Lack of real political innovation

SA needs to explore more democratic and inclusionary alternatives to authoritarianism and corrupt ruling

AT THE end of the Cold War in 1989, it was widely, although not uniformly, assumed that liberal democracy, with a capitalist economy, was the only viable way forward. This consensus shaped the transition from apartheid in profound ways.

Thirty years later that consensus is in tatters. In much of the world there has been a decisive turn towards increasing right-wing forms of nationalism, often accompanied by brazen racism. Figures like US President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are among the most prominent examples of this dramatic shift to the right.

This rise of right-wing populism is usually ascribed to the failure of unrestrained capitalism to meet the basic needs of the majority. In much of the world, the rich have got richer while the majority have seen a significant decline in the quality of their lives.

As a result, centrist liberals are now unelectable in many countries.

The only electorally viable alternative to right-wing nationalism that offers a mixture of hyper capitalism and chauvinistic nationalism is often a form of left-wing politics that offers some degree of social control over capital along with a politics of social solidarity.

Figures such as British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and American Democratic Party Senator Bernie Sanders have come to exemplify this trend.

In many parts of the world, there has been a dramatic turn towards social democratic or socialist ideas among the young.

Last month, the cover story of the Economist magazine was titled Millennial Socialism: The resurgent left.

South Africa is in an anomalous position. After the brazen looting and escalating repression of the Zuma years the ascent, by a very slim margin, of Cyril Ramaphosa to the presidency was welcomed by many as a narrow escape from disaster.

The fact that the authoritarian patronage-driven form of politics that had cohered around Zuma still festers within the ANC has led many to assume that our only real choice is between sustaining Ramaphosa’s liberal centrism and a return to the disastrous forms of politics that we endured under Zuma.

But while Ramaphosa’s administration has made some important moves towards dealing with both corruption and the normalisation of repression and intra-party violence during the Zuma years, Ramaphosa is, ultimately, offering us a return to the forms of politics that preceded Zuma.

These forms of politics resulted in massive social, political and economic exclusion that opened the road for Zuma’s populism.

Just as a return to the old consensus will not be a viable alternative to the rise of Trump’s populism in the US so, too, in South Africa political democracy will only be secured by the attainment of a significant degree of economic democracy.

Ramaphosa and his key allies have not displayed any capacity for real political and economic innovation.

Under these circumstances it is vital we simultaneously oppose the authoritarianism and corruption of the forms of politics that we have come to associate with Zuma and explore more democratic and inclusionary alternatives.

This is not just a matter of generating new ideas. It is also a matter of building the social forces that could push for their realisation.

The world is undergoing rapid change – ranging from climate, to the way that automisation and digitisation are affecting work to the impact of social media on the public sphere.

We still have a lot to learn from the intellectual work undertaken in previous periods, and cycles of organisation and struggle. But there are also many respects in which we need to think again.

The work of developing emancipatory alternatives needs to be undertaken in an open and non-dogmatic way, and to be rooted in the organisations and struggles of the oppressed.

In South Africa, the professionalism of intellectual life in the academy and NGOS after apartheid has often alienated intellectuals from the lived experiences and ideas of the oppressed.

At the same time the sectarianism of the left, an always unhelpful and sometimes paranoid and brutal phenomenon, has reduced possibilities for free and open discussion.

On this often-grim terrain, the work of the Mzala Nxumalo Centre for the Study of South African Society, in Pietermaritzburg, Kwazulu-natal, has been a refreshing exception.

The centre has sought to open space for a range of organisations, including popular movements, trade unions and political parties, and to avoid the debilitating sectarianism that has often damaged the left.

This year’s annual conference, (that took place in Durban and ended yesterday), included a number of leading thinkers from elsewhere in Africa such as Jacques Depelchin and Ernest Wamba-dia-wamba from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Firoze Manji from Kenya, among others.

It offered a valuable opportunity for dialogue outside of the parochialism that often mars political debate in South Africa.