Because hope springs eternal in human affairs, societies prefer not to wallow in their past failures or those of their governments. Each year brings a renewed sense of hope that the year ahead will be different and will bring prosperity. Without purposeful intervention, hopes alone cannot bring about change.
For the African National Congress-led government, last year must have seemed like being trapped in a roller coaster as it lurched from one controversy and crisis to the next. We had the arms deal investigation, the plot hatched against senior members of the party, the controversy around HIV/Aids, heightened tensions within the tripartite alliance, the embarrassing anti-privatisation protests, the Treatment Action Campaign against government, the continued stand-off between the government and the media, and so on.
Without decisive intervention, the general moral and political crisis will continue. A Sunday Times editorial on January 6 2002 eloquently captures this widespread perception:
“The past few years have seen the creeping in of those tendencies that make for bad governance: arrogance, disdain for ‘the people’, corruption and intolerance of dissent. Many ANC politicians, particularly at provincial and local level, have been more than eager to use their positions to benefit friends and, indirectly, themselves. There have also been instances of inexcusable inefficiency and ineptitude ? funds left unspent, menial tasks left undone and simple laws and regulations unenforced. And the standard response from party members to criticism of these transgressions and failures has been to close ranks and label critics as opponents of transformation.”
The ruling elite has yet to explain the relevance, appropriateness and meaning of terms like counter- revolutionary, anti-African, unpatriotic, and traitors in the context of a democracy. In particular, which revolution and cause is being betrayed? Since when has criticism become synonymous with being unpatriotic?
It was only when the leadership of both the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party were accused of counter-revolutionary tendencies, that they comradely counselled the ruling elite that labeling is a poor substitute for argument.
The ruling elite of the ANC has also sought to remind its detractors of the majority electoral support it received in the 1999 elections. This would have been a convincing argument had it not been for the fact that the greatest critics of the ANC are its traditional allies ? the trade unions, churches, civics and NGOs as well as sections of the media.
Today, they are variously described as being enemies of transformation, simply because they dare speak against corruption, government ineptitude and centralisation of power. They are now being mocked and ridiculed by those they helped to bring into political office.
The latest in the armoury of defence is to attribute every criticism to conspiracies aimed at toppling the present leadership. The level of insecurity is only matched by a severe sense of inadequacy.
In a profound way, these developments test our appreciation of, and commitment to, principles and values that underpin our nascent democracy: respect for human life; putting people first; transparent and clean government; and accountability. They highlight the fact that democracy is not limited to claims of legitimacy and that it does not end with elections.
In The Writer in a Neo-colonial State, Ngugi wa Thiongo could be referring to the South African situation. He suggests that those who sing democracy, freedom, and claim to be the custodians of these aspirations “did not always understand the true dimensions of those aspirations, or rather did not always adequately evaluate the real enemy of these aspirations.
“Imperialism was far too easily seen in terms of the skin pigmentation of the coloniser … What was being celebrated in the writing was the departure of the white man with the implied hope that the incoming black man by virtue of his blackness would right the wrongs and heal the wounds of centuries of slavery and colonialism.”
Not surprisingly, “independence did not bring about fundamental changes. It was independence with the ruler holding a begging bowl and the ruled holding a shrinking belly. The age of independence had produced a new class and a new leadership that often was not very different from the old one.”
This demands that we go beyond issues of legitimacy. Two cases before our courts call for moral consideration. One relates to the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant HIV-positive women, and the other questions the morality of the arms deal that will result in less money being available for social spending.
Philip Randolph, an African-American scholar captures these considerations as follows: “A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”
As to the question of whether the ANC-led government protects the humblest and weakest of its citizens, most commentaries suggest an emphatic no! Sharply representing sentiments shared by civil society, Cosatu, SACP, religious leaders, and the world still reeling in shock at the callous disregard for life, a City Press editorial (December 23 2001) had this to say:
“No amount of verbal gymnastics or sophistry to justify government’s position can take away the simple fact that refusal to provide [anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant women] is ill informed and ultimately callous. What voices must speak before President Thabo Mbeki retreats from this obvious madness?
“Young children are being condemned to early deaths by a leader and government which claim to care for the poorest of the poor. How many thousands of graves must be dug before our own Pharaoh can be made to realise that this is too much?
“It is apparent that the government’s refusal to provide these drugs is not based on scientific reasons but purely on the whims of a president whose ego has been bruised and who refuses to accept that his views on HIV/Aids are wrong.
“It is such a tragedy that thousands of young lives will be sacrificed because of the brittle ego of a president and his sycophantic health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.”
Understandably, some doctors have been bold enough to suggest that the government and its leader must be charged with genocide.
Almost anticipating such consideration, Frederick Douglass, a former slave who became a great reformer, lecturer, writer, and adviser to the United States President Abraham Lincoln wrote: “A government that cannot or does not protect the humblest citizen in his right to life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should be reformed or overthrown without delay.”