Our national season of hope

With the presentation of the State of the Nation Address on Friday 11 February our government has now presented some of the main directions of its work during the financial year 2005-2006. This has been followed up with the media briefings given by our Ministers and Deputy Ministers, during which they have given more details about the government's programme of action.

On Wednesday 23 February our Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, will present the 2005-2006 National Budget. This will give the country specific information about the resources that will be set aside for the implementation of the government programme. This will further expand and deepen public knowledge of what our government intends to do next, in pursuit of the goal of achieving a better life for all our people.

In the January 8th Statement, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, our National Executive Committee called on all our structures and members further to intensify our movement's contact with the masses of our people, mobilising them around the various demands contained in the Freedom Charter.

In this regard, our members should strive to understand the principal elements reflected in the State of the Nation Address and the Budget, with a view to communicating these to the people. We are determined that our people should participate actively in the process of determining our country's future, to guarantee a people-driven process of change.

Knowledge of the government's programme will be of great help in this regard. Among other things it will make it possible for the people the better to understand what resources are available to respond to the ever-urgent demand to meet their needs. This is especially important given the fact that we have seen the negative consequences that can arise if the people are kept ignorant of what the governments they elected can or cannot do today and tomorrow.

As we have done consistently in the past, we must continue to communicate a firm message of hope to all our people. The fact that we convey that message does not mean that we do not know the problems that continue to face us with regard to the challenge to eradicate the legacy of the long period of colonialism and apartheid.

As we communicate with the people, relying on the State of the Nation Address and the Budget, we must inform them of what the government intends to do during the coming financial year to take yet another step forward, further to reduce the burden of our painful past. We should be able to discuss with the people where we were yesterday and the day before, where we are today, and where we plan to be tomorrow.

The people are perfectly aware of our history and remain confident that we will honour our commitment to continue to work to improve their standard of living and quality of life. This was reflected in the massive vote of confidence we received from the people during the 2004 General Elections.

The masses of our people will therefore respond positively to the message of hope that we will and must communicate to them. They will do so because their own direct experience tells them that, despite the difficulties, we have, in the past ten years, done everything possible to honour our commitments to the people. They know that we have done everything we could, to live up to the vision contained in the Freedom Charter and the Reconstruction and Development Programme.

Our own confidence in our future should be informed by our experience, the resources we have to address the challenge of achieving a better for all, and experience elsewhere in the world.

Earlier this month, on 10 February 2005, the British newspaper 'The Guardian ', published an article by Neil Clark entitled "Behind New Europe's façade", which began: "Visitors on cheap weekend breaks to Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and other capitals of 'new Europe' may well return home believing the standard western orthodoxy, that the former communist nations of eastern Europe are vibrant, thriving places, populated by increasingly prosperous people, reaping the benefits of their country's integration in Euro-Atlantic structures."

The article continued:

"The statistics speak for themselves. GDP in the former communist states fell between 20% and 40% in the decade after 1989 - an economic contraction which, in the words of Budapest economist Laszlo Andor, 'can only be compared to the Great Depression of the 1930s'.

"Only Poland had managed to return to its 1989 level of output by the end of the 20th century...

"While a minority have seen real wages rise, for the vast majority in the countries in question, the transition process has witnessed a spectacular fall in living standards. In Hungary, average real wages fell by 24% in the first six years of transition; in the Czech Republic it was only in 1997 that average, real wages reached their 1989 level.

"Inequality has risen sharply. Countries that not so long ago prided themselves on their egalitarianism now challenge Britain at the top of the European income inequality tables.

"Unemployment is widespread, particularly among the young: in Poland, 39% of under-25s are without a job - the highest figure in Europe; in Slovakia, 27%. Faced with such grim economic prospects, thousands have voted with their feet, preferring the uncertainties of a new life abroad, to pauperisation at home.

"Reformers blame problems on the legacy of 40 years of communism. But could it be that the reform process itself is responsible? Far from being a panacea, as claimed by Eastern Europe's political elite, following the IMF-EU economic prescription has caused hardship for millions."

These figures tell a very sad story of the heavy cost to the people of the transition of their countries from socialism to capitalism in terms of the standards of living. As Neil Clark said, many decided to leave their countries rather than face the pain of prolonged impoverishment.

Some of these are now resident in our own country, having arrived during the period when we too were involved in our transition, in our case from white minority rule to a non-racial democratic order.

We are happy to say that our own "reform process" during our First Decade of Liberation did not produce the "spectacular fall in living standards" and the "hardship for millions" that Neil Clark wrote about with regard to Eastern Europe. This did not happen by chance or accident. It required the most careful political, economic and social management of our reform process.

Among other things, from the beginning we were determined to ensure that we do everything possible to improve the standard of living of especially the formerly oppressed. We were equally determined to ensure that our economy does not collapse or go into decline.

Among other things, this meant that we had to do everything possible to unite the greatest number of our people, despite the fact that were emerging out of a difficult past characterised by division and bitter conflict.

We had to unite our people, regardless of our immediate past, around the objective of ensuring that the new South Africa should succeed, though it was still an infant that, even tentatively, now belonged to all who live in it, black and white. This intervention, and other measures, produced the results that seem to have eluded the countries of Eastern Europe during their own first decade of transition.

If we take just the second five-year period of our First Decade of Freedom, from 1999 to 2004, we get the following picture:

During this period, our nominal GDP grew by 62.4%. During the same period, nominal GDP per capita grew by 68.75%.

In other words, our movement, our government and people as a whole ensured that as we engaged in our own reform process, our country did not suffer from the sharp declines in GDP experienced by the East European countries. Instead, our GDP grew steadily and doubled during our First Decade of Liberation. This helped us to generate the resources we need, among other things to address some of the most urgent needs of the poor of our country.

Even as we tightened our belts, to reduce the budget deficit to manageable levels, we ensured that we intervene to assist the poorest in our society. As a result of this, during our first decade of transition, we increased the number of those receiving government grants, to reduce the levels of poverty, from 3 to 8 million. We also significantly increased the social wage, in terms of housing, health, education, water, electricity, transport, and so on, for the benefit of the poor.

We paid for all these social expenditures from our own national resources, with no need directly to borrow money either domestically or internationally for these purposes. Central to our capacity to do this was the success we achieved with regard to the sustained growth of our economy, and the wise management of our public finances. The latter included and will continue to include limiting the volume of national wealth appropriated by the democratic state to finance recurrent public spending.

With regard to the latter considerations, through our GEAR policy we made certain that we would not use public resources to service a large public debt owed to the moneylenders, rather than use these resources to address the needs of our people and our economic imperatives.

In addition to all this, we must mention that in keeping with the nominal per capita GDP growth that we have already mentioned, real disposable incomes among our people have grown, contrary to the experience in Eastern Europe.

For instance, as we have noted elsewhere, the UNISA Bureau of Market Research (BMR), reported only last month that whereas 4.1 million households lived on an income of R9,600 and less in 2001, this figure had declined to 3.6 million households by 2004, "even after taking the negative effect of price increases (inflation) on spending power into account", as the BMR put it.

We must, in addition, take into account that the average number of people in our households has diminished. This means that the increased household income is shared by fewer people than before, leading to increased per capita household incomes.

The BMR Report goes on to say that, "It is anticipated that real personal income will be 60% higher in 2007 than in 1990 and disposable income 51% higher, the difference indicating the increasing contributions of Africans to the Treasury in the form of direct taxes."

Everything we have said confirms the objective reality that our movement, as well as our people as a whole, have every reason to be confident of a bright future for our country. This is firmly underwritten and underlined by our actual domestic experience during the last ten years, the global comparative picture as represented by the East European example, and the all-round capacity will have built up, actually to advance our progressive reform process, in the interest of all our people.

We must therefore communicate our message of hope to the people with the greatest confidence, knowing that we are telling the people the truth, and not promising them a pie-in-the-sky.

A "MasterIndex of Consumer Confidence" survey for South Asia, the Middle East and Africa was conducted in August last year. Published last October, it found that "while South Africa's overall MasterIndex score of 79.6 out of a possible 100, made it only the fourth most optimistic of the seven countries surveyed, it was a significant jump from the 64.4 that the country scored in the February (2004) survey."

In this regard, the economist Mike Schussler made the highly pertinent observation that "one must remember that all three countries that have a higher confidence index are oil producers, and with the current record high oil prices, this would be understandable."

And with regard to the overall message of the survey, Eddie Grobler, country manager of MasterCard Southern Africa, said "from consumption to investment, jobs and even the overall quality of life, average South Africans have become more confident about their futures."

The American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa, (Amcham), has also completed its 2004 survey of its members "to assess the view of the investment environment in South Africa". The Amcham members are subsidiaries of US companies operating in our country.

Summarising the findings of the survey, the Amcham Executive Director, Luanne Grant, has said: "This year 62% of correspondents felt the current economic climate is 'excellent' or 'good', compared with 50% last year...Crime and personal safety is no longer the primary concern.

"The area of gravest worry facing US business is the question surrounding local equity. While US companies are embracing the tenets of BEE [black economic empowerment] and pursuing policies that implement a balanced scorecard, an overwhelming 74% of respondents found that the issue of local equity ownership 'negatively affected investment decisions'.

"Relationships with and service from government departments are 'generally good'. The most favourable comments were received on the Department of Trade, their trade policies in general, and their attempts to improve the regulatory environment.

"Encouragingly, three times more companies have 'increased confidence' in government's ability to improve the business environment, compared with companies that have less confidence in government's ability to do so. Even more positive is the fact that almost half the companies report that they plan to invest more in South Africa in 2005 than in the previous year...Only 15% have reported 'less investment', a similar figure to the 2003 survey."

As a movement, we know from our contact with the people, both black and white, that there is a very strong mood of optimism in the country, and pervasive national pride among all our people. We know that the millions of our people are Proudly South African, and that they have the greatest confidence that tomorrow will be better than yesterday and today.

The MasterIndex and Amcham surveys confirm that our convictions in this regard, relating both to our own people and our valued international partners and friends, are firmly based on fact, rather than wishful thinking.

This must serve as great encouragement to all our cadres, members and supporters to reach out to the masses of our people in an even more vigorous manner than in the past, to convey the messages contained in our State of the Nation Address and the Budget, which commit and will commit us to new advances in the struggle towards the achievement of the goal of a better life for all, pushing back the frontiers of poverty.

As we do this work, we must promote the goals we set ourselves to strengthen the People's Contract to Create Jobs and Fight Poverty, and carry out the tasks of the Year of Popular Mobilisation to Advance the Vision of the Freedom Charter.

At all times, by word and deed, we must convey the message to all our people, black and white, united in their diversity, that they are correct to believe that their movement, the ANC, is their own harbinger of hope.

State of local government

The challenges of people's power at local level

President Thabo Mbeki, in his state of the nation address last week, put forward the hypothesis that the people of South Africa now live in an age of better prospects. He reminded us of the generation of democrats, who fifty years ago, identified the denial of democracy as posing a strategic challenge. In the form of the Freedom Charter, they postulated a future which in many respects has since become the lived experience of our generation. When they said "The People Shall Govern", they gave us a perspective which keeps nudging us to the finish line.

In designing the new system of local government, care was taken to ensure that we put in place a framework for progressively doing away with the consequences of a system which exposed white and black South Africans to vastly different socio-economic environments. We knew that the conditions of high segregation had translated directly into economic disadvantage and structural deprivation for the majority of our people. The legacy of that system is a key cause of some of the problems which persist to this day. For instance, we still have a relatively higher concentration of poverty in geographic spaces which were historically designated as 'Native Reserves'. It is in those areas where we find a pernicious interaction between high poverty rates and the paucity of skills that are critical to good governance and effective administration.

In the first eight years we have allocated to the local government sphere an quantity of resources which is proportionately higher than allocations which were made hitherto. On current macro-economic trends, there is a distinct possibility for those allocations to increase even further. The continuing challenge we face therefore, is one of ensuring that all municipalities develop the requisite capacity to translate those resources into instruments with which to confront problems of poverty and underdevelopment.

The challenge was brought into bold relief by the feedback we received as we interacted with our people through izimbizo as well as in the period leading to the 2004 provincial and national elections. These interactions offered us the opportunity to approach the problems of unattained targets through introspection. Those municipalities which have substantially high levels of service delivery and infrastructure backlogs are now receiving systematic support which is rendered in terms of Project Consolidate. It is a combination of this support and the expansionary budget allocated to municipalities which offer the potent material for acceleration.

The two-year engagement programme is aimed at getting national and provincial governments, together with key partners and stakeholders outside government, to find new creative, practical and impact-orientated modes of supporting local government. The interventions must make a positive impact on the way we meet such challenges as public participation, programme management, and creating conditions for sustainable service delivery and economic development.

One of the aims of Project Consolidate is to increase local government capacity for strategic planning. The capacity of our municipalities to prepare good Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) remains uneven:

• 37% of municipalities in the country have the capacity to prepare effective IDPs. Integrated Development Plans are part of their core business.
• 35% of municipalities have the basic institutional capacity in place but require support to prepare effective IDPs and implement them. These municipalities still have to take full ownership of the IDP process.
• 28% of municipalities still do not have basic institutional capacity in place and are struggling to prepare effective IDPs.

The overall picture is one in which there is a growing local ownership of the IDP process and the local government sphere is asserting itself more and more as a site of strategic planning for sustainable development. We seek to deepen this process by conducting nationwide IDP Public Hearings from April to June this year. This exercise will help us develop more intimate familiarity with the needs and priorities of local communities. It will also help to bring local and provincial priorities into synergy with national objectives.

The IDP Public Hearings, together with the ongoing work we do in the context of ward committees, will enhance the quality of public participation in matters of governance. Not only does this broad mobilisation give effect to the vision of the Freedom Charter but it also creates the space for innovations which are of local inspiration.

In the recent period we have witnessed a substantial growth in the establishment of ward committees. At least five provinces - Gauteng, Limpopo, North West, Northern Cape and Free State - have achieved a 100% establishment rate. The overall rate was brought down by the fact that for a while there existed in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape a strategic balance which constituted a fetter on transformational advances. The situation has changed for the better and the communities in those two provinces now also have the possibility to enjoy an institutionalised interaction with their government.

The challenge we seek to meet over the next two years, under the banner of Project Consolidate, is to sustain the positive trends and work towards a 100% national establishment rate, and more importantly, to improve the functional capabilities of all ward committees.

We intend to hold a National Conference on Ward Committees in March this year. The aim of the conference is to look at the ward committees and to generate ideas which will help enhance their functional capabilities. The ward committees must be seen not as entities whose usefulness is only to the local government sphere. Other spheres of government should increasingly utilise ward committees as channels for providing information to communities about public services, programmes and development possibilities.

The emerging cadre of Community Development Workers will also work in close collaboration with the ward committees. These ward committees should therefore be seen for what they truly are: a cord which keeps the whole system of government, articulated to local communities.

The Freedom Charter encapsulates a vision of freedoms which we sought to bring into fruition when we conceived legislation on local government. That legislation was not adopted without acrimonious debates. It was even challenged in the Constitutional Court.

We stay committed to integrating the Freedom Charter's implications into our thinking about current challenges and we have a plan which accounts for the progressive improvements that are already in evidence. Like our forebears who pledged to fight side-by-side for the attainment of the goals which are contained in the Freedom Charter, we chose a future rather than no future.

** Sydney Mufamadi is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee and Minister of Provincial and Local Government.

The Sociology of the Public Discourse in Democratic South Africa / Part VI

Who says running a country is easy?

In Part IV of this series, we drew attention to the rhetorical question that had been posed by Willem Jordaan, when he asked, "is the ANC saying that all those who disagree with the government share the same political ideology".

We then said, "Whether these government opponents and others share the same view about the range of issues to which we have referred because they belong to 'the same political ideology' is something we can discuss." We will try to reflect on this matter in the remaining articles of this Sociology series.

On 10 May 2001, 'Business Day' published an article written by one of its journalists, Mzimkulu Malunga, headed, "Ditching victim mentality can improve rapport with media". Malunga said:

"The sentiments expressed in last week's Sunday Times advertisement by 11 black professionals and business people are understandable. Criticism sometimes quite hysterical of prominent black people, including President Thabo Mbeki, could easily be mistaken for being sinister or even racist, given the venom that sometimes underlines it.

"It is the 'we told you so' tone in the criticism which subtly suggests that it takes blacks of special breeding, like Nelson Mandela, to lead properly, that has driven the black elite to feel under siege by the media. There are times when I feel the same way, though being closer to the action it is easier to see that some of the perceived unfair reporting is the consequence of bad journalism rather than some rightwing conspiracy.

"Yet if you are out there and are black, you could be forgiven for concluding that there are 'plots' in certain sections of the media to get at prominent blacks... It is easy to dismiss white journalists as racists when they are critical of black people, or we black journalists as lapdogs of so-called 'white masters', when we are critical. Yet the trick is not to demonise us, but rather to engage us.

"What many black professionals and business people do not realise is that, in the battle of ideas, energetically propagated ideas will have the upper hand. Organisations like the Democratic Alliance, and academics at places like the universities of the Witwatersrand or Cape Town, dominate the news pages and the airwaves because they are always knocking at the (media) door tirelessly selling their ideas.

"And what do black organisations do? They react rather than work proactively. As for black intellectuals, they have gone underground, opting to mourn quietly behind the scenes. The struggle did not end in 1994, but on this new terrain it is those who are the most assertive that have the greatest effect. Who says running a country is easy?"

Itumeleng Mahabane returned to this theme on 8 October 2004, in a column published in the 'Financial Mail', entitled "Neocons in the closet". He wrote:

"Even as our new Jacobins struggle to consolidate their semirevolution, a neoconservative counterrevolution is gaining ground...We incorrectly continue to describe (the South African neo-conservatives) as liberals.

"They are not. They are erstwhile liberals who feel betrayed by the Jacobins. Stupidly, they assumed that once the Jacobins were victorious, they would bow down to the superior liberal world view. Interestingly, like the original (US) neocons - many of whom were Democrats - SA's wear a face that is hard to reconcile with their supposed former liberal bent.

"Have you noticed, for example, how they merely raised an eyebrow at the dalliance of their cardinal, Tony Leon, with something so fundamentally antithetical to liberal principle as bringing back the death penalty?...

"As with the original neocons, their modus operandi is subversion. They operate under the guise of consolidating the democracy bequeathed by the Jacobins, whom they now describe as a threat to that very democracy. And one of their key weapons is the constitution, which they erroneously believe favours their fundamentalist individualism.

"Our neocons dominate a number of spaces but few as absolutely as the media, for they are masters of spin...Apparently, Jacobins have no right to freedom of speech: it is considered the early trumpet of a physical attack...

"The neocons have taken control of the national discourse, taking advantage of the Jacobins' paranoia and fear of the press; for it does not fit snugly with the Jacobin notions of democratic centralism. I would have to place my bets with the neocons emerging as the winners in this war, for I fear the Jacobins lack the single-minded focus and purpose of the neocons."

Our readers will remember what Mteto Nyati had said, as quoted in Part II of this series, namely that: "In South Africa the fight is really about who sets the national agenda...On the one hand the black majority government, (the Jacobins), believes that it has a mandate to set the country's priorities. On the other hand the white elite, (the neocons), believes its role is to provide thought leadership to the black majority."

As we indicated above, Itumeleng Mahabane said, "Stupidly, (the liberals/neocons) assumed that once the Jacobins were victorious, they would bow down to the superior liberal world view", that, in other words, we would accept the "thought leadership" of the neocons.

As reported in Part III of this series, Steve Biko had identified this challenge almost 35 years ago. He said then, "With their characteristic arrogance of assuming a 'monopoly on intelligence and moral judgement', these (white liberal) self-appointed trustees of black interests have gone on to set the pattern and pace for the realisation of the black man's aspirations...Not only have they kicked the black, but they have also told him how to react to the kick."

We also quoted Raymond Suttner, who said: "Some white former activists see their role as self-appointed moral guardians who have to keep their black former comrades in check...Fundamentally, there is discomfort with what is perceived as a form of Africanism that allegedly excludes whites and undermines non-racialism..."

What is greatly refreshing about all these comments, from Malunga to Suttner, is their honesty, frankness and lack of prevarication when they state that, as was the case during the apartheid years, the post-apartheid years are also characterised by an intense and continuing battle of ideas -a political and ideological struggle to set the national agenda.

In this regard, Mahabane believes that "a neoconservative counterrevolution (in our country) is gaining ground...(with) the neocons (having) taken control of the national discourse..." If this is true, perhaps the Jacobins have ignored the warning that was sounded by Steve Biko!

Malunga said, "Organisations like the Democratic Alliance, and academics at places like the universities of the Witwatersrand or Cape Town, dominate the news pages and the airwaves because they are always knocking at the (media) door tirelessly selling their ideas."

In this context, he accused the black intellectual leadership of dereliction of duty, to the extent that it has failed to respond to Steve Biko's call that it must determine for itself and the black masses how to "react to the kick" administered by those who are always "knocking at the (media) door".

Professor Hermann Giliomee had explained in 2000 why the opposition forces are tireless in the struggle to sell their ideas. Writing in the SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) journal, 'Frontiers of Freedom', he said: "In South Africa the countervailing power that opposition parties can develop in the next decade or two cannot depend on numbers. It has to lie in the generation of alternative ideas, alternative policies, and a quite different interpretation of our history than the one the Struggle wishes to impose. The power of the opposition will lie in the weight of the opinion it holds, the strength of its convictions, and the degree of support that it can attract both from the electorate and from enlightened opinion in developed countries whose firms are likely to invest."

Most interestingly, Professor Giliomee goes so far as to suggest that our opponents have a duty to recruit international "enlightened opinion", including international capital, to their side, to guarantee the "thought leadership of the black majority" by the neocons, whom he says are unlikely in the near future to get the "numbers" to secure a democratic mandate to govern our country.

The battle of ideas and the contest to determine who shall control the national discourse or set the national agenda, means that those involved in these processes are engaged in struggle as adversaries. In our case, given that what Mahabane described as a "semirevolution" is still in its infancy, we must expect this will be a hard-fought and intense struggle.

It is either disingenuous or naïve to propagate the view that "the Jacobins" engage in the battle of ideas in a manner that goes beyond the bounds of what is permissible in a democratic society, simply because they state their views in a forthright manner, including characterising as racist, reactionary or unpatriotic those views they are convinced are racist, reactionary and unpatriotic.

In reality, those who argue this, seek to give the neocons the right to determine how their adversaries should conduct themselves in this battle, in the interest of the neocons and the victory of their agenda.

The same should be said of those who deliberately seek to blunt the struggle of "the Jacobins" by urging that they must conduct themselves in a nice and genteel manner, speaking like delicate souls against what they describe as 'mean-spirited, conspiratorial, suspicious, accusatory and sometimes downright hateful discourse'. Naturally, we have never heard these false supplicants for gentility make a similar plea to our adversaries, to moderate and temper their political and ideological offensive against us.

Fortunately the leader of the neocons, the DA, is always proud to state its readiness to act as a "vigorous opposition", or Giliomee's "countervailing power". It carries out this opposition with no holds barred. We have never complained about this, and will not. We fully understand what the neocons seek to achieve. We will therefore not engage in the silly exercise of trying to persuade them to conduct themselves in a 'nice and genteel' manner.

When he spoke at the DA Youth Day Rally in Soshanguve, Tshwane, on 16 June last year, the leader of the DA, Tony Leon, said: "Democracy necessarily requires that there be more than one party, and that the government is faced with vigorous, critical, effective opposition that is loyal to the constitutional order and promotes the well being of our country. That is why the Democratic Alliance promotes the value of such opposition as a necessary basis for the development and strengthening of democracy in South Africa."

Of course we know that the DA strives to be such a "vigorous, critical, effective opposition" not because it wants to satisfy some benign formal requirement of a democratic system, as defined in some academic textbooks about democracy, inspired by a patriotic obligation to "promote the well being of our country".

The DA is fundamentally and emotionally opposed to what our movement stands for. It passionately believes in its neocon agenda, seeks to dominate the national discourse in this regard, as explained by Malunga, to the point where it can "provide thought leadership to the black majority", as Nyati said, since, for now, as Giliomee pointed out, it has no hope of being elected to govern our country.

It camouflages its efforts and intentions in this regard, presenting them as being nothing more than a disinterested and altruistic effort on its part to guarantee the health of our democracy, which it alleges is threatened by a dominant, dominating and intolerant ANC that is determined to subvert our Constitution.

When he addressed the Johannesburg Press Club on 10 June last year, Leon spelt out some of the principal bases of the platform of the DA in terms of its 'vigorous, critical and effective' opposition to the ANC. He said: "The opposition in South Africa today faces a set of challenges...

"We need to outline clearly why we reject the ANC's revolutionary programme of 'transformation', which informs all ANC policy and behaviour...

"The ANC's nationalist conception of race, and the principle of demographic representivity to which it has given birth, has another, more destructive implication. For those standing outside of the African majority are viewed and often treated as a kind of recalcitrant class enemy if they display any sort of independence of view or spirit. This is particularly true if they position themselves outside of the 'consensus' on 'transformation'.

"Thus it is that all forms of criticism become evidence of racist motives, designed to hold onto 'White hegemony', which is the converse of 'African hegemony'. It is part of the ANC's intellectual and political dishonesty that it goes out of its way to exclude a section of the community from full citizenship, and then proceeds to accuse those very people of a lack of patriotism.

"For the ANC, 'good whites' are whites that have accepted the principle of African hegemony and African leadership. These whites are given a place at the table, as long as they accept that they will never sit at its head. They are also called 'progressive', as they were in the President's recent letter to the ANC, while the DA, which rejects such notions as 'African leadership' or 'White leadership' or any form of racially defined leadership, is derided as 'conservative'...

"Transformation has become an immutable given in our society. It has been put beyond objection and debate. Support for transformation is the necessary condition to avoid being 'racist', 'reactionary', 'unpatriotic' - indeed even 'counter revolutionary'...We desperately need in our country a plurality of views and intellectual and moral independence from the ruling party."

What the leader of the DA said constitutes a shameless falsification of the positions of the ANC, an obscene vulgarisation of the objectives of the struggle for national liberation, and a dishonest representation of the political and ideological struggle in our country. However, it is not anything we would not expect, given the fact that the struggle to determine who shall set the national agenda continues.

As part of this, it also does not come as a surprise that, to win the domestic and international 'sympathy vote' in an African continent labelled as prone to dictatorship, the DA tries to present itself as a hapless underdog. As such, it propagates the fiction that it is forced to operate in an atmosphere in which a dominant bully, the ANC, has decreed and put obstacles against "plurality of views and intellectual and moral independence from the ruling party".

Whatever the supposedly clever words the DA may use to disguise its opposition to the imperative to fundamentally transform our country away from its racist and sexist past, it will not get the "numbers" it needs to win a democratic election, until it identifies itself with the national task to eradicate the deeply entrenched legacy of colonialism and apartheid.

But having decided to take the place of the old National Party as the home of conservative white South Africa, betraying its original "liberal" outlook to gain white rightwing electoral support, the DA will face great difficulties to reinvent itself as a party of genuinely progressive change in our country, and even a relatively distant, but potentially credible, political representative of the majority of our people.

And as long as it represents white conservative opinion in a democratic South Africa, so long will the DA find it impossible to abandon its adherence to neoconservative politics and ideology, which were originally neatly summarised within the compact mantra of the neo-liberal 'Washington consensus'.

To be continued...

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