Tired rhetoric of ANC and Zuma will no longer wash

President Jacob Zuma at last week’s State of the Nation Address.

President Jacob Zuma at last week’s State of the Nation Address.

Published Feb 19, 2017

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Debate on deficiencies within state and party dominate ANC jamborees but the resolve to shake things up is eerily absent, writes Imraan Buccus.

The rhetoric of radical socio-economic transformation is doled out by the ANC with increasing frequency. President Jacob Zuma didn’t miss a beat at last week’s State of the Nation Address. Each time it comes up, it sounds more unconvincing to an increasingly cynical populace.

It is hard to fathom why the ANC, after almost a quarter century of holding all the levers of state power, still insists on speaking as if it is fighting for power. There is something deeper. Most likely governance failure and the incapacity of the state to deliver.

For a time, there were a good many who entertained the suggestion that it was white monopoly capital and the likes of Anton Rupert who were holding the economy in a stranglehold.

Capital does indeed have a great deal to answer for, but certainly not the failings and corruption that pervades the ANC government. With the proliferation of fake news and planted story lines, it is becoming more and more believable that these straw demons are being invented in backrooms by shadowy paid propagandists.

Those are not just the grimy public relations agencies who command top dollar from their plush offices in London and elsewhere.

One or a cluster of those was used to sell the unsuspecting world the lie of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

That has led to a crisis of unfathomable proportions, continuing daily carnage in the Middle East and has given a loophole to extremists like Islamic State to flourish.

Much like deposing Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi was supposed to usher in a brave new world, we are now being asked to believe that dispossessing Rupert of his wealth will automatically bring economic freedom.

That narrative is being peddled by a curious assemblage that includes the Progressive Professionals Forum and Black Land First. Quite where these johnnies-come-lately get their funding and why the president would want to give the PPF an ear to hold back key legislation like the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill makes one increasingly curious.

One wonders why the PPF does not work within the structures of the ANC when all other fellow travellers like the dissident veterans and energised students are urged to do so.

One line of thought is that the PPF tsars are unacceptable on the ground and unable to get a foothold within ANC branches.

Black Land First’s lone fighter is someone who famously broke with the EFF leader and was publicly denuded of his T-shirt.

Beyond the thin veneer of contrived radicalism is the all too apparent visage of a lobbyist for hire.

The objective here may not be an implosion of the state like in Libya or Iraq, but it is quite plausible that the end goal is not dissimilar.

The key prize is capturing the state and its booty.

Radical socio-economic transformation has a seductive ring, but it hides more than it reveals. As things stand or are likely to go, if the chairs on the deck of the Titanic are rearranged with a cabinet reshuffle, the Gupta train, having coasted for a while, will again gather speed.

It is no coincidence that the Guptas are heavily invested in sectors which are geared towards the multibillion-rand black industrialists’ programme.

One cannot quarrel with state-directed investment in heavy industry.

The Soviet development model is a prime example of how successful that can be.

The USSR went from a feudal agrarian economy to putting a man into space in less than a generation. Whereas the Russian revolution was directed by an ideology and sense of purpose (flawed as it was in implementation), the ANC by its own admission is riddled with thieves making it more and more difficult for the honest revolutionary cadres to hold their ground.

It will take a lot more than foreign PR agencies and paid Twitter accounts to make a convincing case for radical socio-economic transformation, let alone why already rich businessman should be privileged with an industrialists’ programme while the army of the poor and the jobless is growing.

It would serve the ANC much better to shift the narrative to governance and building the capacity of the state, if it is to regain popular support as an agent of change.

Debate on deficiencies within both state and party dominate ANC jamborees but the resolve to shake things up is eerily absent.

Like the rhetoric of the SONA, no one appears to want to go anywhere too quickly.

More tragic is the belief that takes “it’s our turn to eat” to another level by saying let’s gorge ourselves quicker as we may not return to power in 2019 or 2024”.

The ANC is a sorry sight on the back benches of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane, whimpering where it once ruled.

The people who govern there are not counter-revolutionaries. They were elected.

As things stand, the 2020 SONA is likely to be a quiet affair with no Zuma for the EFF to rail against. But then one doesn’t quite know how the ANC folks in overalls will misbehave.

* Buccus is senior research associate at ASRI, research fellow in the School of Social Sciences at UKZN and academic director of a university study abroad programme on political transformation.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

The Sunday Independent

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