SOUTH AFRICA’S ‘EXCEPTIONALISM’ WENT UP IN SMOKE
SOUTH Africa has had a long history with the understanding that its people, land, culture, politics and economy are distinct, unique, and exemplary to that of the rest of the continent, that is, South African exceptionalism.
For decades, consecutive leaders of this region have remained determined to a steadfast and passionate exceptionalism – the birth of it long outdating the country’s modern democracy.
After the passing of the South African Act by British Parliament in 1909, effectively merging the self-governing British colonies of the Cape, Natal, Orange River and the Transvaal into the Union of South Africa, British colonists, under the leadership of Alfred Milner, extended the argument that South Africa was exceptional because of its geography and through how it exercised white colonial governance over its African subjects.
Milner argued that South Africa was a “self-governing white community, supported by a well-treated and justly-governed black labour force”.
It was a view widely held by British leaders who agreed that unlike any other region in southern Africa, South Africa had succeeded in extending the British model of governance – testament to its exceptionality and desire for modernity.
From 1942, apartheid leaders reproduced the discourse of exceptionalism by framing South Africa as the “Big Orania”, an imperialist power in Africa bestowed with the responsibilities of civilising and modernising a backward continent. As the apartheid system came under deepened crisis by the late 1980s, with democracy an inevitability, former ruling Nationalist Party Party intellectuals led by F W de Klerk succeeded in framing South Africa as a peaceful, non-racial and multicultural state – a unique imperative given the ethnic violence associated with liberating states in Africa.
After 1994, the democratic government repurposed exceptionality by articulating South Africa as a miracle nation, the rainbow people of God, the cradle of mankind and the gateway to Africa, espousing a national identity with the inter-subjective view that the state was the rightful and destined leaders of Africa.
National discourses of this kind are important in that they build a sense of shared community while masking deep-seated problems. In 1994, the government should have immediately realised the crisis that would inevitably emerge from creating political liberation for black people, without implementing fit-for-purpose macroeconomic policies that ensured sufficient economic development and transformation.
Instead, the argued exceptionality of our democracy operated to embellish a widespread euphoric zeal within the country which, regrettably, disregarded and overlooked the complex race, gender, economic and security dilemmas that the state would face.
The mayhem witnessed in the past few weeks signals the end of an epoch. Not only did malls, warehouses and stalls go up in flames, but also our epistemology of difference and exceptionality.
The fury, violence, imminent instability and insecurity ripe in our midst indicates a new era for this country, one which forces us to speak of South Africa in terms of a weakened and possibly weakening state.
The implications will be felt in every aspect of society. Within the business community, international investors will think twice before pumping investments into South Africa.
Addressing the nation after his visit to KZN, President Cyril Ramaphosa made the startling confession that government was blind-sided and ill-prepared to deal with the supposed well-orchestrated destabilisation drive.
Notwithstanding the tremendous economic issues which the government still needs to resolve, security matters must become ever more salient. Of immediate attention is the need to expeditiously build stronger intelligence and security capabilities if it hopes to fortify democracy.