors, higher institutions, etc. all need to seriously rethink their human competence development programmes if we are to achieve a successful transition to more sustainable infrastructures, technologies, production processes and everyday behaviours. 

Another critical aspect will be engaging closely with trade unions and industry and business sectors on the skills development that is required to migrate the labour market from their existing practices to new modes of operation. This can only be achieved through close cooperation with these players, and fortunately, COSATU is playing an active role in envisaging the migration towards a newer, more innovative and competitive South African economy, as evidenced by their participation in the "million climate jobs" campaign, a civil society initiative that goes beyond the 300 000 target of green job creation set out in the New Economic Growth Path for South Africa.

Ensuring adequate levels of participation when visioning sector level transitions is a crucial requirement. Ensuring that broad levels of agreement are achieved is essential, as without effective cooperation within and between sectors, sustainability at the whole system scale will not be achieved, despite the best efforts of policy-makers and regulators. It requires a plural, inclusive approach towards governance, and a programme that can adapt to new local challenges, technological trajectory changes, unpredictable changes in the global economy and climate, and so forth. Benevolent 'top-down' dictator-style government actions may work in China, but they will  not work in a free society where the rights of individuals and groups are guaranteed and protected, and in the heavily privatised South African context where the industry and manufacturing sectors have significant levels of autonomy.

In short, skills development, stimulating creativity and innovation and broader programmes of participation will be required to see this transition through. Remembering that reduced resource dependence, enhanced competitiveness and improved socio-economic conditions are the goals of the transition will ensure that it does not get sidetracked or end up as a set of piecemeal solutions that operate within silos and do not contribute to sustainability at the whole systems scale.

The Occupy Protests: Being Leaderless Helps Reshape The Territory

Perhaps the most striking characteristics of the protests that have emerged over the past year and half, whether they have originated from the Arab Spring in the middle east, or in the cities of the developed world, is that they are mostly leaderless, and that their various manifestations have proven to be devoid of a single governing ideology. Instead, they have become forums for participation, where a wide variety of views and ideological orientations can find a voice. As one OWS protester put it, it is not so much an ideological movement as much as it is a space for participation.

In the Arab Spring, a necessary debate has emerged around how to reconcile Islamic governance with democratic principles, and the elections in Tunisia reflect this. There is also an emerging debate on the role of women in Islamic democracy. These are both welcome developments that attest to the power that the Arab Spring has brought to the general discourse on politics and political freedom in the middle east, and the role of society and leaders within it. Islamic extremism has been put under the microscope and questions that were once thought unthinkable have now entered the mainstream. It's not perfect, but it's a beginning.

In developed countries where 'mature' democracies have been in place for the better part of the last forty years, the occupy and anti-austerity protest movements have also re-opened the space for debate around the fundamentals of democracy. In the last 20 years, 'talk left, walk right' political strategies have emerged in the wake of the weakening of the left through the era of neoliberal 'free' market economics. At the same time, conservative ultra-right movements such as the 'tea-party' increasingly appropriate the language of the old left. In short, developed countries have become plagued by bipolar democracies where it has become increasingly meaningless whether a democrat/labour or republican/conservative government is voted into power, because they ultimately end up thinking and acting in the same way.

Whether one chooses right or left, is an increasingly meaningless exercise in this muddled new territory of democracy, and it is obvious that the public responded with a profound apathy during the boom times. Now that the bubbles have burst, their voices are being raised. Those who were once content to sit in the middle and watch either side throw barbs at each other have entered the fray. They are not explicitly ideological, but they all want change. They may not all have the same ideas of how to make changes, but they know what needs changing. Simply put, it is unfairness at work in the heart of democracy. It is the violation of the egalitarian principle that lies at the heart of democracy itself. Inequality has always had strong appeal as a mobilising factor for those on the lower rungs of the divide, and when their ranks grow they become dangerous. It's as simple as that. And it's not perfect, but it is a beginning.  

It is a beginning because these leaderless mass movements have opened up the space for participation, and participation is the first step towards greater dialogue and exchange that can shape a new discourse. The 'leaderlessness' of these movements is precisely what makes them a potent force for change. That is, they are not already wrapped up in ideological clothing that predetermines how the debates and conversations may unfold. Instead, their leaderlessness and lack of monolithic ideological posturing means that the opportunity now exists to host a social dialogue on what core principles are needed to navigate the territory of the new century, and what kind of changes might be necessary to realise these principles.  

Perhaps the most significant demonstration that the protesters have given the world, is that it is still possible to engage governments and institutions through direct protest action. Some may underestimate this, but for the past twenty years there has been a significant public reluctance to engage in direct protest action. This critically important regulating function of democracy gave way to a global wave of apathy, especially in the countries of the developed world. The triumphal march of a victorious capitalism brought with it a sense that capitalism itself was timeless, and the reigns that had previously kept markets in check were loosened, as markets themselves were seen as the 'self-regulating' magic-makers of prosperity. The results of this victory are now plain to see, and the hopes that things would 'self-correct' after the collapse are proving more distant than ever before.

We are now entering an era where new norms will be established. Business as usual may find a few more tricks and turns to keep itself alive, but the foundations of business as usual have been shaken. The longer the recession persists, the more it becomes a rallying cry to the middle and working classes who have been displaced from real power in the oligarchical functions of the neoliberal dream where there are 'one set of rules for us, and another set of rules for them'. The longer they remain leaderless in their protests, and refuse to be coopted into simplistic sets of agreements that hijack their momentum, the momentum will grow, ideas will flourish, and a new discourse and new normative orientations will be birthed.

Perhaps we are at a moment of the same significance as the modernists of the 20th century found themselves at, filled with the promise of a brave new world, yet unsure of exactly what it may end up looking like. Let's hope that this time we are able to avoid falling into the trap of conflict, and that our enhanced ability to share ideas, conduct campaigns and achieve genuine political action in different places of the world can help us overcome the very real challenges we face. Should these leaderless protests become captured by populists who skillfully capture the 'vacuum' instead of celebrating the potential of the 'vacuum', then the risk of fragmentation and conflict will become more significant and perhaps overwhelm the momentum that, although currently loosely bound, may yet still yield a new set of ideas, visions and norms that effect change in ways that are as yet unforeseeable.

Again, true freedom is the ability to bring about fundamental change, so we might regard the 'leaderless vacuum' as a free space in which the birth of the new is possible. Straight-jacketing this space into a re-run of old positions and ideologies will prove to be its undoing. A parody of the ideological conflicts of the 20th century is hardly likely to achieve anything more than it has already, and in truth, these positions have already compromised themselves to each other, and to their own foundations, and have drifted far away from their original foundations.

And we do need the new to flourish, now more than ever. The Euro hangs on a thread, the dollar would be a worthless currency without China's strong backing. The 'free' market has failed because the most predictable of human behaviours, greed and the propensity to desire wealth without work, triumphed over the imaginary virtues of self-interest. We are now in trouble, and we have to work together to dig ourselves out of the mess we're in. An old supervisor, who oversaw me through probably the most difficult career transition I've ever attempted once gave me some advice that has seen me through many do it?" from me, he replied, "I find that the most difficult thing is keeping the space open long enough for something to emerge".

In research, as in life, you often have no idea what you are going to discover or develop when a project begins, all you have is a bunch of ideas and speculations about how to move forward. Yet if you keep the space open long enough, and stay faithful to the spirit of the project, something always emerges that makes it worth the wait. Perhaps the same kind of philosophical openness is required now, and hopefully we will find the strength to move into the unknown so that we can discover something better than what we have now, because more of the same isn't going to make the cut, and is more likely to sink the ship than to keep it afloat. Tossing the blame from one side to the next isn't going to solve anything, and we have to face up to the deep flaws that exist on both sides of the political divide, and soon.     

Obstacles to a Third Way: Ideology Before Analysis!

When ideology precedes analysis, it in effect serves to negates analysis. Analysis then becomes constrained by the boa constrictor of absolutism and ideological canonism, and a hierarchy is imposed upon analysis that locks it into a tautological double-bind or catch-22. To put it simply, if you put the cart before the horse you shouldn't be surprised that you end up in the same place all the time. 

The ‘horse’ of analysis becomes restricted to a few steps forward and a few steps backward. The ‘cart’ of ideology or absolute theoretical hegemony becomes the pivotal axis and tether that governs the direction and extent to which analysis can go. The horse, confused, pulls backward and side to side, finding relief only when it remains in one place. Every direction is fraught with tension, so the only option is to remain directionless. In this way, analysis always returns to the same place, because ideology has conditioned it to be bereft of agency, its inquisitiveness and imagination put asunder for a 'greater' purpose.

Theoretical frameworks, if they are to remain honest - i.e. not necessarily truthful in the sense that they make the claim to absolute truth but honest in their approach to the subject matter under analysis - should be deducted, or even abducted, but never inducted without great care. That is, induction from theoretical frameworks in complex, real world contexts usually constitutes a complex fabrication. It is fabrication because it pretends to derive that which it is actually premised on.

Real world contexts are complex, and their behaviours cannot be inducted from a model, theoretical framework or pure methodology. Scientific induction is only credible in systems that are simple, or at the most complicated. Inducted principles can be derived from systems that are generally simple enough to be tested by hypotheses and repeated. If the system is not dynamically changing its fundamental conditions and constraints on a timescale that negates induction, then induction is possible.

In other words, induction only works for simple, well constrained systems that progress in a linear fashion where change is incremental and predictable. As soon as the system begins to progress in non-linear jumps and bounds, and in different directions, induction becomes less tenuous as a methodological foundation. Social, political and economic systems, being fundamentally social in their conception, are complex, reflexive systems. They are in the domain of the deductive and abductive. Understanding has to follow the unfolding behaviour of the system. By definition, it cannot precede it, except through what can only be termed 'oracular' insight.

And ideology precedes analysis regularly in a global society that constantly looks backwards to its historical foundations to answer questions about how to face the future. Ideology, to be sure, is by and large the starting point of many debates, analyses and opinions that are generated over the question of what socio-political and economic systems are responsible for the global crisis we have entered into. And it is not simply a crisis of economic systems. It is a crisis of how to move forward, and to generate new ideas about how the global polity and socio-economy can be best positioned in relation to each other. As articulated by Zizek, "the field is open" and the marriage between capitalism and democracy has ended, yet we are struggling to find a new way forward.

Our imaginations and our ability to inquisit have indeed become conditioned by ideology. Instead of maintaining a critical perspective on our prevailing ideologies, we lapse into analyses that apriori draw upon the ideological foundations that we prefer. We therefore become 'stuck' in self-reinforcing, circular patterns of analyses that take us nowhere. More often than not, they simply become analyses that search for where to place the blame - as if any of the systems that constitute the current global order can be regarded as entirely blameless in the first place. 

Yet there is more to this kind of analyses. They are analyses that are explicitly oriented around an ideological foundation, and implicitly constructed in reaction to the opposing ideological foundation (i.e. its 'metaphysical' opposite). The analyses therefore ends up being a de-facto debate between polar opposite positions. Indeed, this is the very critique that deconstruction offers of the general methodology by which philosophy itself is constructed. This raises the question of how to embrace analyses that does not fall at either side, but that begins 'in the middle' so to speak. This is not a trivial observation, for arguments that proceed from the poles are the fundamental obstacle to generating what may be regarded as a 'third way'.

In other words, what kind of third way can be 'constructed' or 'formulated' (these terms are unfortunate, so they are used here with reservation) if we do not start from the edges or the poles, but start from the middle instead? Note, I do not mean to start from an ideological middle ground, but from a middle that makes observations of the poles, and remains acutely aware of them and how they influence us. There are two aspects that emerge from observations that are made in the middle that require closer inspection. Firstly, that there are fundamentally irresolvable 'undecideables' i.e. the decisions, phenomena or events that fall between metaphysical opposites, are fundamentally irresolvable, and cannot be avoided in political decision-making (Derrida). Secondly, that the polar opposites, when they approach the extremes of either end, begin to mirror each other, resulting in a different kind of obfuscation, where it becomes difficult to distinguish one polar opposite from another (Zizek).

The former observation is made by Derrida, in his careful identification of the 'undecideable' in political decision-making, where he concludes that any political decision that forgoes the 'ordeal of the undecideable' is not in reality a political decision but rather, becomes the mere 'unfolding of a calculable process'. That is, there will be fundamentally irresolvable, 'undecideable' factors that occupy the territory of the middle, otherwise referred to as the 'logic of the included middle' by Plato (Max-Neef, 2005). These irresolvables define where metaphysical opposites differ from each other, and resolving these undecideables requires more than theory. It requires learning,  participation, integration and negotiation i.e. strategies that engage directly with the contextual specificities that bring about undecideability, and which can possibly lead to the resolution of these undecideables under certain context-specific conditions. In this way, undecideables may end up being resolved in context (though not always), yet remain unresolvable at the broader theoretical level that is removed from the specificities of context.

The latter observation is made by Zizek, when he identifies how the right-wing conservative tea-party movement resurrects the rhetoric of the labour movements that existed 50 years ago in their conception of the tea-party identity as fighting for the rights of the ordinary worker against the irresponsibility of big government and big capital. The same is true of 'left wing' eco-movements that upon closer examination are mainly biocentric in their values, beliefs and norms. This biocentrism itself hails from the historical support for conservation biology efforts that saw predominantly indigenous peoples being herded off their own lands and into reservations, so that the 'pristine' natural environment could be maintained, devoid of human influence (hence biocentric). That is, eco-movements whose foundations are in fact profoundly anti-social, have staked a specious claim over the socialist territory of the left. Only in Latin America and India, have eco-movements become profoundly social in their approach, warranting a clear membership of the left.

Perhaps another dimension of analysis can be added to this; primarily that as those at the extremes of the poles increasingly embrace their ideologies with what can only be described as a messianic zeal, they begin to resemble a church or a cult (i.e. an institutionalised set of beliefs that are taken on faith), where the only distinguishing factor between a church and a cult is the size of the following. Where ideology becomes the unshakeable foundation from which analyses are made - instead of being regarded as a hypothetical framework - then it follows that the values, beliefs and norms that govern the analyses or debates are also unshakeable (if deftly hidden) preconditions that impose a hierarchy upon the analytical framework, which ceases to be interpretive or reflexive at this point. This unquestioning 'lock-in' to foundational values, beliefs and norms is not irrelevant. It is the main obstacle to going beyond a bipolar theoretical debate because dogma is followed by  rhetoric at best and sophism at worst.  Moreover, behaviours are founded upon values, beliefs and norms, so real-world changes in behaviour are obstructed at the same time i.e. the foundation for action is also subverted, or at the very least obscured.

The consequences of ideological fundamentalism are that we are unable to effectively bring about the necessary change changes in the way we think, that may ultimately result in changes in actions and behaviours that govern the global political, socio-economic and ecological 'condition'. And this 'condition', as a result, remains unchanged. To put it forcefully, the pro-free market and anti-free market ideologues have created their own respective sacred grounds that are too hallowed to question, and become external to analysis by being implicit in their interrogative frameworks. 

In a very genuine sense, debates of this ilk resemble a debate between parrots; more often than not they can only talk past one another as their 'vocabularies' are largely pre-fixed, and no real meaning is engendered in the interchange. They celebrate the undecideables between them as signifiers of their ideological purity. Yet at the same time these debates resemble a debate between sophists or conmen, as they appropriate the arguments and critiques of each other where it 'fits in' to their ideological frameworks, and speciously lay claim to them as their own. The latter, indicates that a postmodern relativism is speciously employed to subvert the claim that each hold to their own precious beliefs. That is, not only do they differ violently, they also attempt to appropriate the ideological territory of their opponents at the same time. It is truly a war, in which any and all tactics are considered fair.

And predictably, they despise any and all that occupy the middle. Indeed, in this they are not far away from the Christian God, who proclaims that only those that are passionate for God can be accommodated within the halls of the Church. The 'lukewarm' will be spat out. Those in the middle are not just spat out, they are spat on, literally and verbally. Yet it is not on the basis of analyses that they are spat upon. It is on the basis of concretized values, beliefs and norms that are taken for granted as foundational. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as the failure of both positions have demonstrated towards the end of the previous century. It is true that absolute objectivity is also an impossibility, but where the values, beliefs and norms that are subjectively held become implicit and unacknowledged - i.e. no awareness of them exists except in their virtue as absolute and non-negotiable preconditions - they become constrictive to the generation of any honest debate or analysis. They are therefore oblivious to their own strategic orientation, because it takes the foundations from which it proceeds as self-evident.

That is, the dishonesty is a kind of ignorance that prevails to the ultimate end, discrediting all and sundry around it that doesn't make the effort to fit itself into a particular framework or position. It is a narrow-mindedness that is holding us back in our quest for a new way that will rescue us from the conditions of polycrisis and global hegemony. Ideas and new frameworks that fall outside of the mainstream poles are largely ignored or despised as compromises and cast aside. Perhaps it is the hegemony on analyses and ideas that is proving the most difficult to break, while the hegemonies of power and wealth have found themselves floundering in the winds of change that the beginning of the 21st Century has brought with it.