Zuma biggest threat to long-term future of ANC

WHY did the ANC destroy itself? This question is likely to exercise the minds of concerned historians decades from now if the party does not reverse its self-inflicted decline in moral standing.

Part of the problem lies in the withering away of the party’s representative character.

In her essay “Truth and Politics” philosopher Hannah Arendt referred to the importance of being representative.

“The more people’s standpoints I have present in my mind while I am pondering a given issue, and the better I can imagine how I would feel and think if I were in their place,” wrote Arendt, “the stronger will be my capacity for representative thinking and the more valid my final conclusions, my opinion.”

The same can be said about a representative leader.

A representative leader is one who would, when taking a decision, consider the standpoints of others so his or her final decisions and opinions are more valid.

The more valid the leaders’ conclusions, the more likely they will be well received by those who the leader seeks to lead in an organisation or society.

This can be extended to a political party that has ambitions to lead society.

Such a party would make sure the opinions and conclusions expressed by its leaders in policy decisions, pronouncements, actions, behaviour and other articulations are found by society to be valid.

This is not, as Arendt put it, about blindly adopting the views of others, showing empathy towards other people’s standpoints or counting noses and joining a majority.

It is about “being and thinking in my own identity where actually I am not”.

For the greater part of its history spanning more than a century, the ANC has been for Africans – and eventually all races – the representative political party. Its leaders were representative.

Consider for example its formation in 1912. A group of black middle-class fellows fighting colonial oppression decided to organise themselves across ethnic groups.

Although they were initially concerned with the representation of propertied Africans, they expanded the scope over time.

The party would later become known as a broad church, representing not only the propertied class and chiefs, who formed it, but also workers, peasants and others. During the liberation struggle the party combined mass mobilisation and sharp arguments to expose the illogic of segregation.

For years, the numbers of supporters and members were as important as the quality of the party’s argument in favour of freedom. This combination kept the ANC alive even when the apartheid government was at some point convinced it had destroyed the strength of the party.

As a truly representative party, the ANC, through its leaders, was able to rise above its own interests, shed the temptation of vengeance and went on to consider even the standpoints of the erstwhile oppressors.

This culminated in a negotiated settlement that saw all South Africans being accorded equal political rights regardless of party political affiliation in 1994.

Had the ANC relied exclusively on numbers, South Africa could easily have descended into a tyranny of the majority where civil liberties would have existed only briefly.

South Africa would long ago have been written off as a typical African basket case. But taking into account the standpoints of others made the ANC a better organisation.

It was in its own interests to do so.

Convinced of the eternal correctness of their views as majority parties, many liberation movements saw no need to allow plural politics after independence.

Because ANC leaders were aware of the importance of substantive political rights beyond just scoring the majority at the polls, they eschewed the kind of politics followed by many liberation movements on the African continent.

But the delicate balance between the force of numbers and the quality of argument is now under stress not seen since 1994.

What is happening now is far more extraordinary than the watershed moment of Polokwane that germinated the seeds.

The party – and its alliance partners – now attaches more value to numbers at electoral conferences and other structures.

At conferences, what you stand for or your views do not matter. In parliament it matters not that the opposition could hold better views on some issues. Numbers matter.

The ANC is subjecting itself to a threat of irrelevance by lumping its interests with that of an individual, Jacob Zuma.

His alienating conduct poses the greatest threat to the character of the ANC as we have come to know it. He is not representative.

Under him the ANC is chipping away its character as a representative body.

By insisting the party gets its way (read: Zuma’s way) on Nkandla and other issues using the force of numbers exclusively, the ANC leadership is rapidly transforming the party backwards.

A representative ANC would, while pondering its opinions on Nkandla or any other issue for that matter, consider the standpoints of others.

The “others” include not only opposition parties in parliament, but also concerned civil society groups, trade unions, students, the poor, the illiterate, radio talk show callers, writers of letters to editors, bloggers and so on.

By ignoring concerned voices ANC leaders are placing the representative character of the party on the guillotine.

They may succeed where the apartheid regime failed.

The ANC is subjecting itself to a threat of irrelevance by lumping its interests with that of an individual, Jacob Zuma

MPUMELELO MKHABELA is the editor of Sowetan