Creation of GNU did not resolve the multi-faceted broader crises facing South Africa

While writing a previous series evaluating the Government of National Unity (GNU) after 100 days, I said more than once that the GNU was established in the aftermath or in the context of a crisis, and it also presented certain opportunities.

At that time, I focused on the crisis of electoralism, with the ANC losing its majority for the first time and no other party commanding anything near to a majority. (See here, here and here).

I also argued that the opportunities were ones where in documents like the Statement of Intent, one could make a presentation or an intervention which stood as an interpretation of elements of that document which were drawn from the Bill of Rights and from general aspirations towards an equal, non-racial, non-sexist society.

I described this as an opening in the sense that although the Statement of Intent was basically a technical document about how the GNU would work, there were also opportunities for intervention which could open up opportunities for developing towards a more democratic society and also a sense of the “common good”, shared ideas of what all needed and were entitled to as meeting needs that were acknowledged by all.

It was suggested that the members of the GNU could do this themselves, that is, intervene on the meanings of the Statement of Intent and provide meanings that were liberatory or emancipatory.

But I said it was not restricted to members of the GNU. Members of the public, academic scholars, faith-based organisations and religious leaders, members of professional bodies and social movements, among others, are free to enter into debate over the meaning of words in the Statement of Intent. They may give them a meaning that could enhance freedom in South Africa.

The range of words in documents that are important in public life does not necessarily have single meanings. They must be interpreted, and it is open to us to give meanings that enhance or retard the quest for an all-encompassing freedom in South Africa.

I noted, however, that there were no longer popular forces systematically organised on a generalised basis, as was the case once with the ANC and other liberation movements and the UDF and its affiliates.

The ANC is no longer a mass popular organisation. It is more of an electoral party. From the 1990s – without formal decision – the ANC changed its character from a mass popular organisation into an electoral party, operating in many ways similar to parties of Western Europe, where the vote and preparing for the vote is generally more important than concrete policies, and politics becomes more and more individualised, with the leader displacing the party. 

Additionally, or connected with electoralism, since the 1990s the tradition of debate of policies and ideas has disappeared from the ANC’s repertoire as an organisation.

In fact, little is left of the organisation other than the blustering of the Secretary-General, Fikile Mbalula. This is how the ANC is represented instead of arguing over meanings, which is symptomatic of organisational qualities having been eroded.

People do not enter the organisation as new members and get inducted into policies, strategies and tactics that are open to discussion and debate and intellectual growth of all members.

That doesn’t happen anymore. And it’s discouraged from the top. It’s discouraged in the organisational headquarters. Everything has become bureaucratic and top down, whereas in the time when many of us joined the ANC-led liberation movement, we had – whatever our rank – the opportunity to question and debate policies, strategies and tactics as well as concrete directions of the organisation. We would argue about them, and we did argue about them among ourselves. And this was continuing at the time of the 1990 unbanning and to a significant extent in the early years after unbanning.

Many of us were aware that a lot of thought had to be given to what it meant to be a member in the unprecedented conditions of unbanning – not simply picking up from the earlier period of legality of the 1950s, but also not continuing with the secrecy of illegal struggle.

I remember seeing young Africans with thick leftist books under their arms. Sometimes that shook me, because to be holding some of these books would have been illegal just a few years earlier.

That there had at one time been a tradition of debate and thinking and questioning would condition the type of leadership that the ANC and its allies could give.

The leadership of today is no longer one which is emancipatory, one that enhances the freedoms of people. It is depoliticised, with little concern for the multiple forms of suffering around them 30 years after democracy was won.

Leadership is mainly decorative and no longer breaking with the scandals of recent years. We have a series of public revelations concerning the Minister of Justice, Thembi Simelane, now. The President is not unduly concerned and has left it for review for some time (although reports over the weekend suggested that it would be discussed at an ANC National Executive meeting. But there are many others with more serious allegations who remain in important positions).

GNU as technocratic organisation and conflicts