Cognitive dissonance of Chancellor House audit

Jon Qwelane’s column of February 18 2008, “Batten the hatches of escape”, expresses his concern — and no little anger — at the number of people, particularly those with skills, who are leaving South Africa.

He asks whether it is not possible, on the one hand, for the government to make it more difficult for people to leave — perhaps get those who acquired the skills here somehow to pay back the expenditure on them — or, on the other hand, to create conditions that make it more desirable for them to stay: deal with crime, eradicate BEE for pals, remove unconditional affirmative action and tell the truth when claiming to make it a better life for all.

Mondli Makhanya in his weekly column for the Sunday Times bemoans the fact that the struggle within the ANC has led to an internal party debate on “civilisation” being stillborn.

He believes that this issue is vital to all South Africans as it goes to the heart of defining the standards that should be acceptable to South Africans. While the article looks at the conduct of our taxi drivers, it also expresses concern at the general drop in standards of behaviour that confronts us all on a daily basis.

In essence, both are looking at ways to improve our country by looking at the possibility of raising our standards, reducing crime, making politicians accountable and strengthening our economy.

The problem is that while many senior members of the ANC know what should be done, it is currently inexpedient to do so. We therefore often see members suffering anxiety attacks occasioned by doing things that are clearly “at odds” with their own self-image or even beliefs.

Yesterday we learned of an investigation into the Chancellor House deals. In the ordinary course I would be applauding the move as the party is cleaning house. Instead I can only conclude that this is the latest salvo being fired in the war between the old guard and the new.

If Jacob Zuma, the “champion of the poor”, and those supporting him were in the habit of promoting action in the fight against crime instead of reducing the number of effective units, I may well have believed that this was something other than revenge politics. Of course the fact that the ANC president has just returned from Mauritius on an evidence-suppressing mission also doesn’t help.

While I’m sure that there is a perfectly rational reason for the Chancellor House forensic audit being carried out, my difficulty is that it is inconsistent with the rest of this faction’s conduct. At present, every step they take is to weaken the checks and balances the country has in place against corruption.

The knee-jerk reactions that the media are experiencing from those questioned in respect of crime in general and corruption in particular arise from the anxiety driven by subconsciously knowing that they are making the wrong moves for the wrong reasons and are then being forced to justify their actions.

The problem with cognitive dissonance is that once conduct and self-image are at odds with each other, it’s a bitch to rationalise your way out of the holes you excavate for yourself. So far, if I were JZ’s boss, my interim report would read: “This employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.”

Take Friday’s debacle as another example. While JZ and his supporters have gone out of their way to promote him as a populist leader in touch with the grassroots, we witnessed the forced removal of white journalists from a black journalists’ forum that he was addressing.

Now, on its own this is quite disturbing, but in tandem with the fact that the media are being threatened with a parliamentary media tribunal, that newspapers are being sued by JZ and that the “champion of the poor” could find no difficulty with these acts of blatant racism, it becomes quite horrific — hardly in keeping with this populist image, I would imagine.

Surely a man of the people would insist that the media, as protectors of the masses as well as their means of staying in touch with their leader, were given access to him that was as wide as humanly possible?

Instead we are left to adduce the following: our populist leader will tie the press down as soon as possible, sue those who express an opinion about him that he does not appreciate, and find no fault in acts of barbarism against certain members of the press played out in front of him.

No doubt this is occasioned by the anxiety being experienced as a result of the incongruity between what people expect from a populist leader and the conduct of the fellow concerned.

If the image is that JZ is the champion of the poor and the oppressed, then the sooner someone indicates to him that the police and the media are the masses’ first line of defence against government abuses, the better.

Perhaps the Romans knew what they were doing when they appointed two consuls to serve for the period of one year. That way nobody was in power long enough to accumulate sufficient power or occasion substantial damage.