The younger the democracy, the greater the enthusiasm for civic involvement. Unlike their counterparts in the developed world, where political alienation and cynicism are the norm, South Africans seem to honestly believe that they can individually make a difference.
Sophisticates might dismiss this as laughably naïve but they would be wrong. It was the willingness of individuals to take on an apparently unassailable state that gave South Africans their freedom in the first place. When one combines national optimism with a can-do attitude, surprising things can and have been achieved.
It is part of any government’s challenge to find ways to channel such commitment by its citizenry not only into votes for itself, but into a kind of low-cost volunteerism which builds the public good at minimal cost to the public purse. While this is especially true of a developing society, active involvement and some degree of social selflessness are important aspects of any achieving nation.
Here in South Africa the “boer maak ‘n plan” ethos flourishes among all races and is reflected in a steady stream of suggestions by columnists, by newspaper readers and on talk radio about what can loosely be called advice on how to build a nation. And while unsolicited advice is common anywhere in the world, what is remarkable in South Africa is the thought that has often gone into these proposals and the earnest expectation on the part of their proponents that these will be given serious consideration.
Unfortunately this kind of impromptu genius is the antithesis of this government’s instinctual response to shifting terrain. The African National Congress (ANC) is an intensely rigid ideological organisation where being “on message” is far more important than nifty adaption to rapidly unfolding national challenges.
This is different from countries as diverse as — taken at random — China, Canada and Brazil, where the test of an idea is mostly whether it might work. In SA the ethnic origin and ideological lineage of an idea is more important than the merits and demerits of the idea itself.
That’s why the ANC and its alliance partners usually are more exercised about whether the “right” jobs are created than whether any jobs at all are being added. That’s why the ANC Youth League is in love with the Marxist purity of mining nationalisation rather than worrying about why the country’s commodities sector is shrinking in an era of rapid world expansion.
Not that this seems to discourage the idea generators. The liberal Helen Suzman Foundation runs a quarterly round-table series, which has drawn intellectuals of all political persuasions to discuss and make proposals on matters like local government performance, xenophobia, unemployment, and household indebtedness.
Business Day, sponsored by Telkom, recently launched an “intense discussion” on the economy and society, which will run for at least a year and is disseminated in print, on television and on the internet. It has assembled an array of thinkers, including journalists, people in business and academics.
Editor Peter Bruce writes that a national dialogue is “vital” to find consensus on issues like job creation. “We have a duty to the millions of very poor citizens who look to their more fortunate brothers for a way out of poverty. We have a duty to act.”
Talk is all very well, but unless the ANC is willing to listen, it will all be to no avail. One must console oneself with signs of faint stirrings of intellectual flexibility within the tripartite alliance, with — for example — murmurs implying a dawning recognition that any new jobs are better than none. While government’s paralysis is likely to continue for some time yet, it is testimony to grassroots citizen involvement that there is even a glimmer of hope.
But any actual ANC policy shifts will face torrid internal interrogation by the purist hardliners and bitter internal battle between the various factions. Remember how long it took the ANC to abandon Outcomes Based Education, despite its obvious failures?
In this regard it will be interesting to see the response to National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel’s overview report into the state of the nation, compiled by a panel of experts and released this week. The tone of the report is refreshingly frank and while the NPC notes that South Africa had has significant successes post-democracy there were a number of weaknesses and problems, among them a politicised public service, rampant corruption, ailing healthcare, crumbling infrastructure and continued divisions in society.
The ANC has welcomed the report and enjoined South Africans to roll up their sleeves and get involved in “being part of the solution”. The challenge for the ANC is that many of the solutions mean tackling its own ideological shibboleths, and to do so will cause chaos in the ranks.
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