Bryan Rostron
A SECOND LOOK
‘Those who stand in the middle of the road,” observed British socialist Aneurin Bevan, “get run over.” South Africa and Zimbabwe share the same lane on the great globalised highway of the 21st century: after driving on the left for many years, both Zanu-PF and the African National Congress opted for the middle of the road. The current crisis is all about President Robert Mugabe’s desperate attempts to avoid getting run over.
“Let us forgive and forget,” announced Mugabe in 1980. “Let us join hands in a new amity.” Mugabe may have been mouthing insincere sentiments, fingers crossed behind his back. Nevertheless he was sending out a message his former enemies, and the international markets, wished to hear – just as the ANC has done here.
Both countries achieved transitions to majority rule by negotiating with the enemy, temporarily burying the problem: the dispossession of the majority of the population. That compromise involved moving to the middle of the road.
“Reconciliation is the forgiveness of a small elite that inherits state power without the fulfilment of social justice for the majority,” wrote Ibbo Mandaza, of the Southern African Political and Economic Series. “For this reason, reconciliation is neither durable nor sustainable.” Mandaza’s essay on Zimbabwe appeared in a book, launched by President Thabo Mbeki, called African Renaissance. His caveat on “reconciliation” strikes a warning for us. Both countries have so much unfinished business, a day of reckoning was inevitable. That day, in Zimbabwe, has arrived.
Here, too, the strains become more apparent every day. The tripartite alliance pulls in competing directions. Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel counsels putting our faith in the market just as the ANC general secretary urges us to “hate capitalism”. Thus the alliance seems increasingly like that exotic animal in Dr Dolittle: “With a head at both front and rear, pulling in opposite directions, it was called a Pushme- Pullyou.”
This is not a problem unique to Africa. It is shared worldwide by formerly left-leaning parties who have veered right to gain power. In the United States and the United Kingdom, both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have stolen their political opponents’ policies. The trick is to straddle the road, one foot in the left lane, the other in the right.
This is commonly known as the third way. The hazard of this third way, a term gaining currency in South Africa, is the danger of getting run over. Judging by the US and UK examples, the instinctive reflex to avoid getting hit at times of crisis is to veer sharply to the right.
The third way seeks to find a path between unfettered free markets and collectivism, while accepting and adapting to globalisation. This means, in effect, that it bends before the greatest prevailing force. Today in the new world order this requires that the third way, in practice, becomes the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation way.
Thus the problem with the ill-defined third way is that it essentially repackages the old way. When a crisis hits, once left- leaning leaders have to explain to their own people why it is that they – again – have to make all the sacrifices.
The third way, like a blockbuster movie, may have terrific special effects, but it follows a familiar plot. 1. Party leaders, to gain power, do a deal with the enemy. 2. Dicing with the devil, they find, has a price: they control ministries, but not the economy. 3. Having supped with the devil, they begin to find the perks rather agreeable. 4. Inevitably, these contradictions create a crisis. 5. A scapegoat must be found.
Zimbabwe has reached that final stage: white farmers are cast as scapegoats. However, the fact is that Zanu-PF gangs have beaten or killed many more black opponents. For 20 years, reconciliation between former colonial masters and a new black elite prospered, while the urban unemployed and landless peasants were largely neglected – so long as they remained silent. Now Mugabe’s real enemy is the majority of his own people.
He was, in short, caught loitering right in the middle of the road.
Other forewarning signs of this nebulous third way can be seen clearly in Britain. By moving right, “New” Labour has temporarily neutralised the Tory opposition. But to keep a grip on their own party, the leadership has become increasingly dictatorial. The rank and file is ever more restless. Thus Blair was recently humiliated by the election of his own maverick left-winger, Ken Livingstone, as mayor of London. The real opposition now comes from within the party.
So who will be the scapegoat when a serious crisis hits? In Britain, almost certainly, the party’s own traditional supporters. And in South Africa?
The fascination of this third way is that it promises to unite apparently irreconcilable antagonists: just as long, it seems, as they are from opposing elites. The third, unspoken, element of the third way is that the poor get elbowed aside.
Bizarrely, you can join this third way from either the left or the right. So who, now, is the enemy? Listen to George W Bush, Republican presidential hopeful, currently trying to scramble into the centre: “When I was coming up it was a dangerous world and we knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them and it was clear who them was. Today, we’re not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.”
That’s the problem with standing in the middle of the road. You can’t be sure from which direction danger will come. Just, sure as hell, that you’re gonna get hit.