Pallo Jordan: CROSSFIRE
The black (African, Indian and coloured) political movements that pioneered the democratic struggle were initially led by an educated elite who had embraced democracy and modernism as universal visions.
“Modernism” has been used in two senses, one technological, the other socio-political. Its technological dimension assumed humanity would incrementally attain mastery over nature by the application of science and technology. This is a view rooted in the belief that, provided it is not circumscribed by either secular or clerical authority, human endeavour has unlimited possibilities.
Modernism is also rationalist, asserting that reasoned debate, inquiry and investigation are the only reliable basis of human knowledge.
Modernity in South Africa had two loci. One was the urban areas, where modern technology was visibly opening new frontiers and drawing millions of blacks into a vast economic system that spans the world. The other was the schoolroom, where the elite itself had acquired the knowledge and skills, as well as the self-confidence to challenge the white rulers on their own terms.
The black elite advocated a society in which the ability and worth of a person would be judged on the basis of their performance, rather some alleged racial characteristics. Such a society, they believed, would encourage progress by rewarding talent, black or white.
The political leadership of the black working class has also been unabashedly modernist. The working class, like the productive forces it mans, is the object of a continuing process of renewal, improvement and refinement. The demands and rhythms of the economy require that the working class constantly change and adapt itself to technological progress.
Thus, while not denying the brutalising impact of industrialisation on pre-capitalist African societies, the working-class leadership has preferred to focus on its transformative and progressive aspects.
The rationalist bias of modernism includes the interrogation of traditional belief systems, customs and mores. Such questioning undermines the existing order by subjecting authority to the scrutiny of reason.
The modern political ideals of popular sovereignty, government by the consent of the governed and equality before the law collided directly with the institutions of white overlordship, kingship and chieftaincy.
To modernists, the corollary of the notion that some people are born to rule is that others are born to be ruled, which flies in the face of the principle of equality. Modernism implicitly challenged the legitimacy of both the white state, with its racist doctrine, and the traditional African aristocracy.
Progress, thus, is itself contradictory. It disrupted the lives of entire communities; continuous change produced profound uncertainties. Many individuals, however, prefer the predictability of the known present or the past to the maelstrom of change. Thus, though conservatism sits uneasily with the existential situation of the urban working class, large sections of it have recourse to tradition, its language and its symbols for warmth and comfort.
Since the publication of Nimrod Mkele’s article “The Emergent African Middle Class” in Optima (volume 10, no 4, 1960), it has generally been accepted that despite differences in lifestyle, life chances and incomes, the African petty bourgeoisie and the majority of African working people would ultimately make common cause because of the shared burden of oppression.
By extension, the same was assumed to apply among coloureds and Indians as well. These assumptions were the cornerstones of liberation-movement strategy.
This perspective excluded the possibility of an elite accommodation because, it was argued, the disabilities of the black elite obliged it to seek more radical solutions.
The historical upshot turned out more complex than any of the theorists and strategists had anticipated. Rather than through the seizure of power, change came to South Africa as a negotiated settlement with a host of explicit and implicit compromises.
The radical courses that both the black elite and working people would otherwise have followed have been deferred. The struggle has resulted in an unfinished revolution based on a settlement that privileges the rights of property at the expense of its obligations. This could produce tensions in the multi-class national democratic alliance forged during the struggle for liberation.
Elite accommodation is now being pursued in earnest. But there is nothing inevitable about the success of such a project.
My difficulty with Heribert Adam (“Empowering the black fat cats”, April 9 to 16) is that he appears not to have proceeded beyond the first year in his study of Marxism. Had he done, he would be conversant with the Hegelian concept “the cunning of reason”, with which Karl Marx’s writings on India, China and the American Civil War are suffused. It suggests that even malevolent intent, employing vile methods, can nonetheless have desirable consequences.
He would also be familiar with the distinction Marxists draw between a bourgeoisie, like the French, who attained ascendancy by revolutionary means, and others, like the Germans, who rode to it in the slipstream of the reforming Prussian state. All bourgeoisie, of course, wish to maximise their profits, but that does not mean they are all the same.
I agree with Jeremy Cronin (“Base IFP merger on honesty”, February 13 to 19) that class and race have begun to diverge and that we should be alive to the real, though latent, contradictions that could now affect a hitherto unified bloc of national democratic forces, but there continues to be an objective basis for unity among this broad alliance.
With the state’s capacity to intervene so severely constrained, are there no possibilities for black-owned companies, pursuing rich dividends to be sure, to contribute to economic development, working in creative alliances and joint ventures with union investment houses, community-based organisations and state corporations? New forms of public ownership that do not necessarily entail state ownership could also be explored.
Greater enthusiasm is needed in seconding government-led initiatives. Black-owned corporations could drive these by giving a lead. The working poor and the black bourgeoisie have a shared interest in the implementation of those aspects of the democratic programme that have for the moment been deferred.
Should these not be the sunrise clauses for 1999?