No place for political messiahs
With its two impressive general
election victories and its adroit co-option of the New National Party
as a junior partner in their "co-operative governance" agreement, the
African National Congress (ANC) has consolidated its position as the
political colossus of South Africa. The first opening of the "window of
opportunity" in the legislative package providing for floor-crossing
has enabled it to seize control of the Western Cape and set the scene
for a similar coup in KwaZulu-Natal. South Africa has thus become a
one-party dominant state.
While that may reflect the "general will" of the people, it is not a
position without danger for the survival of democracy. If the dominance
of one party lasts too long - if the absence of an opposition party or
coalition of parties capable of defeating a government at the polls is
too prolonged - there is the risk of a one-party dominant state
mutating into a one-party state. The hazard is particularly acute when
the dominant party has evolved from a liberation movement, as the
ruling ANC has done. There is a concomitant inclination in these
circumstances for the party barons to conflate the party with the
state, and, consequently, to categorise opposition as a form of treason
or as a conspiracy to restore a discredited past order.
The ANC is not immune to the temptation of these messianic notions, as
JL Talmon labelled them in The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. Their
presence is manifest in the ANC's tendency to accuse those who oppose
its aspirations to completely transform South Africa as racists or
revanchists, even where its opponents explicitly state that they are
not opposed to transformation per se, only to the methods deployed for
its realisation. Political messianism is apparent, too, in the ANC's
desire to control every aspect of South African life, from the
commanding heights of the economy (through the rapidly multiplying
"empowerment charters") to the racial composition of national sporting
teams (through the notions of "demographic representivity" and "racial
quotas").
The bullying reaction of Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour to the
decision by the United Cricket Board to scrap racial quotas for
national and upper echelon provincial teams illustrates the point
powerfully. His use of Anglo-Saxon vulgarities to express his wrath
should not be allowed to distract from the sinister underlying message.
He arrogantly assumes that he alone is the guardian of the way forward
and that those who disagree are in league with "hostile forces" opposed
to the new South Africa and anxious to denigrate the ANC. He
personifies a menacing tendency in the ANC.
To note the presence in ANC political thinking of a stream of
messianism is not to assume that it is the only or even the dominant
current. It is, however, apposite to warn that the current has the
capacity to swell to ominously large proportions.
The ANC-led government justifies its near omnipresence in almost every
sphere of South African society as necessary for completion of the vast
task of radically transforming South Africa. Its rationale is that the
challenge of eradicating the pernicious effects of apartheid and of
constructing a non-racial democracy, cannot be accomplished in five or
even ten years. The argument is compelling, but not unanswerable.
Progress has been made. Blacks, in the broad sense of the term, are in
a majority in the upper management echelons of the public sector. A
prosperous black middle class is growing rapidly. The new black elite
is conspicuously rich. Neither category still justifies the label
historically disadvantaged. They are more aptly described as a new
advantaged class. The time has come for the government to set a cut-off
date for affirmative action aka reverse discrimination. The ANC,
however, refuses to entertain the idea.
Emeritus professor David Welsh, in a discourse in the present issue of
Focus debunks the myths about and praises the merits of liberalism. He
highlights the importance of circumscribing the influence of the state,
and strengthening that of civil society, as an antidote to the
temptations of power. It is a timely response to the ANC's apparently
insatiable appetite for power. Pallo Jordan, in a separate
contribution, quite correctly emphasises that the ANC has had the
courage in the past to "retrace its steps when necessary". To the
extent that it has veered down the path of political messianism, it
should do so again.