Friday, January 23, 2009

Will COPE help bring real change?

Outside the city of Cape Town, in a northern suburbs home, COPE party leader, Mosiuoa Lekota, sips a glass of cold apple juice. A small boy, with large innocent eyes, toddles into the lounge and he takes him onto his knee as he speaks. There is no sign of the anger, agitation and frustration he displayed a few weeks ago when he left the ANC. The child too is still and quiet sensing the calm.
The past weeks of contact with South Africans of all walks of life have energised Lekota. “We are attracting people from all sectors of society, many who had abandoned politics,” he said. “Young people in particular see in COPE a party of their time.”

He ascribes his sense of well-being particularly to acknowledging the mistakes he and others had made. “I share responsibility for failures in full,” he said. “It is not for lack of effort. It is partly because we missed some fundamentals.” He feels peaceful since deciding to make a fresh start. “There is nothing more painful than being at loggerheads with one’s conscience,” he said.

The party he leads will launch its manifesto in Port Elizabeth on Saturday barely two weeks after the ANC’s impressive launch in nearby East London. Will their manifesto signal a changed approach to the huge challenges facing our country? Will this inject fresh hope into the body politic or can we expect more of the same?

Lekota identifies two areas that require considerable change – non-racialism and economic empowerment. COPE will not challenge the broad philosophy of these policies. Instead it believes that substantial change has to take place with the implementation.

Huge effort has gone into popularising the idea of non-racialism but some fundamentals were missed in implementation. “On the side of the ANC, we did not read the mood and were unable to fashion an approach that would help all sections of the population feel they belonged,” he said.

He argues that the language used by the democratic government has sustained an apartheid mentality. “We should strongly have spoken about South Africans,” he said.
In terms of Chapter three of the Constitution, citizens were all equally entitled to rights and benefits and all equally bound by duties of responsibilities, he said. “We communicated a message that in this democracy you pay tax but when it comes to your rights, you are less of a citizen.” COPE will stick closely to the founding provisions of the Constitution and make sure that the language used be fully inclusive.

This will require a neutral approach to economic empowerment. Instead of emphasising black economic empowerment, COPE will call for economic empowerment for all and provide assistance to those who need it based on a means test. “In all sections of the population, people are poor. We need to find ways to reverse these trends in all communities,” he said.

If COPE has its way, Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) will become Grassroots Economic Empowerment (GEE). The country will become a food exporter not a food importer by working the land effectively and will increase the production of tradeable goods. Since 1994, the industrial sector in the country has slowed down dramatically, forcing South Africa to import many goods.

He is sensitive to the need to fashion an approach that will draw on the strengths of all South Africans irrespective of race, gender or religious affiliation.
Not only was there an emphasis on being black, there was also an emphasis on being ANC. “We need to depoliticise the civil service and draw on people from all political parties with the necessary skill to do the job,” he said.

For Lekota, COPE has revived people’s hopes of achieving a genuine democracy. “If we stay on course, we will inject new life into the political process.”

Will his message of change resonate with the South African public? Much depends on his parties conduct over the next few weeks. The proof will be not in only in what they say but in how they conduct themselves. The reality is that many of those who have moved into COPE bring their experience of the ANC with them. The question is whether or not they will leave behind that which is bad and take with them that which is good?

Genuine change requires serious personal reflection. Listening to Lekota and observing him suggests he has done some soul-searching. When the pressure builds up over the next few months, it will be interesting to see whether he will remain resolute in his determination to chart a different course – one that recognises as Mandela said that there are good men and women in every political party. There are good men and women irrespective of race who are keen to work to make South Africa function optimally.

By Freedom Day this year, we are likely to know whether we have reached a level of freedom that allows us to consider new and fresh ideas and welcome these into the body politic. The danger however remains that in the process, we may carelessly break down painstaking gains that have been made. Once again, the challenge will be how to find the balance between the old ways of doing things and the new. In his inaugural address on Tuesday, US President Obama put his finger on the essence when he said : “Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to those truths.”

Since 1994, we have moved our country towards the contemporary and dominant way of the world. We have been encouraged to believe that greed is acceptable, that personal well-being requires massive accumulation of material wealth, that the welfare of our neighbours are not essentially our responsibility, that there is no right or wrong. The rapid collapse of the global economy says something different. It challenges us to reconsider the dominant way of today’s world and will force us to rethink our “anything goes” approach.

It is the dreams of greater equality and kindness that moved us to create a movement for change that found expression in the ANC. It is those values of peace and goodness that we all yearn for. COPE will just be another one of the many political parties, if its leaders are not seen to be seriously reflective of how they have conducted themselves in the past and demonstrate in right actions a commitment to a fresh approach.
Observing Lekota, it appears that he has taken a step in the right direction. He has indeed been given a second chance but he needs to know that for him and those around him, there will be not be a third. COPE has a huge responsibility. It will not be easy to breathe fresh life into our fledgling democracy again if citizens discover that hidden behind the rhetoric and veneer of deepening democracy lies a shallow interest in self-promotion. It is not only poverty that destabilises public life. It is the perceived unfairness in the way important decisions made and politics is conducted.
If we cannot reshape the way in which we do the business of politics, what will be the future of that small boy with the large innocent eyes perched on Lekota’s knee?

ends


Zubeida Jaffer, journalist and author of recently launched Love in the Time of Treason is Visiting Associate at UCT’s Centre for African Studies. Read her blog at www.zubeidajaffer.co.za

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Innovative leadership or a laager mentality:



Today, January 8, 2009, the ANC turns 97. When it meets to launch it election manifesto in East London on Saturday, it will set the tone for the upcoming elections.
Just three years away from scoring its centenary, this grand movement of Africa can either retreat into a laager mentality or provide the innovative leadership South Africa sorely needs at this testing time.

Indications behind the scenes are that the movement contains elements of both responses. There are some who say that the ANC has made many mistakes but has largely been able to manage the politics of difference. This ability, they say, is the most critical strength needed in a country with so many diverse interests. In the end, it knits together the hopes of the widest cross-section of the South African population and has until recently not been challenged on this front. While COPE challenges this hegemony, this too has been sited as a tribute to the strength of South Africa's democracy led by the ANC. There have been spats and tensions but not to the extent that could spill into full-blown violence with the potential of civil war. They argue that in the past few weeks, all parties have intensified their contact with the people and have found small pockets of intolerance. The greatest possibility for friction lies between the ANC and COPE and it is here that the most work will have to be done to curb hot tempers that could provoke physical clashes.

Those in the ANC who believe the depth of leadership experience within the organisation will not fail the country at this critical time say that the election contest must be based on the appeal of the manifestoes of the different parties. They intend doing all they can to encourage citizens to focus on this and move away from unneccesary belligerence.
There is a response running parallel that provokes great concern. Instead of acknowledging that the political dynamic has changed requiring fresh responses, this view glibly argues that COPE is a counter-revolutionary movement funded by foreign interests. The term counter-revolutionary within the South African liberation context implies that the activities fundamentally oppose all the values fought for and seeks to reverse the gains made in transforming the society into a more egalitarian place. The label is used in much the same way as the United States of America uses the term Islamic Fundamentalism. It is often a shallow way to deal with real criticism and a refusal to recognise the limitations of one's own response. Unfortunately what flows from this approach is that it gives permission to restrict, to crush and ultimately to kill. Within the Soviet context, counter revolutionaries were enemies of the people.

Those in the ANC intent on promoting this view need to consider that they sow the seeds of destruction. They are encouraging an analysis that will further narrow the space for difference. In the past, the challenge has essentially been to manage differences between the political thinking and interests of the old order and the new. This year brings the challenge of handling political difference that has evolved from within the new non-racial democratic order.

This is not to suggest that the democracy is fully in place. While the constitution is in place, the conditions of hunger and inequality remain huge challenges that diminish the dream of a social democracy. Much remains to be done and will still have to be done what ever the political configuration after the elections.

Good leadership and able practitioners are needed in the key sectors of health, education and security. The COPE phenomenon has shown that there are people who can be brought into the political arena who can add fresh skills and talents. While this may inject much needed enthusiasm and healthy competition into the political process, it says little about the strengthening of our crucial institutions essential for the comfort and security of our daily lives.

Irrespective of who leads, the challenge of building proper institutions as firm pillars of a well-functioning country remains. Parliament, the hospitals, the media, schools, the police and others need to fulfil their primary functions. Traffic departments across the country appear to have taken their jobs seriously by halving fatalities this festive season. What was it that changed? We need to look closely at this success story.


The media in particular will have its work cut out. Its primary role is to provide the public with enough information to make informed decisions and give voice to the powerless and marginalised. So far both the electronic and print media have broadly overemphasised the COPE phenomenon to the disadvantage of all other political parties. From a media point of view, this can be excused to some extent since news also tends to focus on what is new. By its very nature, we are trained to move the story forward, looking at all times for new dimensions that sometimes gives greater clarity. We are also operating in an international climate that affirms quick fixes and instant gratification. The emergence of COPE feeds into that hope that something different is happening that can help us find fresh energy to consolidate close to a century of organised effort. Not only does it create the political space for strong effective alternatives but also provides the pressure on the ANC to self-correct instead of drifting into a laager. The media will have to navigate the changing political terrain artfully. Its responses can either encourage the worst inclinations amongst all of us or help to bring out the best. In the interests of building a respected and solid media practice, it will need to be seen as fair conducting itself without fear or favour. Unfairness at this point will go a long way to diminish its important social role. Fortunately, some media outlets have recognised this and are putting mechanisms in place to safeguard against unfairness. The Star, for example, has commissioned the Media Monitoring Project to provide weekly reports on its levels of fairness during the elections. These reports will be published regularly.

While the media continues to express considerable discomfort with a Jacob Zuma presidency, there has to be acknowledgement that a substantial section of the public will vote in favour of him. His popularity cannot be presented as blind support for a man who is an idiot. He brings to the centre stage the interests of communities that have often operated at the margins of urban discourse.
Dismissing him and all he represents as traditionalist is no different from glibly pulling the counter-revolutionary label out of the collective hat.


We are poised on the cusp of a great opportunity that will test our ability to respond with great maturity as never before. If the ANC does not set the tone on Saturday, greater responsibility will fall on the shoulders of other political parties and civil society. We can do well to be spared such expenditure of energy on the political process at a time when all our efforts are needed to sort out and consolidate the functioning of our institutions so that all South Africans are able to enjoy an improved quality of life.



Ends