Like it or lumpen it — ANC can only blame South Africa’s masses for its failed revolution

Sorry, folks, but I’m still catching up with the ANC policy conference, particularly the policy discussions. It has taken me a while because decoding these ruminations is a delicate business, but it has to be done because ANC policies, if ever settled and enacted, could in fact have a meaningful impact on South Africa’s future. Note: I say “could”.

It was certainly refreshing to have Nkosa­zana Dlamini Zuma come out and say that South Africa has an overcrowding problem in schools. She could say this relatively straightforwardly because she was speaking, in actual words, and not writing a policy argument. And it was good to hear an ANC high-up being honest about a social problem we face.

Okay, it was about 25 years too late — township schools were overcrowded and dysfunctional in 1994, when the ANC took power, and they’re worse now. But at least she said it.

Presumably, she hadn’t noticed till now because she was busy being a health minister or, more recently, the minister in charge of municipalities. Oh, wait — the health system is also dysfunctional and so are the municipalities. She might like to check with the Auditor-General about that, and she should probably be able to get back to us on those issues round about the ANC’s next policy conference in five years’ time. Is that long enough, Your Highness?

Dlamini Zuma was also selective about naming problems in education. She could have mentioned that very little teaching goes on in those hectically overcrowded classrooms, that there is much crime and disorder in schools, and all attempts to raise the matric pass rate have failed dismally.

She goes on to say that “communities” are already trying to deal with these problems, by, for instance, building schools off their own bat. This sounds a bit like a cheer for the self-reliance of the masses, but it’s a sign that the state now expects the people, and the poorest of the people at that, to do the state’s job for it.

But at least she said it. And the ANC’s discussion documents for the policy conference (the written part) also make a commendable attempt to be honest about “objective conditions”, that is, to explain to its delegates why South Africa is generally in such a bad way and what must be done about it if the ANC is not to lose its electoral majority.

Losing that winning majority is, obviously, the great fear the ANC has to deal with right now. Upon that majority rests its claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the people of South Africa, its claim to be able to transform society, and the capacity of many of its members and office-bearers to loot state coffers.

But how does the ANC express its honest conclusions in its policy discussion? Wondering about that, I tackled its policy discussions as set forth in a special edition of Umrabulo, the title of which does not mean “the rabble”, as some might think. It means something like “debate” or “discussion”, just so you know.