2005-11-01,+Waiting+for+the+barbarians,+Mde+and+Brown,+BDay

Business Day, Johannesburg, 31 October 2005

= Waiting for the barbarians =

Vukani Mde & Karima Brown

ON THE face of it, the African National Congress (ANC) is rent down the middle — between the factions that support President Thabo Mbeki and his former deputy, Jacob Zuma. This characterisation of the division in the ANC is shared by most analysts. Because of this consensus, the media, and hence the broader public, buy into this picture.

But focusing the fault line on Mbeki and Zuma is only part of the picture. Disagreement over the leadership styles, or even policy preferences, of Mbeki and Zuma would not ordinarily result in what is the ANC’s most serious crisis since its formation in 1912. Neither commands the sort of following that would place them above the movement as a whole.

These two figures have been appropriated by competing political and economic interests that have joined the battle for the control of the party and, through it, the future of the country. Mbeki and Zuma are nothing more than mascots in a fight about ideology and what SA will become as a country.

In the conventional analysis of the ANC crisis, Zuma is the choice of the “disaffected” in the ANC, who see in him a chance to return to the centre of decision-making. The marginalisation of these “disaffected” forces — the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and South African Communist Party (SACP), the ANC Youth League, sections of business and the left of the ANC — is the result of Mbeki’s autocratic and exclusive leadership style.

If Zuma represents the “disaffected”, this analysis tells us that Mbeki represents a necessary modernising project that cannot but leave behind some of the ANC’s historical baggage. It follows from this that Mbeki is driving the shedding of the party’s historical character as a broad movement, and turning it into a modern political party in the pursuit of power.

This extends to our stance on the continent. Mbeki leads a movement to shake off Africa’s old kleptocracy, despite his lapse in Zimbabwe. Zuma is the stereotype of the Big Man in Africa, embracing the continent’s proclivity for excess.

If one buys into this broad analysis of the Zuma/Mbeki divide, a number of seemingly neutral and “obvious” value judgments can be made. Zuma represents the past, which may or may not have been glorious while it lasted. Mbeki represents a necessary future, unpalatable and hard-nosed though it may be.

That Zuma is the accused in a corruption trial of course adds weight to these value judgments.

To choose between Mbeki and Zuma is to choose between two competing futures. One is characterised by rationality and the rule of law, a strong state that punches above its weight internationally and is economically “well managed”.

The other future — the Zuma-SACP-Cosatu scenario — is a slide into South American-style lethargy. We will have a parasitic state that fleeces the middle classes while the rulers loot the fiscus. We will lose our place in the international arena, and our economic policies will be “populist”. Our legal institutions will be weakened to the point of being irrelevant. But this picture is a carefully constructed lie. It is neither neutral nor valueless, and it is downright dangerous in its denial of the lived reality of the vast majority of South Africans.

It ignores the reality that under Mbeki’s stewardship we have developed the clear symptoms of crony capitalism. It ignores the virtual disintegration of the state at the local level as patronage and rampant corruption take over. The “corrupt Zuma, anticorruption Mbeki” hypothesis conveniently ignores the quashing of the investigation into the arms deal, which is identified by some commentators as the real tipping point in our slide towards officially sanctioned graft.

It is a mark of Mbeki’s successful image management that he now finds himself cloaked in the robes of an anticorruption crusader, instead of being held responsible for the slide that has occurred under his rule.

This decline, which is inextricably linked to Mbeki’s stated project to nurture a black elite, is there for all to see, and is lamented by the same crowd who predict damnation should Mbeki be succeeded by a populist. So why do they paint post-1994 SA as a development model that is at peril from populists, should the forces of rationality fail to protect it? Answer this question, and the class bias of much commentary on Zuma and Mbeki becomes obvious.

Now it is true that the SA built over the last 11 years has been a roaring success for some. There has been a phenomenal growth in the ranks of the black middle class. It is equally true that the beneficiaries of the past decade stand to lose should the seeming tide of a populist revival under Zuma fail to be arrested. That is why support for Mbeki is a class preference. It is not a preference for modernity over backwardness, or democracy over anarchy. Nor is it a preference for the rule of law over corruption.

This is not to dismiss those who paint doomsday scenarios of life under the Zuma crowd. Their panic is real, but it is not premised on what they would have us believe it is. It is less about the good of the country and the defence of democratic institutions than it is about a sense of foreboding about lost privilege. With Zuma — or anyone like him — in the Union Buildings, the barbarians will have truly breached the gate, pissed on the lawn and generally spoiled the party.

And so we know who the supporters of Mbeki are. They even surprisingly extend to the leader of the opposition.

But to get the full picture of what is happening in SA, it is also necessary to ask who precisely Zuma’s supporters are. This will show us the class fissures that underlie the contest for the ANC. The Zuma base — sometimes derided as the “masses”, or the “crowd” — generally are not privy to the apocalyptic predictions peddled in “quality” newspapers. Even if they could somehow be reached and be told directly how miserable things would get with Zuma in charge, they would be inclined not to be moved, since things are miserable for them now.

What the Zuma fallout exposes is the extent to which Mbeki’s metaphor of two SAs is in fact a reality. But these two SAs are divided by their class experiences more than their race heritage.

That Zuma has been courted and funded by business interests is an indication of the fluidity of the succession tussle. Many in business recognise the Zuma phenomenon for what it is: the first real chance that the accommodation that the ANC crafted with capital may be endangered. These interests, which are no different from those promoted by and supportive of Mbeki, have opted for a different management strategy. They are hard at work to co-opt Zuma so that he too may serve their interests.

SA need not fear the implications of the Zuma/Mbeki fallout. It does not portend the end of our democracy as we know it. It may well invigorate democracy. It represents a full frontal assault on the class consensus that has until now been our developmental paradigm.

‖Mde is political correspondent. Brown is political editor.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A107449