Kader Asmal, water affairs and forestry minister, sets out the formidable challenges facing the ANC
THERE are two powerful messages that Bloemfontein can give the nation over the next week. First, the ANC conference can confirm that the ANC is the natural party of government; second, it can be demonstrated that all South Africans are in safe hands, in the new democracy.
The conference, taking over where the Durban conference left off three years ago, is, in many ways, a victory celebration. With perhaps 3 500 people expected to attend, it will be a resounding occassion — yet it will have its poignancy because of the absence of departed stalwarts of liberation such as Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani and Thomas Nkobi.
Durban 1991 was marked by a certain atmosphere of uncertainty, drift and violence in South Africa. It was, indeed, not easy to generate the optimism that a winning party always needs. Yet Durban turned out to be an unqualified success and it led on to the negotiation of one of the more enlightened constitutions in the world, and victory for the ANC at the polls in April 1994.
That victory was not just for the ANC, securing nearly two- thirds of the votes cast. No, it produced a healthy balance of forces from which a government of national unity (GNU) could be formed representing something like 90 percent of the country. It was also a victory for democracy; for the previously-neglected and downtrodden; and posthumously, for those martyred by apartheid.
In under eight months, the elections have been all-but forgotten, as the new nation embarks on its increasingly hopeful future. The usual carping dogs bark as the caravan moves on with those who believe that the diverse people of a formerly divided nation can work together in peace. But slowly the critics’ yelps become less convincing, as South Africa’s credit rating improves, the economy gets set for renewal, political violence ebbs, and the reconstruction and development programme’s first projects spread their life-giving force through the land.
The conference will address many issues. Central to all the discusion will be whether South Africa has the will and the capacity to emerge, not as a coercive imperial power, but as the gentle giant of Southern Africa, with policies which are a spur to peace and betterment way beyond our borders.
The conference will also be faced with the question whether we will build on the remarkable success achieved in ensuring substantial numbers of women in the National Assembly (101 out of 400 seats), placing South Africa among the top seven in the world on this score. Durban’s hesitant steps have, three years on, become a sturdy stride, and we must now lengthen it.
The government will, moreover, have an opportunity in Bloemfontein to show the people that it will resolutely pursue the RDP with action, on the ground.
It can be said, then, that the easiest part is over. For the ANC, the self-evident truths of liberation have given way to the obsurities of government. The heartening world support against racism gives way to our having to compete for international attention in a crowded field, with the danger of being unsighted.
The supreme challenge of our times remains: how to pare down one of the world’s most notorious gaps between rich and poor.
There are other worries. Violent crime shrugs off the political accommodation and grows menacingly. The devolution of power to the provinces and to other levels proves to be a complex, slow job. The local elections approach, offering complexity and uncertainty, but also the completion of a spectacular democratic hat-trick — adding local success to national and provincial.
Those impoverished, dispossessed and handicapped by apartheid must see the prospect of just recompense. Those, who in the name of racial superiority, plundered a sub- continent and hounded our citizens, must be called to book — at least at the honoured bar of truth, however gently this must of necessity be done.
It is action stations as never before in South Africa, and there is little time to celebrate past victories.
Bloemfontein will be an occassion for others to declare open season on the ANC, and so it should be. The ANC and its allies will be offered to public scrutiny, particularly bearing in mind the sensible ANC commitment to maximum openness. No government is without its embarrassments, its lapses. We should face the critics squarely, and not flinch.
The buoying thought as the conference begins is that we galloped past the post in the first six months of democracy, and are well into the second with the GNU still intact, the economy in better shape, and — the fainthearts notwithstanding — a feeling of growing optimism among our fellow citizens.
But the real challenge is to show South Africa that it was not employing misplaced judgment when it gave overwhelming support to the ANC in the last elections.