Thus far, the chief
purpose of a liberation struggle has been to free those on whose behalf it is
waged. Now that this has been an elusive end in many ways for post-colonial
states, from now on, the chief purpose of those living in post-liberation
democracies should be to re-liberate themselves from the constraints and biases
of the existing liberation constructs. The fruits of the
liberation struggle cannot be left for too long to be ashes in the mouth.

Winning
a phase or the whole of the liberation struggle does not deactivate those who
lost political power from continuing to work towards retaining the best of the
power they had. They might not be in active combat to reclaim their lost status, whatever it was. Still, they may work on a sophisticated deterrence or be the deterrent
to those aspects of freedom threatening the established templates, which had been an advantage
to them.

As
the pre-1994 anti-apartheid struggle promises of freedom start changing in form
and character, custodians of the promises, the liberation movements, in RSA,
the ANC, are disintegrating as a force-for-the-purpose organisation. Having
successfully negotiated the transfer of power through a universal franchise for
all, in a multiparty political system, they have not demonstrated the competence
or capability as an organisation to engage in a process of struggle to transfer
economic power. This condition could be classified as an abstraction of the
general in post-colonial democracies.

Economic
freedom, a fundamental obligation for any post-colonial democratic or
constitutional order, remains the most elusive of the liberation promises. Once a society realises the size of the chasm that separates political freedom from
economic freedom, it can only understand the depth of the obligations the
post-colonial or post-apartheid state has towards society. Failed economic
policy interventions, which have survived philosophical or doctrinal scrutiny
purely because there was none, have become established practice that has
unfortunately morphed into economic points of departure. 

Again,
in RSA, arguably an abstraction of the general, the economy has for a while been stuck in the
quicksand of foreign direct investment reliance, the untested ‘magic’ of wholesale privatisation of the economy’s commanding heights, inflation-targeted monetary
policy, and a belief in the minimal role of the state in a developing economy.
These policies, often implemented without rigorous testing or evidence, have
failed to deliver the economic freedom promised by the liberation struggle. 

The
depleting trust in state-led economic growth interventions, purely based on the
conduct and behaviour of the dominant breed of leadership at the disposal of
post-colonial states, has become a profoundly troubling phenomenon along the
path to regional or global competitiveness. For decades, the consensual
conclusions about the developmental character of the post-colonial state have
been choked by the funded political conclusions that sought to meet the
political settlement obligations of the pre-liberation political accords.
Notwithstanding the invalidity or unworkability of the political accord’s
consensual conclusions, merely because the political economy faced constant
interrogation and challenge, the unfolding democratic and economic order has refused
to yield to the evolution of truths undergirding the nature of most
post-colonial economies. 

It
would thus be prudent for those who have had the privilege to sit at the main
tables that designed the economic mistakes of post-colonial states, or the
nations that they became, to admit most of the faults, some of which are core
components of their costly legacies as persons. Constant enquiry of
assumptions, especially in a science such as economics, should be allowed even
to refute the beliefs of those who embody the power to make a difference. In
almost all post-colonial economic debates and discourse, and acutely in RSA, it
has become difficult to determine if ideas have been suppressed or lost in the
debate or discourse requirements. There are a few moments where consensus on changing
post-colonial Africa’s economic development trajectory emerges as the proxy for
what is to be done. 

The
decline in rigour within Africa’s oldest liberation movement, which arguably
also played the role of one of its foremost think tanks on liberation politics,
cannot be overruled as the substrate of the overall disintegration of (South)
Africa as an economic development project or experiment. The success in
creating a crisis of legitimacy in colonialism, apartheid, racism, and racial
supremacy has emboldened the liberation movement’s self-belief in challenging
whatever establishments along its path. This might have, and erroneously so,
included in the mix of establishments the sacrosanctity of science as the basis
of decision processing. 

We
have seen how command of the largest social, political, and legitimacy capital
has bred tendencies to co-opt science and justify wrong political economy calls
whose consequences we are now swimming in. The rise of public sentiment and the
failure to discern between knowledge and opinion on several pertinent public
and economic policy issues have eroded the rigour which defined (South) Africa
as a policy Mecca. 

As
we look to the future, it is clear that recalibration is necessary. Whether through
the National Dialogue, a wholesale reconfiguration of political power dynamics
through the 2026 and 2029 elections, or any other means, South Africa, and
indeed the continent, needs to shift from the marketplace of emotions to one of
ideas. Recalibration is not just a suggestion; it’s a necessity for progress. 

For
progress to be made, pro-evidence politics must prevail. Rhetoric should make
space for refuting evidence denial in policymaking. Society should be empowered
with knowledge to be trusted by those in power. This will increase the
trustworthiness of public representatives because they would know that the
people know better. In the liberation movement, the requirement for its members
to have a deep understanding of what it stands for should be a non-negotiable
condition for acceptance. The importance of evidence-based policy cannot be
overstated.