Steven Friedman
Worm’s eye view
If our leaders could close the gap between what they say and what they do, our society might be on the way to the future it deserves.
This is not another complaint about the hypocrisy of politicians. It is, rather, an attempt to point to a key feature of our post-1999 government, which seems almost to be operating at two levels.
On one is a government aware of the problems of this society and willing to tackle them. It is also, if we read the speeches and documents, sensitive to evidence that particular policies or approaches are not working and the need to change them.
As evidence of the former, read President Thabo Mbeki’s inaugural speech and several of his parliamentary addresses. They go well beyond the familiar refrains to address issues such as the need for a “caring society”, an assault on poverty, clean and effective government and an inclusive society.
On the latter, the president’s speech at last year’s racism conference, inviting open debate on the issue after a period in which dissenting voices were under pressure, or the African National Congress anniversary statement this month acknowledging the need for it to connect to grassroots citizens after a period of strong centralisation of government decisions suggest a strong ability to learn from mistakes.
If, then, we relied only on government or ANC statements, we would have much for which to be grateful.
The problem comes when many of these insights have to be translated into action. The evidence should be familiar. A recognition of the importance of HIV/Aids and the need for a national campaign against it is frustrated by a government insistence on denying a role to activists and specialists who criticise it. A commitment to democracy and stability in Africa, last expressed only a few days ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, translates into a willingness to welcome the late Laurent Kabila into the Southern African Development Community, despite his refusal to hold elections, and tacit public support for Robert Mugabe, despite overwhelming evidence of a sustained campaign of harassment against rank-and-file black Zimbabweans who support the opposition. And, in the last few days, commitment to a campaign against corruption is undermined by political mismanagement of the arms deal controversy which succeeds in creating the impression that the government is trying to choose who investigates its actions.
So why this gulf between the world of government speeches and documents and that of politicians’ actions? Because, like the rest of us, those who govern us are far more creatures of our past than they would care to admit.
Many of us tend conveniently to forget the past from which we come, and the extent to which it shapes our attitudes and actions.
Our history is polarised and so many in government are products of a tradition in which the world was divided neatly between “them” and “us”. The latter included anyone in the liberation camp as well as the neighbouring governments who supported the fight against apartheid. That may help explain a frequent tendency to close ranks in the face of corruption charges or to defend neighbouring governments whose values are vastly different from those in our Constitution.
Similarly, a product of our polarised past was a tendency to assume that “us”, those opposed to apartheid, could be represented by one organisation and one group of leaders. The democratic idea that difference is a strength to be accommodated could not flourish because the line between an opponent and a traitor was exceeding thin; this produced inevitable pressures for conformity. The recent tendency to concentrate the choice of provincial and local leaders at the centre is only one example of this legacy.
Many of our leaders, including the president, are also products of exile. They have experienced a type of politics different from that required now. In exile it is unwise to trust anyone except your closest connections the new and unknown “friend” you embrace is as likely to be a spy as an ally. The demands of an underground fight encourage secrecy and centralisation. Inevitably, these habits now influence the way in which we are governed. This may explain, for example, why Aids decisions are centralised where experience elsewhere shows that they must be shared.
There are many other examples. But the trend is clear. The ANC governs in an environment very different to the one which seemed likely to others as well as it for much of apartheid’s life. Intellectually, its leaders find it relatively easy to adapt to this unexpected world. But new intentions inevitably become filtered through leaders’ experiences and attitudes built over many years. And the result is that the ability to understand clearly what is required does not necessarily translate into a willingness to do what is needed.
Those who govern us are hardly unique. On the contrary, a dominant theme in post-apartheid South Africa is that what most of us say is so filtered through the baggage of our past that it is often impossible to understand what is happening here unless we are able to crack the code.
The examples are, again, familiar. No one in the suburbs is any longer a racist: it is just that most cannot imagine any action by a black-led government passing muster. Whether many suburbanites or the politicians who seek to lead them are talking about crime, disease or the housing shortage, it is safe to assume that an upbringing in which declining standards were assumed to be inevitable consequences of black rule shapes much of what is said.
So we remain prisoners of our past, on both sides of the divide. And, if this country does fail to create the kind of society to which our Constitution aspires, it will not be because blacks are innately incompetent or whites inherently prejudiced, but because we could not unlearn our past.
The baggage we bring from the past is understandable. But it is also, as we have seen over the past couple of years, the greatest obstacle to building the society most of us want. While the good news is that this generation will one day be replaced by one without as much baggage, we do not have to travel the route of those societies who have had to progress by learning from the costly mistakes of a generation.
A start is for all of us to start recognising how much of the baggage of the past we still carry. That is difficult, but not impossible. And the more South Africans of influence acknowledge and then try to free themselves of that baggage, the less likely will we be to be remembered as a society whose leaders knew what they had to do, but whose past would not let them do it.