Smut, sheep and airplanes in Polokwane

So, the experiment continues. The mad blogger is still walking around, looking around into this whole ANC conference situation. A while ago I entered the media centre to look for a space so I could pollute the blogosphere with the sulphuric fumes of my ignorant, pseudo-political observations. All I can tell you is that being a journalist is a tough, high-pressure job. That is one stressed bunch of people in that room — journalism is definitely not for me.

I thought about creating some working space in the crowded media centre for myself using Pavlovian tactics such as suggesting that there’s a scoop waiting to be had outside. But, to paraphrase some long-dead US president, “Freedom of speech does not include the right to shout ‘VAVI SPEAKING OUTSIDE!’ inside a crowded media centre.” Someone could get hurt. So I’m typing this from the student-union canteen while munching on some soggy slap chips. Cholesterol is starting to ooze out of my pores.

I have attended two press conferences since I’ve been here; one by a Smuts Ngonyama/Minister Jeff Radebe tag team and the other by Minister Thoko Didiza. To the uninitiated, a press conference is an exercise in which an important individual calls the press corps to gather inside a small, poorly ventilated room to say: “Neeny neeny neener, I know stuff that you don’t and I ain’t telling you nothing.” Ngonyama and Radebe are pretty adept at this, the art of using 5 000 words to say nothing, but Didiza is a maestro at it. I gave her 12 out of 10 on the “Don’t tell them nutting” scale. The cynic in me wondered what it was that the media’s attention was being diverted from.

Afterwards, I conducted a snap survey among the media personnel. Ninety-seven percent said they’d rather have spent those 45 minutes being given a pineapple enema than listening to Smuts talk.

If I come across as someone who has a log up my poop hole with ANC leaders’ communication skills, it’s probably because I do. I have been wrecking my brain trying to figure out the source of my irritation with listening to the ANC leadership speak. A few minutes ago, my reasons were crystallised when an excited group of Zuma supporters who had just finished casting their votes took the table next to mine in the canteen. The best way to describe how I felt as I listened to them speak is: “What on earth are you talking about? What language is that?”

You see, ANC people have their own language. I call it ANC-speak:

“Comrades, I trust that we all voted correctly … revolutionary advances … the proletariat is not compromised … the revolutionary vanguard … the PEC decision … when the SG … the BGMs … the DG … plus the S&M …” (OK, that one’s my creation.) Still, I think you know what I’m saying. What the hell is a BGM? In my circle of friends, I am also referred to as the BGM — but that’s short for Beer-Guzzling Machine.

So you can understand my frustration at my failed attempts to understand what informs the ANC culture. And then I had an epiphany. Ohmygod, ANC leaders are absolutely correct! Until you join the ANC and be a part of it, you’ll never truly understand the internal goings-on in “the movement”. Of course, as the more astute reader with excellent BS filters will realise, I am hardly breaking any ground here. The same can be said with practically any other organised formation. David Koresh’s Branch Davidians and Jehovah’s Witnesses come to mind.

I do not think that Minister Radebe would be upset with me for suggesting that the ANC is similar to the Shembe Church. He did, after all, characterise the ANC as a “multiclass organisation … a broad church” when answering a question about class conflict within the organisation during the “Tell them nutting” session I referred to earlier. Grow a bushy beard on president-in-waiting Jacob Zuma, slap a white flowing robe and open sandals on him, give him a staff and — voila! — you have Bishop Zuma of the African National Church.

I have no interest in positioning myself as some kind of political analyst. I am way too ignorant and possess zero credibility even to try. I will leave that to the smart guys who know what they’re talking about, such as Dr Steven Friedman, whom I saw wandering around with a faraway look in his eye a few minutes ago. I only ask that you allow me some latitude so I can explain myself.

You see, I think that the ANC exists within a specific paradigm that is, for the most part, truly peculiar to the party. During the Smuts/Jeff show of nothingness, I counted at least eight separate instances when the phrase “ANC culture” or “ANC traditions” was used between the two anti-communicators. The third or fourth time that the phrase was used, I scribbled furiously in my notepad: “What the f*&^ is this ANC culture?!!!” Yeah, yeah, I’ll rinse out my pen with soap later.

It is, at this point, that an intelligent, credible commentator would be offering his insightful ~~wild guess~~ analysis on the nature of this culture. But I won’t make any attempt to do so — I’m OK with zero credibility; there’s no need to go into negative credibility territory. You would probably laugh in my face if I told you that the culture of the ANC was cocooned inside much singing, dancing, toyi-toying, punching at an imaginary enemy with a clenched fist and shouting cryptic slogans about revolution. Chances are, if you were an ANC NEC member, your shoulders would shake as you giggled: “Ha ha ha! You do not understand the ANC culture.” Senior ANC people love to mock people who do not understand ANC traditions.

So I will steer clear of that minefield lest I be accused of saying that the ANC culture is advanced herd mentality. For the record, I do not believe that ANC members exhibit more sheep-ish behaviour than, say, anybody with a pair of Levis in his closet. My only comment about the world view of the ANC is that it seems to me to be an extremely inward-looking organisation with an almost religious belief that the answers to every question lie inside the ANC.

Take President Thabo Mbeki’s state of the ~~nation~~ organisation address the other day. It has already been widely reported that he warned against a virus eating away at the fibre of the organisation, a “poisonous phenomenon foreign to our movement”. He was, of course, referring to the rise of political infighting among ANC members driven to participate in ANC structures by personal ambition and a desire for personal gain. There was an involuntary scowl of repulsion on his face when he read the word “careerists” to describe these undisciplined cadres who were deviants from this “ANC culture”.

It is the ignorant, uneducated assertion of this lowly blogger that at the very core of the current power struggle in the ANC is just this phenomenon. I think that at the core of the seemingly wide gulf between Mbeki and the rank-and-file are the contradictions around this whole personal ambition/careerism issue. Reading between the lines, it seems that clamouring for positions is a repulsive, undesirable phenomenon that is “foreign” to some obscure culture. A case of “Do as I say, not as I do”, as one ANC delegate from Tshwane, Mpho Mokoena, told me. She has a point. One would have to be pretty dull to fail to pick up the contradiction of someone who arrived at conference in a 20-vehicle motorcade telling one to harbour no personal, material ambitions.

Joining a political party for altruistic ideals and a desire to uplift others is noble indeed, albeit impractical. Pope Benedict XVI has better insights into this. Selfless service and sacrifice belongs in the same category as religion, Santa Claus and movie happy endings. I think I understand Mbeki and those who share his view that the ANC of today needs to return to the ethos of old; to the ANC that Mbeki, for instance, joined as a 13-year old.

There is one big problem with this yearning for the return to a time when the typical ANC cadre was driven by ideology and not ~~bread-and-butter~~ pap-and-vleis issues. Ignore for a second the fact that the ANC cadre of today is a member of the ruling party. The problem is much more basic than that (drum roll, please).

ANC members are human beings. Well, most of them anyway. If the word on the street among members of the press is to be believed, Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad is some kind of bulldog. I can neither confirm nor deny this, being the simple blogger that I am without access to the corridors of power. I have personally never seen him piss against a car tyre or try to hump anyone’s leg. I find the story unbelievable, personally — I think he’s a human being just like the rest of the ANC members.

The problem with human beings is that we desire the best for ourselves by definition. I should know; I’m also human, believe it or not. Mbeki is and has always been an ideas man, and I understand where he is coming from. But I think that he, and others like him, sometimes forgets this seemingly insignificant fact. This is, of course, a bit like expecting that people would prefer less money over more money. My own unimportant view on the matter is that personal ambition is a good, natural instinct. If you are the vice-president of a company, I expect nothing less than the fact that you desire to be the chairman. There is a name for vice-presidents who have no desire to be chairmen. I believe they are called ambitionless losers.

I think I can predict what response I’d receive from a senior ANC member if he allowed himself to be side-tracked by this little rant. After he gave me a dressing-down for my counter-revolutionary spreading of smut (geddit?) against Comrade Essop, he’d tell me I clearly do not understand the ANC culture, which I have already admitted to myself. But then I’d ask him to allow me to give him an analogy to explain what I see in the ANC. I’m notorious for my retarded analogies — I compared white senior managers’ attitude to affirmative action to shagging a jar of Marmite in one of the chapters in my book. That self-plug out of the way, here goes:

Imagine, if you will, a group of people inside an amphibious submarine vessel/airplane. Imagine that it starts out on a voyage underwater. Let’s assume that the occupants are unaware of the amphibious nature of the boat. It is not to difficult to see that, after a while, the occupants might start to give each other swimming lessons on the inside to prepare themselves for their environment in case of emergencies. (Yes, the aeroboat is large enough to have swimming pools — stop interrupting me.) After a while, you can see how the fact that they are operating in an aquatic environment could end up being a universal, religious truth.

Now imagine that the aeroboat sails out of the water and starts flying. Without too much imagination, you can see how important it would be that the occupants look outside the window to scan their environment from time to time. However, if their aquatic world view had attained religious status, you can imagine how they wouldn’t bother looking outside. Now, imagine that you are banging against the window of the cockpit, trying to point out to the captain that he was not underwater any more but, in fact, floating in the sky. You might want to warn him to start giving his people skydiving lessons instead of swimming lessons. I think you’ll agree with me that his standard retort would be: “Ha ha ha! You do not understand our submarine.” End of retarded analogy.

I think you know where I’m going with this. I think the ANC is in need not only of introspection, but also of some outward-looking to find the answers it seeks. The organisation’s survival does not lie in closing rank but in an honest, cold-hearted scan of the environment in which it operates. Hazy mutterings about the need to “reinculcate” the values of the old ANC is some serious head-buried-in-the-sand stuff. Especially from Smuts “I didn’t join the struggle to be poor” Ngonyama. ANC members do not live inside the organisation like they did in exile. They live in the real world where more money is better than less money. In the natural clamour for scarce resources, competition will get acrimonious and discipline might be lost. Rather deal with that reality than making condescending proposals to “conduct more thorough political education”. That’s just ANC-speak for “convince people that less money is better than more money”.

The ANC cadre of today is informed by a reality that is different from the cadre of the underground. Mpho Mokoena was ecstatic that her image had appeared on the front page of the Star and Pretoria News this morning — “I’m a celebrity mchana!” she shouted as she slapped hands with her mates. That’s right; today’s cadre probably has a pin-up of Beyoncé on her wall — not Thabo Mbeki. Giving “polotikal” (ANC-speak for “political”) education is like giving swimming lessons to airborne passengers.

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