Historical analogies serve as guiding lights for individuals and nations during times of uncertainty. South Africa, currently navigating a
significant phase of political uncertainty, is no exception. Its leaders and
thinkers have drawn parallels from its past, finding comfort in how the nation
has reacted and adapted under similar circumstances.

The
challenge of political inclusion within a constitutionally defined framework,
juxtaposed with economic exclusion from the value chains and templates of the
economic system, is a recurring theme in South Africa’s history. The urgency of
economic transformation is not just a matter of debate; it’s a call for
immediate and decisive action. The lessons from history can guide us in this
endeavour, but the need for action is pressing.

In
the aftermath of the South African War, also called the Anglo-Boer War, the
1909 National Convention, a sequel to the 1902 Treaty of Vereeniging, a
forgive-and-forget political settlement produced the 1910 Constitution, which
defined the Union of South Africa as a constitutional democracy. The post-war
political uncertainty, especially the native question and a defeated
self-determination-believing Afrikaner ethnic group necessitated a response
that led to the guaranteeing of a universal franchise to ‘white South
Africa”. The current political uncertainty on economic emancipation
produces similar conditions that confirm how history is not limited to
repeating itself but also rhymes as it unfolds through human decisions. 


South
Africa’s favourite analogy of its contexts, with race as its dominant vector of
analysis and the binaries of white or otherwise monopoly capital, has
resurfaced, and the uncertainty discourse pivots around it. The country faces
components of what defines it as a state, notably the government as the most
active agent and the private sector as the domain within which the economic
authority of the state is vested, as adversaries with insatiable ambitions
about the country. In this vortex, the critical ingredient for the country to
return to its competitive self, within a context of being inclusive and
transformative, is the trust between government and capital. This trust, a
basis upon which a nation’s establishment is crafted, is grossly in deficit,
and its absence underscores the gravity of the current situation. Only
anti-establishment trust is in abundant supply. 


In
all its epochs of dealing with uncertainties, South Africa has made an
ideological breakthrough as a society when it decreed to itself that it does
not only belong to all who live in it but that its government would be based on
the people’s will. This breakthrough was between 1955 and 1996, not the basis
of law; it was illegal and created a tormented past. Post 1996, and because it
is expressly written into the constitution, which is the supreme law of the
land, it has settled the political uncertainty, save for its dependence on the
quality of ‘freely elected’ representatives to keep it on its path. The current
uncertainty is not political and, thus, not a political liberation crux. It is
a political economy and an economic emancipation issue. It is about
deliberately tempering the economy’s structure and templates to express
political freedom in the national balance sheet’s bottom lines. 

 

South
Africa is neither a refreshment station of some virtual Dutch East India
Company, a colonial outpost, or an apartheid economic construct. It is a
country whose founding values dictate economic justice as a logical path to its
pursuit of human dignity, and social justice is demanded by its economy. As a
refreshment state, colonial outpost, and apartheid economy, its basis was
mercantilist, extractive, and race-defined exploitative. Its super profits were
based on assumptions about cheap labour, offshore profitability for the
colonial centres, and raw material extraction for beneficiation by other
economies. The natural consequence of this structure is an economy that does
not grow beyond what can be extracted from it; it cannot build out of what it
has as resources. Its best brains can only thrive when operating from other
parts of the world because of its structure. This is the new and foregrounded
uncertainty; the consequence of not dialoguing about it is the state, and its
organs become the economy and the criminal world, creating a parallel economy. 


South
Africa doesn’t just need a new liberation struggle; it requires a revolutionary
shift in economic power relations. This shift should be about the success of
all citizens and the unleashing of each person’s potential, not about being
dominated by other economies or the unchecked influence of foreign investors.
Its time for radical change has now become a common-sense matter. 


Despite
not requiring a liberation struggle but a revolution driven by the liberation
promise in the 1996 Constitution, it still requires a liberation movement to
operate intra and extra-parliamentary processes. The Constitution’s character
must be upheld, and a liberation movement is needed to implement it. The growth
of a status quo-defending opposition complex that has now run out of runways to
oppose, hence the noise about the grand coalition and ethnic or tribal
declarations depicting the depth of uncertainty, is a function of a fertile
ground for a liberation movement construct to implement the Constitution. 


History
is on the side of the ANC as a liberation movement to rise to the occasion. Its
mass character, which it is dismally failing to convert into voter support, is
the social capital it has to redefine voter engagement with public
representatives. Its international solidarity movement expertise has not been
sufficiently recalibrated to become a foreign direct investment attraction
tool; the prowess with which it was applied to liquidate the almost
unchallenged intransigence of the state of Israel could be redeployed for
regional economic leadership.


The
rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution should be recalibrated into a
terrain of the NDR; the law can be used to shift and ultimately reverse the
frontiers of economic status quo defence. The ANC’s liberation movement
character would require using and respecting reports by Chapter 9
institutions. It can also develop an elaborate national c-suite creation
program that will scientifically recalibrate the ill-considered ‘cadre deployment policy’ potency that has failed to function in RSA’s multiparty
democracy.


As
a liberation movement, the ANC should liberate the best minds from within its
ranks to believe in the constitution, which decrees that the public service
must loyally execute the lawful policies of the government of the day. It
is the readiness of the ANC as a liberation movement to fight for the rights of
the public service to execute only lawful policies, irrespective of who
presides over the state in all spheres of government.

This
will better and more practically express its fundamental guide to its members
as a strategy and tactics obligation.

 

“for
it to exercise its vanguard role, the ANC puts a high premium on the
involvement of its cadres in all centres of power. This includes the presence
of ANC members and supporters in state institutions. It includes activism in
the mass terrain of which civil society structures are part. It includes the
involvement of cadres in the intellectual and ideological terrain to help shape
society’s value systems. This requires a cadre policy that encourages
creativity in thought and practice and eschews rigid dogma. In this regard, the
ANC promotes progressive traditions within the intellectual community,
including institutions such as universities and the media.”

 

Despite
the GNU context and the incomplete tasks of National Unity, South Africa still
needs the ANC as a liberation movement more than a political party contesting
for power. Its purpose, objectives and hegemony will reign supreme in a
liberation movement mode rather than the interests of career politicians,
funders, geopolitical influencers, and the dangerous notion of personal legacy building
and self-aggrandisement predominating it as a political party. Being a
political party should be seen as a dimension of its existence as a means to
the ends it articulates as a liberation movement. 

The choreographed positioning of the new opposition complex, a
political party pursuing various interests, some of which were suffocating
within the ANC, as the liberation movement node requires a considered response.
The ANC’s higher cognition is challenged. It must now answer all the
inconvenient questions its members are asking. Renewal and not ecdysis is
obligatory. CUT!!