There are grounds for thanksgiving, perhaps, that Nelson Mandela’s sudden taste for loquaciousness did not lead him to challenge Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s record of 11 days as the world’s longest speech. But South Africa has little else to be grateful for where the president’s five- hour “Enemies of Change” address to the African National Congress conference in Mafikeng is concerned.
The bizarre nature of the speech is perhaps best illustrated by reference to those whom the president exempts from description as counter-revolutionary forces. The Inkatha Freedom Party are seemingly the “good guys” in Mandela’s book. This is the organisation which accepted covert funding from the security police, trained its killers with the help of military intelligence and worked hand-in-glove with the “third force” to destabilise this country in the run-up to the majority-rule elections.
Then there are the “enemies” which the president identifies. The lumping of the Democratic Party with the National Party makes no historical sense, which leads to the assumption that the intention is simply to smear by association. We hold no brief for the Nationalists; a party which is capable of electing a professional liar to lead it into the new South Africa deserves all it gets by way of contempt. But the greatest flaw of the DP, beyond its inability to move its support base beyond white suburbia, is that it is too often right in pointing out the abandonment of morality by the ANC government. Does this make them enemies of democratic transformation?
The president’s attacks on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are nothing less than baffling. “Many of our NGOs are not in fact NGOs” . “these NGOs also work to corrode the influence of the movement” . “this has also created the possibility for some of these NGOs to act as instruments of foreign governments and institutions .” What is he trying to say? If he has some evidence – perhaps from the security services – of machinations by foreign agencies, he surely has a responsibility to share it with the nation. Otherwise he again opens himself to the charge of “smear”.
But where smears are concerned it is in his attack on the media that the president outdoes himself. We are, ourselves, strongly critical of the South African press. We like to present ourselves as the watchdogs of society, but we are only too aware of how inadequately we are fulfilling that task.
We are barely scratching the surface of corruption in the government. We are providing little of the analysis needed for public understanding of the issues of the day. If we were doing our job properly, we would present far more of a challenge to the government.
The claim that “the bulk of the mass media in our country has set itself up as a force opposed to the ANC” and “the media uses the democratic order as an instrument to protect the legacy of racism”. It pains one to witness such a revered figure as Mandela talking such bollocks.
This newspaper believes in a robust public debate as part of the essence of a democratic society. But Mandela has gone further in implying that all criticism of the ANC is part of a plot to stall transformation, that racist bureaucrats obstructing change are of a kind with newspapers who raise concerns about corruption. It is the language of paranoia, reliant on innuendo, which can only lead to social division.
It would be too easy to dismiss his words as pumped-up rhetoric made to order for a party conference. Perhaps it was really Thabo Mbeki’s words in the mouth of Mandela to lend a retrospective sense of continuity to a more radical ANC agenda on its way, supplanting the “reconciliation” era.
Given our history, we are still sorely in need of a leadership that emphasises reconciliation and not racial division. Those ANC leaders who insist on pursuing the language of racial identity and stereotypes are playing with fire. And the fire might start where least expected – for instance, on the street, where xenophobia against foreign nationals is becoming odiously apparent.
And why is transformation seen as antithetical to reconciliation? Mandela has always had us believe they are two sides of the same coin of building a successful nation. Does he see enemies of transformation under every bed because the ANC is itself vulnerable to the charge that it has not done enough for real transformation?
The exigencies of a negotiated revolution and a one-power world in which the socialist bloc has been routed and markets rule supreme has severely constrained the range of choices available to the ANC. But the growth, employment and redistribution strategy’s economic conservatism and the maintenance of high interest rates at the expense of jobs and growth, for instance, have negated many earnest attempts at redressing the appalling historical legacy of apartheid.
Mandela is not correct when he says the government is doing everything to combat corruption. From school feeding schemes to leaky jails, there are startlingly high levels of corruption that are blocking delivery.
One hopes that the attempts to cast Mbeki in the good-cop role means that he will tackle real transformation with greater diligence, that we are not seeing a repeat of Zimbabwe where the jargon of transformation and race-bashing is used to mask a society where the only visible change has been the enrichment of a parasitic elite in Harare.
Mandela is a towering figure in our history. But the language he used at Mafikeng is that of a lesser politician. We would have expected more from the man who has given his life to our liberation.