[DEBATE] : (Fwd) SA politics (in Pambazuka): Habib, McKinley, Mngxitama

[Patrick Bond]

Substantive uncertainty: South Africa’s democracy becomes dynamic
Adam Habib (2009-04-16)
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/55638

Amid fears that Polokwane and the split in the ANC, and the uncertainty 
that these have generated, will unravel South Africa’s national 
potential for a rosier future, Adam Habib writes that ‘Economic 
development, service delivery, and poverty alleviation are dependent on 
a legitimated and capacitated state’. As the country’s national 
elections approach, Habib cautions that behaviour that ‘undermines the 
legitimacy and capacity of state institutions will compromise the new 
political elite’s own long-term goals’. Exploring the reasons behind 
former ANC leader Thabo Mbeki’s loss of support and what a Zuma 
presidency might mean for South Africa, Habib argues that the 
‘substantive uncertainty’ introduced into South African politics by 
COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and the SACP’s (South 
African Communist Party) mobilisation against Mbeki has opened up 
political space and created debate on a range of policy issues, that 
would otherwise not have taken place. But for this ‘substantive 
uncertainty’ to be sustainable, it must be institutionalised within the 
political system as a whole.


Thabo Mbeki’s political reign has now come to an end. His departure has 
provoked concern, especially among South Africa’s business community and 
its urbanised upper classes.

In December 2007 he was unceremoniously rejected for the ANC’s (African 
National Congress) presidency at Polokwane. Nine months later, the new 
leadership in the party forced his resignation as state president seven 
months prior to the end of his tenure. The resultant political 
instability including the resignations of a number of the cabinet 
ministers most closely identified with Mbeki has raised concerns. Is 
democracy imperilled? Will the prudent economic policy of the Mbeki 
years be jettisoned? How did Jacob Zuma win the presidency of the ANC 
and what can we expect in his political tenure?

All are important questions but let us begin by addressing what 
Polokwane was all about. Most people would recognise that Polokwane 
represented a rebellion by ANC delegates against Thabo Mbeki’s rule. And 
it was motivated by two factors. First, which almost everyone seems to 
agree with, is that Mbeki is seen to have centralised power, not 
consulted enough, aggravated tensions in the party, and was seen as 
aloof and divorced from the membership. Second, which many in the ANC 
leadership seem to reject, is that delegates felt that the transition 
under Mbeki had disproportionately benefited the rich and worked to the 
disadvantage of the poor. They were concerned about the inequalities 
that have defined the first 13 years of our transition, and the 
enrichment of the narrow politically-connected elite that has become the 
hallmark of our black economic empowerment agenda.

How do we explain this? How do we explain this centralised managerial 
style and this exclusivist economic agenda? Most explanations are what 
are called agentially focused. They explain the management style or the 
economic agenda as a product of Mbeki and his personality. Xolela 
Mangcu’s recent book,To the Brink, and Mark Gevisser’s biography of 
Mbeki, The Dream Deferred, are examples of this. For Gevisser, who 
provides the most sophisticated of these explanations, the centralised 
style of management is a product of a personality that grew up in 
no-man’s land – in between the rural and urban, in between modernism and 
traditionalism, in between father and comrade, and in between the 
international and the national. This profoundly affected Mbeki, 
generated the aloof personality that we have come to know, and defined 
both his technocratic orientation and the centralised management style 
of his presidency.

But this is not a comprehensive explanation. It does not recognise the 
issue of institutional constraints, and that individuals, however 
powerful their personalities, are constrained by the positions they 
occupy and the pressures they are subjected to. In the celebrated words 
of that much maligned philosopher Karl Marx who writes in the 18th 
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: ‘Men make their own history, but they do 
not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances 
chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and 
transmitted from the past.’ A more coherent explanation has to look at 
the systemic rationale for both macro-economic policy choices and the 
centralisation of power under Mbeki. When the ANC came into power in 
1994, it confronted a number of pressures.

It inherited a nearly bankrupt state, was confronted with an ambitious 
set of expectations from the previously disenfranchised, and an 
investment strike by the business community. To get investment and 
growth going, the ANC leadership felt that they had to make a series of 
economic concessions, most of which was captured in the Growth, 
Employment and Redistribution strategy (GEAR). As soon as they made this 
decision, they confronted another dilemma: How to get the programme 
passed, for they feared that their own comrades in the national 
legislature would defeat it?

So they bypassed the very structures of democracy that they had 
inaugurated. They endorsed GEAR in cabinet and implemented it. This 
established a centralising dynamic in the South African political 
system. From there it was a short step to appointing premiers and mayors 
and marginalising COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), the 
SACP (South African Communist Party) and others who disagreed with Mbeki 
from the decision-making structures of the party and state.

Yet while this explains Mbeki’s policy architecture and managerial 
style, and the enmity directed at him by COSATU, the SACP and many ANC 
branches, it does not tell us why suddenly in 2007 he was unable to 
defeat Jacob Zuma, his deputy in the ruling party and the man he fired 
as the state’s deputy president in 2005 for being implicated in the 
corruption trial of Shabir Shaik. Even if Polokwane represented a 
rebellion within the ranks of the ANC, the scale of the defeat suggests 
that a significant proportion of Mbeki’s support base abandoned him. How 
did this come to be?

THE UNRAVELLING OF THE PHILOSOPHER KING

Perhaps the answer lies in the nature of his support base. Despite what 
the spin-doctors actually say, Mbeki’s support base (as distinct from 
the ANC’s) has never been the poor and marginalised. That has been the 
preserve of the Zuma camp. As Mark Gevisser convincingly argues, Mbeki’s 
support base has always been the intelligentsia, and the urban middle 
and upper middle classes, both black and white. And they, especially the 
black component, constitute a significant proportion of the activist and 
leadership base of the ANC.

It is this group that abandoned Mbeki, not only in the ANC, but also 
more broadly in society. Go to any of the parties frequented by young 
black professionals in our urban centres, and the same message is heard: 
‘Mbeki has betrayed everything we stood for’. This is also the message 
reflected in the data of opinion polls, which record a downward spiral 
in the ex-president’s popular support base.


What happened in this constituency? For years they were the support base 
of the Mbeki administration. Even when they disagreed with one or other 
policy of Mbeki, he was still their philosopher president. They were 
proud of the fact that he could walk in London and New York and hold his 
own with foreign politicians. He represented African modernity; proud of 
his roots, but cosmopolitan in orientation, a national politician and a 
global statesman, pursuing a liberal economic agenda, with a socially 
responsive progressive political rhetoric. He represented an African 
version of the global middle class dream. Why, then, did they abandon him?

The simplest answer is that in recent years his practice and behaviour 
betrayed their hopes and vision. For them, South Africa was to be a 
caring, modern, cosmopolitan social democracy. Of course this vision was 
a shallow one for the only people who could afford to even harbour it 
were the middle and upper middle classes of our society. For the vast 
majority of the poor there was nothing caring or social about our 
democracy. Nevertheless, despite the shallowness of this dream, it did 
galvanise the imagination of the privileged or at least the relatively 
privileged who became the mainstay of Mbeki’s support base. Yet it is 
they who have now abandoned him, feeling that their vision has been 
seriously betrayed in recent years.

Three developments punctured this vision. First, in the last two to 
three years, there was a growing perception in society that Mbeki was 
incapable of empathising with ordinary citizens. The two most dramatic 
examples of this were the crises in health and crime. In the former 
case, when scandals broke about the quality of care in Mount Frere 
Hospital and the deaths of babies in Prince Mashini, the Mbeki 
administration’s immediate response was a cover-up. People who broke the 
story and leaders who rose to the challenge were reprimanded, harassed 
and even fired. Witch-hunts became the order of the day, and the 
political leadership led by the President and the then Minister of 
Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, went into denial.

The then Deputy Minister of Health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, who rose 
to the challenge, was first reprimanded and subsequently fired. Instead 
of empathising with the victims of health service delivery failure, and 
the mothers who lost their children, Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang buried 
their heads in the sand, denying anything was wrong in the public health 
system.

Similarly when confronted with a question on crime in an interview on 
SABC a couple of months later, his remarks were that the problem is 
being seriously over-played. Indeed in the very same interview, he 
argued that one could walk in Auckland Park without the fear of being 
mugged and attacked.

Not only did this betray ignorance about the conditions in Auckland Park 
and much of the rest of the country, but it also downplayed the 
seriousness of the problem of violent crime. Instead of rising to the 
challenge and sympathising with the victims of murder, rape and robbery, 
Mbeki refused to understand the fears of his citizenry, instead accusing 
them of being active or unwitting agents in the pursuance of an agenda 
of racial bigotry. Again, not only was there no empathy for victims, but 
the immediate response was to deny the social reality. This behaviour 
signalled a leader incapable of empathy and seriously out of touch with 
his citizenry.

Second, there is a growing perception that state institutions were being 
manipulated for personal political gain. Of course this has been the 
charge that Zuma has levelled against Mbeki for some time now. COSATU, 
the Communist Party, and Jacob Zuma have argued that the National 
Prosecuting Authority and other state institutions have been deployed 
against Mbeki’s political opponents. Initially, this was treated, at 
least in the public domain, with a degree of popular scepticism. But 
Mbeki’s behaviour, and of those around him, increasingly suggested that 
this charge may not be completely unfounded. The processes involved in 
the appointment of the SABC board, for instance, violated legitimate 
democratic protocols when it was revealed that MPs were instructed to 
appoint a set of individuals decided by Luthuli House. Similarly, the 
dismissal of Vusi Pikoli created political waves for it was seen as a 
means to protect Jackie Selebi. Both decisions were seen as examples 
where the president manipulates decision-making in state institutions to 
service his own political ends.

Finally, and related to the above, there was a widespread perception 
that Mbeki’s Machiavellian behaviour, reflected in his defence of those 
close to him, while dealing severely with opponents, was increasingly 
out of step with democratic norms. Again there was dramatic evidence of 
this in the last few years of Mbeki’s reign. Mbeki dismissed Jacob Zuma, 
while refusing to do so in the case of Jackie Selebi, even though the 
allegation against the latter was as serious as that levelled against 
the former. Similarly, he went out of his way to defend an incompetent 
health minister that brought the party and country into disrepute, while 
firing a popular deputy minister who defended the interests of HIV/AIDS 
victims and the poor and marginalised. These incidents provide credence 
to COSATU’s, the SACP’s and even many in the ANC’s charge that the 
president was inconsistent in his application of the rules, and really 
used his position to undermine the political contestation that should 
have been the everyday stuff of democratic politics.

Ultimately these developments exposed the fallacy of the vision of ‘the 
caring and socially responsive democratic society’ that the middle and 
upper middle classes harboured in this transition.

Feeling betrayed they turned against Mbeki. He was now seen as an 
autocrat, not the democrat they supported. He was seen as a manipulator, 
not the politically astute entrepreneur they endorsed. He was seen as 
one who turns against those closest to him, not the resolute politician 
who stands up against the forces of populism. Indeed, the popular image 
of Mbeki at the end of
2007 was one of a vindictive politician.

He was seen as the cause of his own misfortunes. And as these social 
strata turned against him, so they left him vulnerable to the growing 
list of political victims that Mbeki accumulated in his rise to power. 
This then is the great success of Jacob Zuma: the unravelling of the 
support for Thabo Mbeki among the middle and upper middle classes of 
South African society.

POLICY AND MANAGEMENT UNDER JACOB ZUMA

But what will Zuma’s political tenure look like? If systemic dynamics 
led to the centralisation of power and South Africa’s economic policy 
choices, is the ANC under Zuma, or the country under Zuma or his 
appointee, likely to be different? On the economic policy front, there 
is likely to be very little change. It is worthwhile bearing in mind 
that economic policy has gradually been shifting to the left under Thabo 
Mbeki in the last few years. Privatisation is no longer a national 
priority as it was in the late 1990s. There has been a significant 
increase in social support grants since 2001 so that 12 million people, 
a quarter of the population, receive such aid. In addition the health 
and education budgets have been on a steep rise for a number of years.

Moreover, South Africa has a major state-led infrastructural investment 
program to the tune of R400 billion. This is likely to be supplemented 
by another public investment of another R1.3 trillion in the energy 
sector in the next two decades.

The official rhetoric now speaks of the developmental state and not the 
untrampled market that was lauded only a few years ago. Of course this 
shift is not uncontested. Indeed, South Africa’s existing policy 
architecture is currently very contradictory.

There are significant sections of it that have a developmental, 
Keynesian, and social democratic flavour, especially when it comes to 
welfare and infrastructure spending. Yet, it also has strong 
continuities with the GEAR (Growth Employment and Redistribution) 
framework, particularly reflected in the Reserve Bank and Treasury’s 
rigid commitments to deficit and inflation targeting.

This contradiction in South Africa’s policy ensemble has to be resolved. 
The dispute between DTI (department of trade and industry) and Treasury 
has to be resolved in favour of the former. The Reserve Bank has to be 
reigned in, and made more economically secular and pragmatic by 
broadening its mandate to also look after employment.

Most of all, South Africa’s collective focus should shift to addressing 
the employment crisis. This in essence means an industrialisation 
strategy capable of absorbing large amounts of unskilled and 
semi-skilled labour. It would be worth recognising that no amount of 
training is going to transform citizens deprived of schooling and make 
of them skilled entrepreneurs successfully competing in the global 
economy. Given this, our economic strategy must be multi-faceted and 
sequenced. Some of our policies must be directed at the employment of 
new graduates of the productive sectors of post-apartheid schooling and 
education. But a significant amount of it should be directed at 
establishing industrial sectors capable of absorbing the unskilled and 
semi-skilled unemployed who were laid off in the first decade of our 
transition. Gradually, then, once the employment situation is 
stabilised, businesses and entrepreneurs should be prompted to progress 
up the value chain.

ARE ALL KINDS OF UNCERTAINTY BAD?

What of South Africa’s future? A number of domestic stakeholders, 
including business, have for some time expressed their disquiet about 
the climate of uncertainty that has prevailed since Polokwane. Now they 
are even more concerned given the formal split within the ANC and the 
decision by former leading lights of the Mbeki camp – Mosiuoa Lekota, 
Sam Shilowa, and Mluleki George – to launch a rival political party. 
People worry whether domestic and foreign business will be put off from 
investment, whether the constitution will be changed, whether corruption 
is likely to continue to thrive, and in some extreme cases, whether we 
are heading for civil war. Obviously some of these fears emanate from 
racialised perceptions of South Africa’s political system and its 
elites. But most of it emanates from decent folk who have the best 
interests of the country and their families at heart. And what they want 
to know is whether Polokwane and the split in the ANC, and the 
uncertainty these have generated, will unravel South Africa’s national 
potential for a rosier future.

At the outset it must be asked whether all forms of uncertainty need 
always be bad for the country. A couple of years ago, the academic 
journal Democratisation published an article by a political scientist, 
Andreas Schedler, who drew a distinction between institutional 
uncertainty and substantive uncertainty.

Institutional uncertainty – the uncertainty about the rules of the game 
– speaks to issues of the legitimacy of state institutions, and implies 
the vulnerability of the democratic system to anti-democratic forces. 
Substantive uncertainty – the uncertainty of the outcomes of the game – 
is about the perceptions of ruling political elites in a democratic 
system on whether they will be returned to office. It also speaks to 
economic elites and their fears about whether they can simply reproduce 
themselves along old patterns.

The former – institutional uncertainty – is bad for democracy as it 
raises the prospect of those defeated in the normal contest of elections 
not accepting the result and trying to overthrow the system. The latter 
– substantive uncertainty – is good for democracy for it keeps 
politicians on their toes and makes them responsive to their citizenry. 
The fundamental purpose of a democracy is to make state elites 
accountable to the citizenry. This is the only way to effect not only 
public participation, but also to guarantee a development trajectory in 
the interests of all the citizenry, including its most marginalised and 
dispossessed.
Such accountability is thus founded on the emergence of substantive 
uncertainty in the political system. In this sense, substantive 
uncertainty is the essence of democracy.

For much of South Africa’s transition, such a substantive uncertainty 
has been missing from its political system. The opposition parties, 
located as they were in minority electoral pools, had no hope of 
threatening the ANC at the polls and the political elite in the ANC 
could take their occupation of political office for granted. This 
underlay the arrogance that was sometimes displayed by them on matters 
like the arms deal, corruption and crime. It allowed Mbeki to 
marginalise critics like COSATU and the South African Communist Party 
(SACP) from the corridors of decision-making and power.

It also enabled his government to adopt the conservative macroeconomic 
policy agenda that was the hallmark of the early years of his 
administration. The subsequent opposition of COSATU and the SACP, their 
mobilisation against Mbeki, and later for Jacob Zuma, and the 
institutional revolution they fostered with others in Polokwane must be 
credited for introducing a substantive uncertainty into the political 
system.

It opened up the political space and created a debate on a range of 
policy issues, from AIDS to economy policymaking. Had this substantive 
uncertainty not been introduced into the political system, South Africa 
would never have had an overhaul of its AIDS policy.

Neither would it have had a shift in its economic polices. South Africa 
would never have had so many millions of people receiving grants, and it 
would never have seen the shift to more developmental economics. As a 
result South Africa would never have made some of the progress in 
poverty alleviation that it did in the last few years.

But as I argued in a panel debate with Aubrey Matshiqi and Steven 
Friedman at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) in September 2006, 
this openness is vulnerable and unlikely to be sustainable so long as it 
is premised on a contest between two leaders in the ruling party. For it 
to be truly sustainable, the substantive uncertainty must be 
institutionalised within the political system as a whole. Now for the 
first time the real prospects of this happening have emerged. As has 
been often argued, the potential for a viable parliamentary political 
opposition has never lain in the rump of opposition parties. It was only 
realistically feasible if the ANC split. While most analysts before 
Polokwane, including myself, believed that this would have emerged with 
COSATU and the SACP splitting from the ANC, it now seems to be underway 
by the right of political centre, some of the defeated Mbekites who have 
decided that their political future lies in an independent parliamentary 
opposition.

Yet the emergence of a viable parliamentary opposition cannot be taken 
for granted even if it arises from within the ruling party. There have 
been similar splits before and they all have petered out. But none has 
arisen from such deep and serious fissures within the ANC, and none have 
had such a formidable collective of national political figures.

Nevertheless if this political initiative is to be a significant and 
sustainable one, then it would have to overcome four serious challenges. 
First, it is going to require seriously deep financial pockets. Shilowa 
has indicated that this is not a problem, and South Africa’s political 
rumour-mill suggests that a number of BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) 
giants, Saki Macozoma, Mzi Khumalo, and Khaya Ngqula included, are also 
supporting this initiative. Even if this were true, however, the 
question that has to be asked is whether these BEE entrepreneurs will be 
in for the long haul as would be required if this initiative is to be 
successful.

Second, the successful launch of this political alternative is going to 
require a national organisational infrastructure. To date, Lekota, 
Shilowa, and others have tried to work off the ANC’s institutional base, 
which accounts for why the leadership moved so quickly to isolate them. 
But now that they are on their own, the success of the initiative does 
depend on how many of the branches and provinces will throw in their lot 
with them. At present it does seem as if they will have some footprint 
in the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape.

In addition, however, they will need at least a significant presence in 
the Free State, Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, and a small 
existence in KwaZulu-Natal if they are to be perceived as serious 
national political actors.

Third, the political initiative would need to be supported by a wider 
array of national political figures. Lekota and Shilowa are formidable 
political actors in their own right. But the initiative would get a 
great boost if Mbeki were to publicly give it his blessing, which is 
unlikely to happen at least in the short term. Given this, a wider array 
of figures in the Mbeki camp need to be seen to be supportive of this 
initiative, not only for it not to be seen as an attempt by disgruntled 
political leaders to hang onto power, but also if it is to carry the 
liberation pedigree that would be necessary if it is to have legitimacy 
among older members of South Africa’s black population.

Finally, the political alternative has to go beyond personalities and 
root itself in a distinct policy agenda. To date, it has been presented 
as a separation forced on by personality differences or unhappiness with 
the leadership of the ANC, because they have not shared equitably the 
spoils of office.

Obviously this comes off as a rupture among political elites to advance 
their own interests and lays the initiative open to the charge that it 
is being driven by ambitious politicians who cannot come to terms with 
the outcome of internal party democratic processes. If it is to go 
beyond this, then, the political alternative has to root itself in a 
policy program and a track record distinct from that claimed by the Zuma 
leadership within the ANC.

Perhaps, however, the greatest prospect for this initiative lies in the 
hands of the current leadership of the ANC. This might seem an odd 
conclusion to arrive at but it is worth noting that the political 
challenge only became a reality because the existing leadership 
underestimated the consequences of driving Mbeki from office. If a 
triumphalist attitude continues to prevail within the post-Polokwane 
leadership of the ANC, and if sufficient bridges are not built between 
the two camps within the organisation, then the political alternative is 
likely to grow if only because ‘dissidents’ have no other option.

It does seem as if leaders like Kgalema Motlanthe and even Jacob Zuma 
are aware of the threat, but there is also a strong strand within the 
leadership that responds to challenge and contestation with disciplinary 
hearings and expulsions. Obviously a balance has to be struck between 
maintaining internal political plurality and not enabling individuals to 
use the structures of the organisation against itself. But if an 
appropriate balance is not achieved, as seems to be the case currently, 
then the leadership may be precipitating the conditions for it to be 
seriously challenged at the polls.

Such a challenge will also be facilitated by the political behaviour of 
the current leadership of the ANC. These same political actors, who 
played such a useful role just a year ago, by introducing a political 
plurality and thereby a substantive uncertainty, have now begun to make 
decisions and behave in ways that introduce institutional uncertainty 
into the political system. They have attacked the NPA, the courts, and 
even individual judges. As a result they have begun to delegitimise the 
institutions of justice and other state structures. Some of their 
inflammatory statements about killing if the court does not find in 
their favour not only entrenches a culture of violence, but also 
undermine the rule of law. Also the new political elite’s decision to 
continue treating state positions as the spoils of war, to be used by 
the victors of Polokwane, blurs the divide between party and state and 
undermines the very foundation of democracy.

While some of these decisions and behaviour may serve their short-term 
political and personal goals, it will come to haunt them in the future 
when they occupy political office.

It needs to be borne in mind that economic development, service 
delivery, and poverty alleviation are dependent on a legitimated and 
capacitated state. Behaviour that now undermines the legitimacy and 
capacity of state institutions will compromise the new political elite’s 
own long-term goals.

Moreover, it may even alienate potential voters from the ANC. While 
previously this leadership could afford to remain complacent, this no 
longer will be the case if Lekota and Shilowa get their political 
alternative off the ground. Perhaps this will be the greatest 
contribution that Lekota and Shilowa will bequeath South Africa. By 
creating a viable political alternative, one rooted in all of South 
Africa’s population, political elites will no longer be able to take the 
country’s citizenry for granted. And therein lies the potential for the 
strengthening of democratic accountability in South Africa.

* Adam Habib is a professor of political science and deputy vice 
chancellor of the University of Johannesburg.
* Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at 
http://www.pambazuka.org/.

***

Movement-building, the capitalist crisis and the South African elections
Dale T. McKinley (2009-04-16)
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55635

Despite a sense of euphoria among significant sections of South Africa’s 
poor and working class that a Jacob Zuma presidency will usher in the 
long awaited better life for all, writes Dale McKinley, socialists know 
that Zuma will not dismantle the alignment of class forces consolidated 
by the ANC since the early 1990s, but rather further entrench them. 
Since social movements are not in a position to present an alternative 
parliamentary option to the masses, the Anti-Privatisation Forum is 
calling on communities, workers, the unemployed, youth and students not 
to vote in the national elections on 22 April 2009, rather than ‘wasting 
their vote and time on parties that have no intention of bringing about 
real fundamental changes’ and that do not ‘represent the aspirations and 
interests of the poor and working class communities’.

THE CAPITALIST CRISIS AND THE POOR/WORKING CLASS

We are now in a world radically different from what it was a mere four 
months ago. The world economy is collapsing, torn apart by an economic 
recession. Thousands of workers are being thrown out of work; millions 
find themselves hungry in the midst of plenty of food; millions are 
homeless in the midst of houses being repossessed and standing empty. 
Cement and brick factories are standing idle when millions require 
shelter. Neoliberal capitalism has over the past thirty years inflicted 
untold misery onto the world's poor whilst simultaneously making a very 
small minority filthy rich.

Capitalism has no right to rule society and organise production. It has 
no more legitimacy as a workable economic system. We have been told that 
humanity and capitalism is inseparable, without capitalism society 
cannot move forward. The apologists for the system said there was no 
alternative, that socialism is dead. But today we find that capitalism 
is at its own deathbed. However, when capitalism is faced with its own 
death, it somehow finds a new lease on life. Capitalism faced death 
during the 1920/30s during the Great Depression. The working class with 
its strong left or communist parties and trade unions resisted the 
attempts of the various ruling classes to get them to carry the burden 
of the depression. It took the capitalist class over two decades through 
the use of fascism and a Second World War to break the back of the 
working classes in order to set the system back on the track of 
recovery. But it had to offer the working class something in return and 
that was social democracy. Only with this class compromise could the 
capitalist class embark upon a 25-year period of economic growth. This 
economic growth broke down in the 1970s. Thirty years of neoliberalism 
have not solved the crisis of the 1970s. Now in 2009, capitalism is 
faced with another world crisis more severe than the Great Depression 
and the crisis of the 1970s.

One of the things the various nationalist ruling classes are going to 
try to do is convince us to take joint responsibility for the crisis. 
They are going to sell the idea that we are all in this together and 
that we are all responsible for the mess, and that we must all try to 
find solutions for it. But in reality, the way out for them is to try 
and get the working class and the poor to carry the cost of this crisis. 
We must accept greater impoverishment, greater unemployment, and greater 
inequalities. And in the end the gap between the poor and rich will grow 
ever wider. We must tell them this economic crisis is their mess. We are 
not going to take responsibility for it. Rather we must expose to 
everyone, that to take responsibility for this crisis is to accept 
starvation. We are faced with a choice: Organise or starve.

Over the past eight years our movements here in South Africa have been 
digging local trenches of resistance to the neoliberal onslaught. We 
have resisted evictions, water and electricity cut-offs, prepaid meters, 
lack of service delivery and have fought hard for decent housing, 
education and healthcare for all. However, this crisis is also breaking 
out at a time when our movements remain organisationally weak. Whilst 
having a lot in common we are still not united around a common platform 
of struggle and demand. Faced with the coming tsunami of destruction of 
the capitalist class we have to intensify our local struggles, build our 
movements and unite. As separate and isolated movements, the capitalist 
class will defeat us, will push us aside. But as a united force it will 
find in us a formidable opponent. Our local struggles and demands must 
be linked to the question of institutional power, real participatory 
democracy and core macro-economic and social policy. We must confront 
head-on issues such as how wealth is produced/ owned, how it is 
distributed and consumed. For instance, we must demand that the delivery 
of houses must take place through the nationalisation of the big cement 
and bricks factories and placed under working class control. As a 
defense against starvation, we must also demand that the government 
legislate a national unemployment living benefit for all the unemployed 
irrespective of work experience.

The political space is there for us to intervene. Not only can the 
capitalists no longer tell us there is no alternative – that 
neoliberalism is the answer to everything – but the ruling party is also 
finding itself in the midst of a crisis. It is being torn apart by 
internal contestation over who is entitled to the spoils of Black 
Economic Empowerment (BEE). Those who have been excluded under the 
regime of Thabo Mbeki want to be first in line to BEE under the Zuma ANC 
and they are prepared to leave no stone unturned in their quest. Only by 
uniting around a common platform of demands and action can we build a 
movement with a national presence, one that presents to the masses an 
alternative pole of explanation and resistance. Our movements have a lot 
in common: In essence, we are anti-capitalist, anti-neoliberalism and 
united in our opposition to the ANC government’s core policies and rule.

THE PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

The capitalist class in South Africa is clearly not certain about the 
credentials of the Zuma elite-in-waiting. What is also not helping 
matters for them, despite re-assurances from Zuma, is the insistence 
from the ANC’s Alliance partners, the Congress of South African Trade 
Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), that 
things are going to have to change. And since the ANC’s Polokwane 
conference in 2007, the capitalists have been confronted with 
contradictory signals emanating from the elite-in-waiting. No ruling 
class can afford to have a government in place of which it is not 
certain that it will do everything necessary for the creation of the 
conditions for continued capital accumulation, especially in the midst 
of a systemic crisis. We can thus expect that they are going to do 
everything possible to ensure that the policies of the previous ANC 
government under Thabo Mbeki are not going to be sacrificed on the alter 
of the accumulation frenzy of the petty bourgeoisie marching under the 
banner of the Zuma elite. Enormous pressure is going to be brought to 
bear on the Zuma elite to maintain the course of the Mbeki ship. Any 
serious deviation is going to be met with outright hysteria.

On the other side, amongst significant sections of the poor and working 
class, there is a certain amount of euphoria that a Zuma presidency is 
going to usher in the long awaited better life for all. There is renewed 
hope that changes can come through the ANC and the institutions of 
bourgeois rule. This hope was ushered in with the developments at the 
ANC’s Polokwane Conference. Polokwane has been seen (and sold) as the 
culmination of years of struggle against the neoliberal project of the 
Mbeki administration. Sections of the poor and working class, under the 
auspices of organisations allied to the ANC, like COSATU and the SACP, 
view Polokwane as their victory, as the wrestling back of the ANC from 
the clutches of the ‘capitalist’ Mbeki faction.

Underscoring this renewed hope in the ruling party and the parliamentary 
process was the removal of Thabo Mbeki as president of the country in 
2008, and the subsequent appointment of an interim ANC President, 
Kgalema Motlanthe. Also giving credence to this feeling is the apparent 
re-assertion of parliament as a body of authority insisting now on its 
oversight role of certain aspects of financial matters – like budgets 
and money bills. Critically also is the impression, marketed by the ANC, 
that it is now a more caring, people-orientated party – a good example 
being the recent ‘coming together’ of the ANC with the community and 
organisations of Khutsong. All of this gives the impression that things 
can be radically changed or are already in the process of changing.

Socialists and militants within the social movements, on the other hand, 
however, know that a Zuma presidency is not going to dismantle the 
alignment of capitalist class forces consolidated by the ANC since the 
early 1990s but rather further entrench them. No social movement 
militant should have any illusion about a Zuma presidency and his 
coterie of followers. We must understand that the Zuma faction does not 
represent an alternative class project to that of Thabo Mbeki. This is 
not only confirmed by the recently installed president Motlanthe who 
categorically stated that he is going to continue where Mbeki left off, 
but also borne out by eight years of struggle against the ANC government 
and its neoliberal policies.Complicating matters, however, is that there 
exists not only hope in a Zuma presidency within the ranks of the ANC’s 
‘left’ allies and sections of the broader working class/poor, but also 
amongst the constituencies of the social movements, including the 
Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF).

Not making things easier is the new kid on the political party block, 
the Congress of the People (COPE) and its key leader, Terror Lekota, the 
former chairperson of the ANC. COPE has introduced a new dimension into 
the political equation. They are projecting the image of people who 
respect the constitution and the rule of law. Whether this claiming of 
public space by former ANC members to voice political opposition to the 
current leadership of the ANC is going to lead to any kind of mass-based 
electoral support is still not clear, although it is certain that COPE 
will gain a degree of support, especially from the emergent black 
capitalist and middle classes. What we do know though is the track 
record of Lekota and his lieutenants as part of all the anti-working 
class policies of the ANC government. They were the co-drivers and 
implementers of GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution), 
privatisation, trade liberalisation and so on. Their loyalty has been 
firmly on the side of the capitalist class.

We are faced with a significantly changed situation as compared to that 
prevailing at the time of the 2004 national elections. On the one hand, 
the social movement militants are under no illusion as to what the new 
ruling elite in waiting represent. But, on the other hand, broad 
sections of the masses, including significant constituencies of the 
movements, are moving in tow with the elite-in-waiting. Thrown into the 
mix is the fact that social movements, as in the case of 2004, are not 
in a position to present an alternative parliamentary option to the 
masses. A realistic appraisal of the state of the movements will show 
that they have suffered further setbacks in their strategic capacity and 
implantation within communities where many organisations are in a state 
of survival. The significant support for a Zuma presidency amongst poor 
communities, is but one indicator of this process.

THE 2009 NATIONAL ELECTIONS – A CALL FOR A BOYCOTT

With the 2009 national elections around the corner we are confronted 
with the task of developing a parliamentary tactic that corresponds best 
to the present conjuncture. The term parliamentary tactic is employed on 
the assumption that it is common cause amongst socialists that 
participation in bourgeois parliaments is viewed as a tactical question 
and not one of principle. Over the decades the international working 
class has built up a vast arsenal of such tactics ranging from boycott, 
the fielding of candidates, protest vote in the form of a spoilt ballot 
to a conditional vote for a party/movement.

The bottom line is that none of the political parties that are 
contesting these elections are worth voting for. None of the main 
capitalist parties contesting, like the ANC, COPE and DA (Democratic 
Alliance), represent the aspirations and interests of the poor and 
working class communities. In the 1994, 1999 and 2004 national 
elections, the ANC and others also released with much fanfare their 
electoral manifestos promising a better life for all. Instead working 
class communities have seen increased poverty, homelessness, dismal lack 
of service delivery and joblessness. In fact, over the past 14 years the 
ANC government has shown it has no political will to address, in a 
fundamental way, the interests and aspirations of the poor.

Again in 2009, the ANC and other capitalist parties are making many 
claims and promises. The ANC is boasting that it has created on average, 
half a million jobs since 2004, reducing unemployment from 31 per cent 
in 2003 to 23 per cent in 2007. This is sheer dishonesty. The ANC is 
deliberately not including the millions who have simply stopped looking 
for a job. Independent figures show that unemployment is around 40 per 
cent and that the jobs that were created are the highly exploitative, 
casual, lowly paid and outsourced ones and of a very short-term nature. 
The so-called ‘answers’ to the mass poverty and inequality in South 
Africa that are provided in the ANC electoral manifesto of the ruling 
party, are not ‘answers’ at all, precisely because there is no political 
commitment and/or practical will to mobilise/organise the majority of 
the poor and working class to confront capital (i.e. to wage class 
struggle) and thus radically alter both the political and socio-economic 
status quo.

Instead of wasting their vote and time on parties that have no intention 
of bringing about real fundamental changes, we are calling on 
communities, workers, the unemployed, youth and students not to vote on 
22nd April 2009. Voting in these national elections is not the sole, or 
even main, act of real democratic participation. We must not be fooled 
by empty appeals to ‘civic duty’ and ‘responsibility’ when we know that 
a vote for any of the participating political parties is a vote for a 
continuation of what has come before.

Social and political power does not lie in voting every five years for 
party representatives who claim to represent the people. It lies in 
building strong, mass poor/working class movements and strengthening our 
common anti-capitalist struggles on the ground, which can make a 
difference both in ordinary people’s lives and in the way they relate to 
those with institutional and party representational power. It is such 
choices and actions that can be the source of real, popular and 
grassroots-oriented political power that is not confined/limited by the 
narrow, institutional boundaries of stale bourgeois democracy and that 
can have the potential to enforce real accountability and meaningful 
democratic participation.

* Dale T. McKinley is an independent writer, lecturer and researcher. He 
is an activist within the Anti-Privatisation Forum as well as the Social 
Movements Indaba.
* Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at 
http://www.pambazuka.org/.

***

Why Steve Biko wouldn’t vote
Continuity in the post-1994 era
Andile Mngxitama (2009-04-16)
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55639
Printer friendly version

cc April LynnAs South Africa nears its fourth election since 1994, 
Andile Mngxitama laments the country's overall lack of progress toward 
genuine black liberation in the post-1994 era. Highlighting Steve Biko's 
emphasis on 'conscientisation' to counter the normalisation of black 
people's material and mental subjugation to the entrenched white power 
structure, Mngxitama decries the continued suffering of the poor black 
majority in post-1994 South Africa, arguing that the race-based 
understanding of impoverishment once used to describe marginalisation 
has now been effectively eradicated under the anti-racialist hegemony 
dominant in national discourse. With the state still essentially rooted 
in its apartheid-era model of white capitalist accumulation and 
exploitation – albeit with a new black leadership at the helm – 
Mngxitama contends that the country has simply moved into a 
neo-apartheid phase of little discernible distinction from its past, 
stating that to vote within such a system would merely be to grant it 
legitimacy.

South Africa is on the verge of going to its fourth national election 
since 1994.[1] The socio-political changes which have occurred in the 
country for past 15 years point to a dramatic failure to realise the 
dream of liberation as developed by Steve Biko. Here I develop an 
argument for why Biko, like so many, would not be voting.

BIKO’S CONCEPTION OF LIBERATION

Biko’s idea of liberation is fundamentally anti-racist and 
anti-capitalist, as opposed to being anti-racialist, non-racialist and 
intergrationist – these latter conceptions of change naturally lead to 
the de-racialisation of capitalism and thereby the legitimation of the 
white supremacist political, economic and social existence created over 
the last 350 years in South Africa. Biko’s framing of the fundamental 
contradiction in South Africa as one of white racism emanates from his 
conception of capitalism as it emerged in the country as an inherently 
racist project. In his words then:

'[T]he color question in South African politics was originally 
introduced for economic reasons. The leaders of the white community had 
to create some kind of barrier between black and whites so that the 
whites could enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks and still feel 
free to give moral justification for the obvious exploitation that 
pricked even hardest of white consciences.'

For Biko this initial subjugation of black people for economic reason 
has over time created the 'white power structure'. This is to mean white 
racism, while based on the historical dispossession and oppression of 
blacks, has come to assume a position of relative autonomy, where 
whiteness normalises itself as a power dynamic based on a superiority 
complex linked to skin colour on the one hand and the supposed 
inferiority of blacks on the other. The actual existing circumstances of 
blacks (historically and systematically created) actually reinforce the 
reality of this white superiority and black denigration. These 
propositions are not merely mental states, they are material, and 
determine life chances and privileges. To be white is to be human as to 
be black is to be subhuman. Biko sharply makes the point that '[t]he 
racism we meet doesn’t only exist on an individual basis; it is 
institutionalized to make it look like the South African way of life.'

It must be said that in fact the normalisation of racism is ingrained in 
the psyches of both whites (the beneficiaries) and blacks (the victims). 
It was on the recognition of this reality that Biko and his comrades 
argued for the 'conscientisation' of the blacks, because black people at 
the time 'often looked like they have given up the struggle'. Key to the 
conscietisation process was always the totality of black awareness and 
pride for the purpose of struggle. For Biko, 'Liberation is of paramount 
importance in the concept of Black Consciousness, for we cannot be 
conscious of ourselves and yet remain in bondage'.[2]

BIKO THE BLACK SOCIALIST

Throughout I write what I like we get snippets of Biko’s attitude to 
capitalism and his attitude towards a brand of socialism. It remains a 
mystery why the Eurocentric neo-Marxist and other such 'Leftist' 
thinkers continue to cast Black Consciousness (BC) as somehow agreeable 
to capitalism. If we take seriously Biko’s conception of apartheid South 
Africa as a country inflicted by a white racism founded on the 
development of its own brand of capitalism, it is hard to see how Biko 
could have been pro-capitalist. Let's let Biko speak for himself:

'[T]he poor shall always be black people. It's not surprising, 
therefore, that the blacks should wish to rid themselves of a system 
that locks up the wealth of the country in the hands of a few. No doubt 
Rick Turner was thinking about this when he declared that "any black 
government is likely to be socialist".'

Barney Pityana's echoing of the obviously erroneous view that Biko was 
not a socialist – or rather that he was an underdeveloped socialist – 
posits Biko’s vision as at best one nationalist with a commitment to 
justice. Pityana says Biko 'had no language of socialism and as such 
never critiqued to any substantive extent the socialist ideology, save 
that he harboured intellectual suspicions about socialist ideologies and 
practice'.

It is my contention that even in his earlier writing Biko shows a 
favourable attitude towards socialism, rejecting Stalinism, social 
imperialism, white arrogance and liberalism. It's possible it is Pityana 
who is misreading Biko’s position. Anyway, when Biko was asked, 'You 
speak of an egalitarian society. Do you mean a socialist one?', he answered:

'Yes, I think there is no running away from the fact that now in South 
Africa there is such an ill distribution of wealth that any form of 
political freedom which doesn’t touch on the proper distribution of 
wealth will be meaningless. If we have a mere change of face of those in 
governing positions what is likely to happen is that black people will 
continue to be poor, and you will see a few blacks filtering through 
into the so called bourgeoisie. Our society will be run almost as of 
yesterday [emphasis mine].'

In a 1972 interview Biko elaborates on his criticism of Moscow’s social 
imperialism and the South African Communist Party's servile position to 
Moscow.[3] Biko furthermore demonstrates a deep appreciation of the 
competing Marxian tendencies, including the South African Trotskyite 
formations:

'[A] lot of young people see Moscow as revisionist in a sense, even in 
the communist context. You see what I mean?… [T]heir policies are 
revisionist. They tend to demonstrate a hell of a lot of the same things 
that one finds among imperialists at this moment. So in a sense they are 
not the kind of socialist direction that people would like to follow.'

I want to argue that throughout this conversation, Biko is developing a 
brand of socialism which I would like to call 'black socialism', for a 
lack of a better word. It’s contextual and focused on the black 
experience as a whole. It’s the kind of socialism which is anti-racist 
in nature, it takes into account that whiteness is pervasive and 
benefits whites irrespective of their political standing.

In the 1972 interview Biko summarises his mode of socialism:

'There are some leftist whites who have [an] attachment to say[ing] the 
same rough principles of post-revolutionary society, but a lot of them 
are still terribly cynical about, for instance, the importance of value 
systems which we enunciate so often, from the black consciousness angle. 
That it is not only capitalism that is involved; it is also the whole 
gamut of white value systems which has been adopted as standard by South 
Africa, both whites and blacks so far. And that will need attention, 
even in a post-revolutionary society. Values relating to all the 
fields—education, religion, culture and so on. So your problems are not 
solved completely when you alter the economic pattern, to a socialist 
pattern. You still don't become what you ought to be. There's still a 
lot of dust to be swept off, you know, from the kind of slate we got 
from white society.'

ANTI-RACISM VS ANTI-RACIALISM

At the beginning we argued that Biko’s vision of liberation was 
fundamentally anti-racist as opposed to anti-racialist. We also alluded 
to the fact that anti-racialism or non- racialism inevitably leads to 
accommodation with white supremacy, whilst anti-racism seeks to end the 
world as we know it. We find David Goldberg's formulation and 
articulation of these categories, and what political and strategic 
implications they hold, useful for our discussion.

The 1994 watershed inaugurated the realisation in a formal sense of 
anti-racialism in South Africa. A moment best described as the birth of 
'born again racism', to borrow from Goldberg. This is achieved at the 
point of abandoning the promises of liberation as a matter of structural 
transformation into a matter inclusion. Accordingly, this is realised 
through legal formalism, and dare I add the fetish of constitutionalism, 
which promises equality in the abstract as it provides the historically 
advantaged more avenues to protect their ill-gained privileges in the 
name of the rule of law. In the South African context this meant the 
sedimentation of reconciliation without justice into the DNA of our law 
and constitution. From this perspective, blacks can't claim reparations, 
can't ask for justice for past transgressions; blacks cant even simply 
speak the specificity of their black suffering. The black grammar of 
being, which is in essence a grammar of suffering, is actually not only 
socially frowned upon, it's outlawed.

Goldberg argues that '[B]orn again racism is racism without race, racism 
gone private, racism without categories of naming it as such.' It is 
indeed 'raceless racism', which chimes well with the colourlessness 
demand of non-racialism based on a proclaimed equality before the law. 
Anti-racialism, or in our case non-racialism, erases the category of 
race but not racism. It disables those marked out for racism by the 
colour of their skin to claim redress or the name the crime. Racism is 
not a criminal offence in South Africa.

The tragic consequences of anti-racialism in South Africa are felt 
everyday in the denial of recognising black exclusion, suffering and 
death. We can't even say that the people dying from wanton neglect in 
Baragwanath hospital are black. Nor can we say that the more than 100 
children who died without a scandal in the Eastern Cape and Mount Frere 
hospitals are black, or that the life expectancy between black and white 
is so wide you would think they live in different continents. Nor can we 
say that the South African state continues differential treatment of 
people based on skin colour, or point out that the groans of blacks 
under the weight of racism – both individualised and, most importantly, 
institutionalised – has no resonance in the state's dominant discourse 
of democracy, freedom, nation building and economic fundamentals.

Anti-racialism has found fertile ground in South Africa Leftist 
politics, which has always refused to accept race as a legitimate 
category of analysis, existence and resistance. In the post-1994 era we 
have seen the development of at least three tragic consequences (for 
excluded blacks) as a result of this commitment to anti-racialism. 
Firstly, the retreat of radical scholarship from theorising the state; 
if the apartheid state was a racist, neo-Nazi, settler colonial state in 
the service of racial capitalism, then what is the post-1994 state? Have 
there been any fundamental ruptures? My own take is that the post-1994 
state remains racist in character and serves white racism in the context 
of promoting accumulation and the reproduction of capitalism. Note I 
don’t use the favourable 'post-apartheid'.

The second consequence has been that black leadership has taken over the 
levers of white supremacist institutions. This mirrors the sort of 
comedy we see in the functioning and symbolism of our parliamentary 
processes and courts. The annual opening of parliament is significant in 
its dramatisation of the neo-apartheid nature of our body politic, a red 
carpet against colonial iconography and statues. The whole scene is 
dominated by colourful African dress, basically dressing up the colonial 
and apartheid power structures in African colours. The essence remains 
white racist. The same ethic plays itself out more visibly in the 
university environment. You have black heads of white and often racist 
universities. The faculty is doted with blacks, but the curriculum, the 
culture and ethos remain white. Claims of racism from students and black 
faculty are mediated by blacks on top, thereby enacting a situation of 
black-on-black violence in preserving the whiteness of these 
institutions. Basically post-1994 inaugurates a neo-colony.

The third and sad consequence of the triumph of anti-racialism is the 
'recruitment of people of colour to act as public spokespersons'. There 
is a curious development in this area, because some 'committed' black 
African public intellectuals have in essence become ironic spokespersons 
of anti-racialism in the name of either defending democracy, promoting 
'cosmopolitanism' or nation-building, or as the defenders of a new sense 
of progressive identity.

My take is that Biko’s conception of BC is fundamentally anti-racist and 
stands inimically to anti-racialism and the terms of the post-1994 
constitutional dispensation. To reiterate, Biko’s conception of black 
liberation is predicated on the obliteration of white racism –itself a 
product of capitalist accumulation present since the white and black 
violent encounter in 1652 – which continues to reproduce the same 
prejudice (as both individual and institutionalised racism), 1994's 
changes notwithstanding. In a sense there is no possibility of 
obliterating white racism, without fundamentally changing how things are 
around here.

CONTESTING BIKO

In our book, Biko Lives!: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (2008), 
we identify at least three ways in which Biko is contested today. The 
first is the black business class, second the state-linked political and 
bureaucratic classes (the 'bureaucratic bourgeoisie'),[4] and finally 
the excluded majority (for whom 1994 miracle remains a rumour).

I have alluded to the fact that the post-1994 political terrain is 
punctuated more by continuity that rupture. I tried to further show that 
the post-1994 moment has inaugurated a born-again racism which finds 
expression in constitutional precepts, laws, and opportunities in 
general within South African society. This reality stands opposed and in 
deep, sharp contrast to what Biko stood for. I want to argue that the 
racist state formation inherited by the post-1994 political managers 
should be a central consideration for staying away from the electoral 
process. If you arrive at this position, then whoever participates in 
the elections must explain how their participation does not provide 
legitimacy to the post-1994 racist state form.

Biko’s non-participation echoes what for now appears to be a position of 
the margins, a doing politics differently, but still a minority position 
from the 'public eye'. This minority is part of the millions who abstain 
from the electoral process for various reasons, which range from 
disillusionment to deep cynicism. Then there are the vocal, conscious 
and principled boycotters, such as the myriad social movements (Abahlali 
baseMjondolo, the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), the Landless People's 
Movement (LPM) and the Anti-Eviction Campaign), with their cries of 'No 
land, no vote! No housing, no vote! No electricity and water, no vote!'

This cry started in the last election, and has been growing; it's part 
of the 20,000 or so protests recorded in the past few years. These are 
principled boycotters whom I think Biko would be marching with, burning 
tires with, blocking roads with, and swearing at the pompous and 
over-fed politicians with. There are groups like the counterculture 
group Blackwash, which is part of the loose collective of groups under 
the 'Nope' initiative.

These groups collectively frown upon the whole electoral circus, and 
respond with messages such as 'Fuck voting!' and 'Our dreams don’t fit 
in your ballots'. As a loose collective they have come to accept that 
our post-1994 liberal democratic process is a decoy for the elaboration 
of power. The Nope initiative for instance counters the sterility of 
political parties' empty rhetoric with their own 'manifestering', a form 
of counter-manifesto. Those refusing in this way operate decidedly 
outside of the mainstream; they don’t even hear the threatening rebuke 
of the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission), 'Don’t vote, don’t 
complain'. They place their hope in manifestering over manifestoes, 
which are about the mediation of desires and the permanent postponement 
of promises. The Nope manifestering cautions against pinning our hopes 
on manifestoes that cannot:

'…escape their framing by capitalism’s own manifesto. A manifesto that 
is felt everywhere by everyone. A manifesto that has taken hold in our 
everyday lives. That tries to get under our skins, and make us live in 
ways alien to our desires, the fulfilment of these always a matter of hope'.

Against the empty promise of hope we can't cope:

'But as a sore festers, the wounds inflicted on the poor, the homeless, 
women, children, the unemployed, those of us excluded from learning.'

This is a vindication of the implausibility of doing politics with a 
racist polity. The state form itself must be obliterated for new 
possibilities to emerge; it's not about defending the constitution but 
about defending life and the liberty of the those who haven’t tasted any 
as yet.

Frowning upon the politics of manifestoes and ballot box democracies, 
Nope laughs at these ugly, demented rituals:

'The mandatory manifesto. Every party has one. Every organisation. Every 
campaign. Lists of demands to be delivered, visions to be attained in 
some future always on the horizon. A ritual. A routine whose rhythms 
refuse the possibility for any ways of being political other than the 
vesting of hope in a vote. And that lock us in an endless cycle of 
reading our desires off the possibilities imagined by others for us all.'

We hear clearly the call for responsibility, discipline, hard work, 
respect for the dead and yesterday's heroic sacrifices, all reduced to 
'people died for the vote'. I’m not convinced, neither do I think Steve 
died so that we could have the vote. We had bigger hopes and bigger 
dreams than 4x4s, arms deals, Johnny Walker blue edition, the vulgarity 
of buying islands and the everyday violence of existence. On the other 
hand, the millions who in election after election draw an X in the 
cubicle of hope, sight an ultimately deflated hope and can't cope with 
their basic desires, walking back to misery and exclusion.

The Nope manifestering process locates itself in the Armageddon 
predicted by Strini Moodley, 'the coming implosion':

'Today the system struggles, itself nursing injuries from our fights, 
our individual and collective refusals against the mantras of commodity, 
payment, fiscal discipline, conservation, restraint, indigent 
management… The burns stretch from the eyelid to the ankle of the globe. 
They cannot grow any bigger. But they can still deepen.'

I'm saying that Biko’s politics at the time of his death ran 
fundamentally in a different direction to what is being offered by the 
electoral process today, a process predicated on the preservation of our 
racist state, itself an outcome of the 1994 miracle. So quite apart from 
the fact that of all political parties playing the game right now, none 
is for Moodley or Biko’s Armageddon, there is the fundamental question 
of the legitimation of a state which is fundamentally against black 
people, even as it gives them an RDP (Reconstruction and Development 
Programme) house, a grant here, a pension payout there, inferior 
education and a health system which is dangerous to the health of the 
many. No, to say '‘94 changed fokol', as Blackwash proclaims, is not to 
deny that some things have been done, it's rather to protest at just how 
low the threshold has been placed. I mean, not even an apartheid 
government’s matchbox house?

To be outside right now gives you a fighting chance to be part of the 
solution. In or out is the question; it's not difficult to see where 
Biko would stand, if we pay attention to what he stood for.

* Andile Mngxitama is a Johannesburg-based rights activist with the 
Landless People’s Movement.
* Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at 
http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES
[1] This contribution is an abridged version of a lecture, which is now 
a booklet, and was first delivered at the University of Johannesburg, 
then Rhodes University. It will be subject to discussion at the South 
African Human Rights Commission this Friday.
[2] The 1976 uprising can be said to be a philosophical uprising, that 
is to mean resistance which is conscious of itself – black power! The 
uprising’s war cry is unmistakably black consciousness. The 1980s, 
rendering South Africa ungovernable, were in some way an uprising which 
didn’t think for itself save for the brilliance of resistance itself. 
The consequences were big; when Lusaka and Robben Island said 'stop', 
that resistance fizzled out and deferred all its disruptive capacity to 
the disciplining powers of the 'leadership', meaning a deal could be cut 
between two elite camps.
[3] This interview was discovered a few years ago at the William Cullen 
Library at Wits, it was done conducted by Professor Gail M. Gerhard, on 
24 October 1972 in Durban. It is published for the first time in Biko Lives!
[4] To my knowledge this conception was coined by Issa G. Shivji.