Political+Diary,+extracts,+Vukani+Mde,+Business+Day+Weekender

Business Day Weekender, Johannesburg, 2006/12/02 12:00:00 AM

 * __Political Diary__, by Vukani Mde**

=And so ends ‘an era of opposition politics’=

TONY Leon, the man who, if we are to believe a number of newspaper editorials, invented opposition politics in SA, is stepping down. Woe betide all of us, caught in this darkest corner of a truly dark continent. What is to become of us without Tony Leon?

Well, according to Business Day, the “idea” of opposition is probably going to die.

“Unless a powerful new vision can be created and implemented by strong and capable leaders, the Tony Leon legacy — the idea of opposition — will wither and die as voters increasingly lose interest.”

Oh no. Could God truly forsake us thus? Could he rob us of the very idea of opposition, Tony Leon, and the interest of voters in our democratic system? All at the same time?

(As an aside, I suppose one has to be truly great to be responsible for an entire idea, rather than the mere corporeal entities that can be its constituent parts. Wherever he is, I’m sure Thomas Edison prefers to be remembered not as the man who gave us the light bulb, but the “idea of light”. Ditto Alexander Graham Bell and the idea of human contact. In our own country, we have Nelson Mandela and the idea of freedom, and now Tony Leon and the idea of opposition. The company Tony keeps.)

The announcement of Leon’s imminent departure has unleashed a barrage of lunatic outpourings from both his detractors and his (seemingly secret) admirers. While the admirers speak in messianic language, crediting him with all sorts of things and virtually guaranteeing his place in “history”, the detractors have been going berserk, calling up the memory of every tyrant that fate ever vomited onto the world’s stage and claiming them as spiritual ancestors of Leon.

The African National Congress Youth League just went over the top: “For 13 years, Tony Leon presented himself as a messiah, semi-God and custodian of the white race, consistent with ideals of the world's great fascists and tyrants, such as PW Botha, Adolf Hiltler, Mussolini and Idi Amin, who became his most admired mentors.”

Even the “sober analysis” of Leon’s legacy is disturbing. The consensus is that the Democratic Alliance that Leon leads needs to find black leaders if it wishes to grow after his departure. I’ve even heard some black “analysts” spewing this nonsense. It seems to base itself on the wholly offensive notion that tolerance of inequality, rampant and unregulated capitalism, profiteering, hatred of labour rights, protection of minority privileges, supporting the death penalty, reactionary social values and general ambivalence about the constitution are all perfectly respectable causes in need of a black champion. The policy platform of the DA stands objectively against the interests of the majority in SA.

This will not change because so-called “credible/authentic” black leaders stand on that platform. Anyway, if all we aspire to is a black face for economic and social conservatism, we have no need for a black-led DA. We have our beloved ANC.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2415124**

=Entrenching futile opposition=

//I am Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works ye mighty and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away//

So wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley about the grand delusions of rulers and politicians.

In SA, we are particularly susceptible to these delusions. You won’t believe the number of minor politicians who are convinced they have left a historical legacy. We encourage them, of course, talking earnestly about the “Tony Leon legacy” or how posterity will remember this or the other third-rater.

Posterity remembers no one, of course. It merely reads about them in its spare time.

And since we know that each generation has less leisure time than the last, occasions for reading about the exploits of transient opposition politicians are fewer and further between.

There is no hope that Kenneth Meshoe will be remembered or read about. The same goes for Patricia de Lille and Ziba Jiyane and the rest. Even Thabo Mbeki, who lays claim to the idea of delivery but not its actuality, has no historical legacy to worry himself about. The best any politician has to look forward to is a comfortable retirement.

In a discussion once with South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande, I broached the subject of the eventual breakup of the tripartite alliance. Is the party ready to position itself as a left opposition to the African National Congress, I asked?

The answer was interesting, and got me thinking about the mistake we make in the conceptualisation of opposition politics.

“But why?” he cried. “The Communist Party is not interested in being a left opposition to the ANC. If we leave the alliance and enter active electoral politics, we do so to capture power and form the next government, not to occupy an opposition vacuum.”

I thought at the time that it was an attitude that most of the existing opposition leaders would do well to adopt if they had any hope of attaining some measure of historical significance.

Of course, Nzimande said a lot more, both about the role of the alliance and the place of opposition in a democracy. But I’ve come to think differently about opposition politics since then.

Too often we say that the only “credible” opposition to the ANC will come from within the left in the alliance.

But what purpose does a “credible” left opposition to the ANC serve, other than to legitimise the ruling party’s lurch to the right by institutionalising a marginal voice on the left?

This is, after all, the role of the right opposition led by the Democratic Alliance.

The result is that SA must be the only competitive democracy where there is a permanent ruling party and a permanent opposition. So entrenched is this mentality that we even speak of “opposition voters”, a term that refers to people who do not want to install a government that will serve their interests, but vote merely to “strengthen” the opposition.

Does anyone remember the group of men who kept objecting to every clause while the majority wrote the Freedom Charter and made history? They later came to be called the PAC, which tells you everything about the legacy of opposition.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2415178**

=Join the gravy Gautrain=

I was very relieved when first Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge denied allegations that she had a financial stake in the consortium that is building Gauteng’s extravagant white elephant, the Gautrain. Then speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete followed, saying she had no such conflict of interest. Then Education Minister Naledi Pandor and Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.

But of course Mbete, Pandor and Mapisa-Nqakula are denying not so much that they stand to make money from the train, but the interpretation that such profiteering represents a conflict of interest.

Never mind that two of these people are part of the cabinet that overruled the parliamentary transport portfolio committee and gave national backing for Gautrain, giving no cogent reasons for this support.

The more I learn of these large black economic empowerment-driven infrastructure projects, the more I believe they are just a vehicle for the ANC elite to grab a chunk of the economy. If perchance positive spin-offs result, such as modest economic growth, I suppose we should just be grateful.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2415329**

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