OUR FORGOTTEN TRUTHS
You would struggle to find a richer, fuller and better understanding of politics today than that which our history can give us — but none of the historical references that are made is inquisitorial or critical
It has become exceedingly difficult to analyse SA today, as it faces a series of crises that are not just profound, but fluid and subject to perpetual change. Many of these crises are quantifiable to a degree, but usually only so far as the facts confirm the scale of the relevant problem.
The state of the economy, corruption, the condition of the education system and the ANC’S decline are all-consuming. They dominate debate but, in their inherent uncertainty, end up fuelling much speculation.
Many other crises are subtler, but no less important. How and why is it, for example, that political assassinations have exploded in Kwazulu Natal? Why is it that the ANC voted against the motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma? What exactly is the structure of the informal patronage network that dominates our country?
Understanding this isn’t helped by our environment of low self-esteem, fear, secrecy and distrust, which often come together to manifest as conspiracy theory and negate both honest reflection and interrogation.
As a result, political analysis has taken a distinct form: whenever a new fact is uncovered, it is framed by speculation.
Sunday newspapers, for example, will routinely unearth some new revelation but are unable to say with any certainty what it means. So they position it within whatever theory orthodoxy best provides — Zuma’s iron fist, “state capture” or factional politics. Sometimes they’re right; sometimes they’re wrong. But always, it is essentially little more than a working theory.
The mainstream media, caught between sensation and salience, often uses a single fact to ostensibly confirm a theory or suggest that it definitively illustrates one. But, really, it is the theory dictating the terms.
The fact is, there are many public disciplines under assault in SA today. The standard of debate is dire and there is a dearth of experts; philosophy is also under siege, accused of being a repressive Western ideological weapon. These and many other skills vital to explaining our world have suffered due to a pervasive anti-intellectualism.
But of all the disciplines under attack, the one that gets scarcely any attention is history. Outside of the academy, history has been almost eradicated as a commodity vital in any attempt to understand society or politics and how the two relate.
It may not seem that way, given that public debate is steeped in references to our history. But this version of history is often just a series of grand narratives, defined and replicated mainly by politicians, who would have it immutable and its moral lessons infallible.
Former president Nelson Mandela is one of the great benefactors of this. His presidency (outside of what it represented) was a clumsy, often poorly run affair. The Shell House massacre, for example, has essentially been forgotten. Nineteen people were shot and killed by ANC private security back then, in March 1994. But under Mandela's presidency, there were no meaningful consequences. Today, it is doubtful most even remember it.
It is like this with much of the ANC’S history. Women and Indian people were not allowed to be members until fairly late in the day. The party’s 1997 conference, at which key policies such as cadre deployment and a new fundraising approach were adopted, is not widely understood or remembered.
There is no end to the many long-term, structural policies and programmes that created the ANC of today and that underpin its internal culture and its approach to the state.
But because history is a discipline we don’t value, we understand SA politics mainly as a series of interpersonal relationships. And because those are subjective, analysis revolves largely around gossip, and who did what to whom.
The number of times politicians say or do things directly in contradiction with a previous position they held is astounding. But unless that hypocrisy happens within a three-month window, it might as well not have happened. And it’s a vicious circle: once someone cottons on to this collective amnesia, it invites duplicity, as it never met with any meaningful consequence.
The ANC’S elective conference in December is an exercise in wilful ignorance as far as public debate is concerned.
Nkosazana Dlamini-zuma’s appalling role in the Virodene scandal, Sarafina 2 and her complicity in former president Thabo Mbeki’s policy of “quiet diplomacy” in Zimbabwe might as well never have happened. Likewise, the tortuous explanations and endorsements Cyril Ramaphosa gave when he rejoined public life on Zuma’s terms.
These facts generate no outrage, or inform no contemporary analysis. It is as if they do not exist at all inside the bubble — the bubble, of course, in which we all exist.
In part, this is because it is difficult to point to any public intellectuals of standing in SA — an Isaiah Berlin, Neil degrasse Tyson, Christopher Hitchens or Bertrand Russell. Our moral heroes have been politicians or public figures like, Desmond Tutu.
It is amazing — SA’S history is one of racial nationalism. If ever there were a catalogue of precedents suited to explaining the ANC’S behaviour, it would be the history books.
But we can’t look back 10 years, never mind 100. SA is the man with no long-term memory, trapped in the permanent nightmare that is his short-term recollection.
It’s probably why we take forever to learn any lessons, if we ever do at all.