The SACP Conference – as I head off

Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn I will begin travelling with my children for a respite after two years of my (it seems somehow personal) Great Recession.

We will be moving through some places that are less connected than others, so I will be posting irregularly for some time.

For this reason I wanted to say something  about  the South African Communist Party’s special conference in Polokwane before I go and before it finishes on Sunday.

Our red brethren have been meeting since Thursday and it seems they have been having an interesting and boisterous time.

Much of the media coverage has centred around a visit by Julius Malema, Billy Masetlha and Tony Yengeni during which the ANC Youth League president was booed and reportedly walked out in a huff, threatening to ‘tell on’ to the president.

But the underlying conflict that is playing itself out between the SACP and a powerful faction of the ANC is the main show in town.

And the SACP leadership is ‘on message’, constantly attacking what it sees as emerging black capitalists whose primary method of accumulation is tender abuse and looting of the state. It appears that the communists believe this “project” is THE real and immediate danger.

The coordinated attack emerges from even a cursory reading of (most importantly) the political report to the conference, but also from the opening address (some of these links are a little dicky – it seems to be a problem with the SACP’s site) by SACP chairman, Gwede Mantashe, a speech by Cosatu’s Zwelenzima Vavi and an address by the Young Communist’s Buti Manamela.

The political report says it most clearly (it’s a longish quote, but it gives one an excellent idea of the main issues in our politics):

This new tendency has its roots in what we might call “Kebble-ism” – in which some of the more roguish elements of capital, lumpen-white capitalists, handed out largesse and favours and generally sought to corrupt elements within our movement in order to secure their own personal accumulation agendas. Some of this largesse helped elements within our movement to emerge as capitalists in their own right.

(…)
In particular, these elements of BEE capital have been exploring a class axis between themselves and the great mass of marginalized, alienated, often unemployed black youth. The material glue of this axis is the politics of patronage, of messiahs, and its tentative ideological form is a demagogic African chauvinism. Because of its rhetorical militancy the media often portrays it as “radical” and “left-wing” – but it is fundamentally right-wing, even proto-fascist. While it is easy to dismiss the buffoonery of some of the leading lieutenants, we should not underestimate the resources made available to them, and the huge challenge we all have when it comes to millions of increasingly alienated, often unemployed youth who are potentially available for all kinds of demagogic mobilization.

We do not use the term proto-fascist lightly, nor for the moment should we exaggerate it. However, there are worrying tell-tale characteristics that need to be nipped in the bud. They include the demagogic appeal to ordinary people’s baser instincts (male chauvinism, paramilitary solutions to social problems, and racialised identity politics).

Now  I disagree with a host of the economic solutions that the communists seem to take as gospel and I am convinced that left to their own devices they would kill creativity and diminish personal liberty without commensurate social gains. However, it is the communists who appear to be most clearly identifying where we are going and what the dangers that confront us are.

They might be full of economic nonsense (i.e. stuff with which one disagrees) but you can always trust the reds to spot the fascists before even the fascists themselves know what they have become!

Farewell lessons from Joel – who clearly still believes in government

I do not believe that government, by the pure force of will of the members and the clarity of their thinking, can change all societies or societal processes for the better. In fact, I tend to believe that outside of the basic provision of services and the function of co-ordination, benign neglect is what any country needs most from its government.

So, while I do not believe that governments can do much good, I am not advocating that we should not take the government, its capacity and intentions, seriously.

Because one thing is clear: through commission or omission, governments can really mess things up.

Thus I was interested and a little touched to see Joel Netshitenzhe’s farewell speech to his government colleagues. The address was reproduced in full in Ray Hartley’s excellent blog – Ray is editor of The Times as well as the Times Live website; and you can learn more about the inestimable Joel Netshitenzhe from my previous posts and their various links here and here.

Firstly, Joel gives a sense of how long he has been around government (actually from the very first and he was also central to the ANC’s ‘government in waiting’ in Lusaka:

From the early days with Mandela, when he complained that there was no smell of coffee in the corridors of the Union Buildings and we had to construct the president’s office virtually from scratch. We learnt then what it means to manage a transition and unite a nation;
And the cerebral pursuits of the Mbeki era, combined with forging an integrated democratic state;
To the firm but modest hand of Motlanthe in managing an uncertain transition; and
Now, the Zuma era, which holds the promise of merging some of the defining attributes of the two main phases of the first 15 years of democracy and taking us to a higher trajectory.

Then he quotes Geoff Mulgan, head of the policy and strategy unit in Tony Blair’s office – a position very similar to the one Joel has occupied in the four successive government’s he mentions above:

“It is widely assumed that governments have lost power … [T]he perception of powerlessness is an illusion … Governments overestimate their power to achieve change in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.”

Then he advises on how power can be exercised; how government should conduct itself to most powerfully affect shape outcomes:

If I were to add my tuppence worth, I would advise that for the Presidency to be able to exercise leadership in the context of changes being introduced, it:

• Carefully wield the soft and hard power it has: winning the allegiance of departments, other spheres and society at large;
• Master the science and art of ensuring all centres of government embrace the Presidency’s initiatives as their own;
• Ensure both dignified articulation of generic issues and a dignified silence when necessary; and
• Perhaps most importantly, organise the best parties ever at the end of the year so colleagues can know each other better.

Then he almost ruins it all by quoting a mawkishly sentimental Chris de Burgh song (see correction for this false attribution in end note) – but it kind of works, given the idea that he was part of the organised ANC endeavour that came to power in 1994 and then had to try and fix the things that had been broken:

Black bird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Black bird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

I for one am going to miss his influence on government; and, in as far as government has any positive influence on our live, I imagine we all will.

(End Note – Blackbird is actually a Beatles song. My error started with Joel, who said it  was a Chris de Burgh song he had heard recently. I compounded the error by the fact that I never checked if he had it right and then presented his casual attribution as authoritative. Go to the comments on this post to see discussion around the song and see me suddenly decide that the song is actually quite deep and insightful, now that some kind readers have corrected me as to provenance and attribution of the song.)

Do you remember the Broederbond?

The appointment of  Menzi Simelane to head the National Prosecuting Authority is profoundly reminiscent of the National Party’s style of rule in the declining years of Apartheid.

Do you remember the Broederbond, and other instruments of Afrikaner Nationalism? Do you remember the stolid manipulation of every conceivable government, parastatal or private institution? The constant need to appoint National Party apparatchiks to every level of management?

The fundamental nature of Menzi Simelane , down in his bones and in his genetic code, is to do what he is told by the president and the party. As director general of Justice he attempted to instruct the prosecuting authority to desist from prosecuting Jackie Selebi, he lied for Mbeki, he lied to the Ginwala Commission and he believes the executive has the right to instruct the prosecuting authority – and hang what the constitution says.

Now Jacob Zuma has appointed this man to head the National Prosecuting Authority. This soon after Zuma appointed Mo Shaik – whose only apparent credentials is slavish loyalty to Jacob Zuma – to head the South African Secret Service. The Secret Service and the prosecuting authority? What could he want with those institutions?

(Read that inestimable constitutional law professor and blogger Pierre De Vos for details, transcripts and intemperate language and barbed apology)

There is no doubt – in my mind, at any rate – that Simelane is appointed primarily because he will be prepared to lie and otherwise intervene in the legal process to protect this president and these rulers as he has done for the previous gang.

Only a government entirely overrun with apparatchiks and political gangsters could make an appointment as brazenly  in-your-face as this. This is haughtiness and lack of sensitivity taken to new and dizzying heights. This is the demonstration that the Zuma government will go to any lengths to protect itself from legal prosecution – no matter what the consequences for sentiment, constitutionality and good governance.

The declining years of Apartheid saw the best of young Afrikaners abandoning the party and the bureaucracy of government. What they left behind was an increasingly predatory state in terminal decline, deeply corrupt and entirely dependent on patronage and extra-legal manipulation.

This is the brink upon which we again stand.

Welcome back to the progressive trade union movement

This war won’t be won from our air-conditioned offices but in the branches and structures of the ANC, just as it happened in the build-up to Polokwane. – Zwelenzima Vavi at a press conference yesterday (30/11/2009)

It’s over; Cosatu is back where it belongs.

The trade union ally fought its way into the ruling tent and finally gained admittance at the Polokwane conference of the ANC in 2007.

Cosatu has, since its formation in Durban on December 1 1985,  played the role of the prickly and critical ally of the ANC.

The organisation has consistently been on the side of the angels (in that role, anyway), acting as the stern fraternal critic of government and the ruling party on issues as diverse as Zimbabwe, HIV/AIDS and corruption. After the end of legislative Apartheid in 1994 the glue that had bound Cosatu to the ANC was weakened and Cosatu became ever more strident in its criticisms – especially of cronyism.

The mythology that Cosatu constructed for itself and helped imprint on the 2007 Polokwane class project (hmm, can I patent that?) was that the ANC had been hijacked by an Mbeki led deviation with the promulgation of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution macro-economic policy in 1996 (the 1996 class project).

What Cosatu was doing in the lavish ruling tent, according to their own narrative, was saving the ANC from the 1996 class project.

Cosatu is a trade union movement. Of all possible trade union movements, Cosatu was NEVER meant to be the government. The organisation is the trickster, the Shakespearian fool and it has immeasurably strengthened our democracy by playing that role.

But a trade union movement is limited by its need to protect the interests of its members. I have argued time and time again here and here (for example) that the interests of employed workers ARE NOT identical to the interests of the nation as a whole.  Any attempt to place the interests of employed workers – especially the short-term interests – at the centre of national policy would be profoundly damaging to the South African economy and democracy.

This is not an abstraction. It’s about investment flows, the laws that structure the labour market and the costs of doing business here. Government must balance the creative greed of capital and the suffocating fear of organised labour – in a rough nutshell, so to speak.

The last thing we need is either business or organised labour running government.

Cosatu has stood steadfastly against the rising tide of cronyism and tender abuse within government. But as soon as it has become part of government the organisation pushes to entrench the short-term interests (labour brokers, forced lower interest rates) of the formally employed … and that’s in the interregnum before its leaders join the gravy train.

So instead of watching its own structures and leaders sucked into the familiar patterns of greed and corruption which seem to be the inescapable quagmire of governance in South Africa, Cosatu must find itself a base in the wilderness from which to ’speak truth to power.’

(Note: There are questions that are begged:

• Is it appropriate or realistic for Cosatu to conduct its battle  “in the branches and structures of the ANC, just as it happened in the build-up to Polokwane’.

• What does this mean for the “Alliance”? Split? Drift along?

• The SACP is obviously talking to Cosatu and coordinating with them. Where does the SACP go?

• Whereas I do think Cosatu’s apparent exit from government into civil society presages a massive – and generally positive  – upsurge in civil society opposition, this is bad in the short-term for investment risk and, more importantly, civil society opposition is unlikely to divert these trajectories of cronyism, abuse of power and weakness at the centre.

I will try to address these in the next few weeks.)

Are we becoming the worst we can be?

Here is something I wrote during the April general election – with a few minor edits. It is becoming increasingly relevant, as “the left” is backed into a corner and the Malema style populists seems to hold sway.

Bread and Circuses

Opinion polls indicate that the ruling African National Congress will shrug off five years of bitter leadership struggles and a sea of bad news to emerge from the election with a close to two-thirds majority.

But what it has cost for the ANC to turn the headwinds into tailwinds will be a hard price to pay.

The view divides neatly and sharply between the shorter term and the medium-to-longer term.

SHORT TERM

For some time South African political risk has been elevated due to a number of factors associated with the rise of a political faction around current ANC president and erstwhile country president, Jacob Zuma. The concerns have included:

1. Corruption and racketeering charges against Jacob Zuma have raised questions about the probity of the candidate and his supporters as well as elevated a damaging conflict between the rule of law and the ruling party;
2. The stability and predictability of macro-economic policy has been in question because of the centrality of the support of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party.

In the short-term, Zuma’s legal travails have disappeared because his defence team has convinced the National Prosecuting Authority to drop charges. Intelligence monitoring tapes produced by Zuma’s defence team clearly showed that the timing of the investigation and formulation of charges against Zuma were significantly influenced by supporters of Thabo Mbeki to the detriment of Zuma’s candidacy for president of the ANC and the country. While questions about the probity of Zuma will remain, the overhang of an instability provoking trial is now gone, as is the conflict between the ruling party and the justice system.

Additionally, the flow of information from key decision making forums within the African National Congress and ‘The Alliance’ (forums consisting of the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP) have started to indicate that a previously resurgent left wing is now facing headwinds on both policy and representivity fronts. The proposal for a ’super cabinet’ that would essentially be a central planning commission has been significantly downgraded as have proposals to change monetary policy (away from inflation targeting) and to massively increase the already extensive social grant system. In addition, it appears increasingly unlikely that key communists and worker leaders will occupy the most important cabinet positions in the new government.

Thus, on the face of it and in the short term, South African politics and political risk should not remain a major concern in the aftermath of this week’s election. But delving deeper, and over a longer term – and perhaps with a longer investment horizon – I am not quite as sanguine.

LONGER TERM

While my general view of South Africa is improved by these positive outcomes, I believe it is prudent to flag one aspect, a potentially central aspect,  of risk in the longer term.

Under Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela politics and leadership within the African National Congress and South Africa were exercised in a deliberately sober and cautious manner. Anti-populism and concerns to downplay any ‘cult of the personality’ were always high on the agenda.

These were hidden virtues that only become apparent now, in the moment of crescendo of the new ANC’s campaign of evangelical political razzmatazz focussed on the rural poor. Faced with opposition from the Congress of the People Party – formed in response to the purge of Mbeki from government and his supporters from the ANC leadership structures -  the ANC has thrust downwards and outwards for new areas of support.  While the ANC has not abandoned its urban, sophisticated working class support it has definitely set a ‘bread and circuses’ caravan amongst the unemployed and rural poor.

The combination of the ANC’s appeals to ethnic Zulus, various illiberal hints about the death penalty and gays, a strong push to be identified with the evangelical churches, a focus on tribal traditionalism epitomised by Zuma’s polygamy and traditional dress and the espousal – at a rhetorical level anyway – of economic populism is an all too familiar post-colonial African recipe. There has been a raft of implicitly and explicitly negative international news coverage about Jacob Zuma and the ANC’s election campaign – epitomised by this week’s “Africa’s next Big Man” cover story in The Economist. While some of the more virulent attacks on Zuma’s ethnic Zulu traditionalism are clearly racist or xenophobic a real and legitimate concern seems to permeate the coverage and market concerns: is this ethnic and economic populism newly espoused by the ANC different from that espoused thirty years ago in Congo and more recently in Zimbabwe?

The traditional logic of the ANC’s alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions is the belief that they protect each other from the worst excesses of their individual character and constitution. The undesirability of a total victory of either the communists or organised labour is perhaps more obvious than that of the African National Congress. The multi-class and  multiethnic nature of the African National Congress national liberation movement has always made it vulnerable to populism and hijack by opportunists primarily interested in their own ability to accumulate wealth. The SACP and Cosatu have claimed the Polokwane victory as the moment they took back control of the revolution from the 1996 hijack by “monopoly capital in alliance with the comprador bourgeoisie” (translation: foreign investors and emerging black business). However, it seems to me that what actually happened at Polokwane was a victory of a rickety alliance between those left wing elements and aspects of aspirant and emergent domestic business who had somehow failed under Mandela and Mbeki to accumulate adequately and conservative Africanists within the ANC.

The left has profoundly miscalculated it’s strength in this alliance. They thought they were riding the other interests to victory, but I think they, in their turn, were being ridden by something altogether more unsettling.

Young Communists froth at the mouth – hilariously and for a good cause

This statement from the Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) in the province of Gauteng calls on “parents to intensify efforts in teaching their children the dangers of learning from Julius” Malema.

Its worth a read – if for nothing else but to see how crazy things are getting between the left-wing of the ruling alliance and the crony capitalists.

Here the YCLSA accuses Julius Malema of being a “tender-preneur”, which is “a parasitic petty capitalist who relies on political proximity to different spheres of government and associated tenders” for their leg up in the world.

This is the real political divide in South Africa today. I think the lefties are on a hiding-to-nothing in the long term as I argue in various places but also here. I feel ambivalent about that. I hope they continue to curb some of the excesses of our rapidly evolving system of vampire capitalism from deep within the political wilderness they are returning to.

Nationalisation: Cronin answers Malema – again … but what about the goose?

It’s getting a little like a tennis match. Eventually you can do well to watch the audience, heads swinging from-side-to-side to the sharp “pok” of the shots, to get a sense of how things are going.

As I was reading the article by Cronin, again from Umsebenzi Online, that came out today I groaned. It seemed the deputy secretary general of the SACP who also wears the hat of the deputy minister of Transport was going to kowtow to Malema’s racial bullying and appeals to authority, which in turn was a response to Cronin’s take on the ANC Youth League’s call for the nationalisation of mines that I cover here.

It was difficult to hold out through the comrade’s niceties, etiquette  and jargon – it’s exhausting at the best of times.

But lo! Just in time. If you can plough through the forelock tugging and coded jousting* to the end of paragraph seventeen:

If you disconnect a class analysis from a race analysis you run the danger of wittingly or unwittingly serving the interests of monopoly capital in SA and its comprador and parasitic allies – many of whom have been close to, or actually within our movement.

Well, no guessing which interests Cronin is suggesting Malema is serving – wittingly or unwittingly.

The long and the short of Cronin’s newest contribution is he still thinks that nationalisation of the mines (as he argued in his original critique) is a bad idea; but that more onerous and creative “beneficiation” obligations should be linked to the licences.

His argument is – as always – useful and rational.

My problem remains that the poles of the debate are being defined by the ANC Youth League president and the deputy secretary general of the South African Communist Party.

Hello? – as a 13 year old girl I know might say. Our mining sector has been shrinking for ten years while the equivalent sector internationally has been growing about 5% a year (in response to the so called Commodity Super-Cycle).

The communists and the crony-capitalist aspirants can only extract so much value (for their different, perhaps opposite, purposes) from the sector before investment flows to where the return is better.

Didn’t anyone ever tell them the parable of the goose and the golden egg?

There was this couple. They had a goose. It laid a single golden egg every day. After some years they became disatisfied and wanted more gold. So they cut the goose open to get at the motherload. But it was just a goose on the inside. So they starved to death … and then burned in purgatory forever. (Actually I added that last bit -  it was more a hope on my part.)

* I don’t know what I am doing sneering at Cronin’s writing style! Just read a collection of his poetry (like: Inside) and you will realise that Cronin is unique amongst the comrades in that he has a laconic and comely turn of phrase. My irritation was actually about the fact that I thought – incorrectly – that he had bowed to Malema’s populist and racist assault.

The passing flow – 25/11/2009

The harmful effects of BEE

John Kane Berman addresses the trade union Solidarity about their legal struggles against Black Economic Empowerment. John Kane Berman is CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations. The institute has a solid history of liberal opposition to Apartheid as well as liberal opposition to the ANC. In this piece Berman is guided by Moeletsi Mbeki’s Architects of Poverty – see my  review here. Kane Berman’s article/speech is well worth a read. He is particularly persuasive about BEE being injurious to those it is supposed to benefit; that black people become dependent on the state while white people, previous beneficiaries of Apartheid, are forced to fend for themselves and thereby develop their own creativity and entrepreneurship. I am not sure I buy his dismissal of the whole edifice of redress, but this is feisty and iconoclastic, and therefore interesting. (click on headline for original article).

Cronin, Malema and that familiar fetid stench

It is, inescapably, time for a little weekend editorialising.

Yesterday I summarised the main content of Jeremy Cronin’s criticism of  the ANC Youth League’s “nationalise the mines!” call. In as far as it is possible I summarised Julius Malema’s response to Cronin – his comments consisted primarily of  racial abuse and pompous meandering. This morning I woke filled with the urgent need to write something more and to use a tone that was ever so slightly sharper.

There are three conclusions or indicators that seem to me to shine (or rather ‘gleam balefully’) through this exchange.

1. The Zuma government and ANC are dangerously weak at the centre

Debate and the free flow of ideas is almost always a good thing.

But this isn’t debate or the free flow of ideas. Malema is not putting forward an argument. There are no ideas flowing freely between Cronin and Malema.  Malema is (essentially) racially abusing someone who has entered into the  ‘healthy public debate’ originally called for by the ANC Youth League. And there is no centre of leadership that seems able to repudiate this, to put some kind of limitation on Malema. Where is Jacob Zuma? Where is Blade Nzimande? Where is Gwede Mantashe? Why shouldn’t foreign investors,  fund managers,  and ordinary citizens not conclude that Malema represents the “real ANC”? He is ex-officio on the NEC and the NWC; he is clearly a powerful and influential ANC politician in his own right – as I argue here; he appears to have been blessed and anointed by Jacob Zuma on several occasions?

It is becoming inescapable: the reason for the level and tone of bullying racial abuse that passes for “debate” about race, nationalisation, black management in the parastatals – you name it – is that there are NO guiding ideas coming from the centre. At this level it is becoming clear that, indeed, the centre cannot hold.

2. Race to the finish

Jeremy Cronin is not some Jimmy-white-racist off the street that Malema should feel safe to abuse and dismiss. Cronin is a revered ANC and SACP leader, poet, intellectual, ex-political prisoner. If Malema can dismiss him as a “white Messiah” a “reactionary” and a racist – with the implicit support of the whole edifice of Zuma’s government and the ANC – why would any white South African, or white non-South African for that matter, believe that they might have something to offer up to the country, to the debate, to the future?

The “race card” played with such impunity by ANC and government leaders – and other important South Africans – is becoming a bizarre obscenity that has long undermined any legitimate attempt to combat racism. Crying wolf about racism means that we no-longer recognise it when we see it. It is becoming much safer to assume that the cry “racism” is an attempt to throw off pursuit or criticism.

3. Malema is a looter and Cronin an imperfect builder

It appears (to me anyway) that Malema represents those who hope to leverage their “race” (using the imperative for affirmative action, black economic empowerment and transformation more generally) and the general dominance of the ANC in government, to loot the state and ransack the economy.

The Eskom/Bobby Godsell/Jacob Maroga debacle, which I cover here exposed the Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League as being on the side of crony capitalism and Cosatu as being on the side of development and the effective use of state assets. The clash between Malema and Cronin emphasises the point even more clearly. Everything that Malema argues (or rather bombastically threatens) implies that he claims to speak for “black people” as “black people” – with all the attendant historical disadvantage and current entitlement to redress.  Everything that Cronin says is about perfecting a developmental strategy to address poverty and unemployment.

Now a difficulty for me here is that I think Cronin’s premise is wrong and in any other situation I would rather argue about his implicit hostility to business and markets. However, my argument with Cronin is one about strategies and tactics – and I would have no quibble with the end goal of rolling-back poverty, inequality and unemployment and the creation of a better society.

Malema, on the other hand, wants nothing more than his and his cronies turn at the trough.  There is no evidence or reference to social goals in Malema’s bombast; there is only a threatening racial antagonism, a chauvinistic racial solidarity and a bullying demand to be given more of the assets of this state and economy to dispose of in consumption.

Late yesterday the  South African Communist Party came out in defence of its deputy secretary-general and it is probably appropriate to let them have the last word (and I will try not to quibble with the details):

20 November 2009

The SACP wishes to condemn in the strongest possible terms the insults that the President of the ANC Youth League hurled at our Deputy General Secretary, Cde Jeremy Cronin. We find it very strange and politically dishonest that whilst on the one hand the ANCYL calls for a debate on the question of nationalization yet, on the other hand, it throws insults on those who are taking up the debate.

As the SACP we shall not sink to this level of political and intellectual dishonesty, but instead we call upon the President of the ANCYL, or anyone for that matter, to engage the issues raised by Cde Cronin in a principled and comradely manner, without resorting to the Mbeki era type of insults against the leaders of our Party.

For the record, we invited the ANCYL to participate at our political school last month, to, amongst others, debate this matter of nationalization, but did not take up the invitation. We wish to further invite the ANCYL to feel free to respond in any of our publications to debate this and other matters, in a principled manner.

Issued by the SACP

Malesela Maleka
SACP Spokesperson – 082 226 1802

And from me (Nic) have a good weekend and thank you for your patience.

Nationalisation – medium sized bulls butt heads

Jeremy Cronin argues in the SACP’s Umsebenzi Online that Julius Malema’s “off-the-wall sound-bites” give the impression that he is making up policy about nationalising mines “on the hoof” and “individualistically”. Jeremy then goes on to examine – and ultimately dismiss – Malema’s call for nationalisation of the mines. I examine his reasons below … but first:

Malema shot back, repudiating Jeremy Cronin’s statement as “openly reactionary, clothed in quasi-Marxist rhetoric, with potential to make a sorry and sad reflection of the true character of the South African Communist Party’s ideological steadfastness”. Catch that here as I fear it might be in the process of being removed from Julius’ official  Blog.

First Jeremy Cronin. He argues in his famously calm and persuasive manner that nationalisation doesn’t necessarily mean NATIONALISATION. Yes the call is rooted in the relevant paragraph of the Freedom Charter:

The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth!

The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;

Putting aside (my personal) question marks about the authenticity of the authoritative or democratic status of the Freedom Charter -  Jeremy Cronin says it is important to understand that the above paragraph was written in nationalisation’s heyday, including when “the apartheid regime was consolidating an extensive state-owned sector.”

For Cronin the Freedom Charter is most important in its assertion that “the people”, not “the government” shall govern.

Thus Cronin supports the idea that “the people” get the full benefit of the economic resources (not that there be a

narrow bureaucratic take-over by the state apparatus and the ruling party’s “deployees”

His choice words here clearly hints (in my opinion) that he thinks this is the version of nationalisation that Julius Malema is working towards.

The state owning important aspects of the economy says nothing, for Cronin, about whose interests are being served:

Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s fascist Italy, and Verwoerd’s apartheid South Africa all had extensive state ownership of key sectors of the economy.

So for Cronin the 2002 Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act has already gone some way to fulfilling the Freedom Charter’s objectives by explicitly stating:

that “South Africa’s mineral and petroleum resources belong to the nation and that the State is the custodian thereof ….  In other words, it is the “nation” (with the state as custodian) and not the mining companies that have legal ownership of the mineral resources beneath our soil.

Cronin argues nationalising:

mining houses in the current global and national recession might have the unintended consequence of simply bailing out indebted private capital, especially BEE mining interests

And further that:

Many of our gold mines in particular are increasingly depleted and unviable. Some reach costly depths of four kilometres below the surface. Recently the global gold price has bounced back, but it is telling that, unlike in the past, our gold output actually dropped by some 9% in the same period. Our gold mines are simply no longer able to respond dynamically to gold price rises.

Cronin (while making it clear he thinks “the people owe the mining houses absolutely nothing”) argues that the Bill of Rights sanctions expropriation but requires compensation at a price agreed by both parties or determined by the courts.

The bottom-line for Cronin is that nationalisation would do nothing to further the “national democratic struggle”. Rather it

would land the state with the burden of managing down many mining sectors in decline … burden the state with the responsibility for dealing with the massive (and historically ignored) cost of “externalities” – the grievous destruction that a century of robber-baron mining has inflicted on our environment. In the current conjuncture, nationalising the mining sector at this point would also probably unintentionally bale-out private capital, in a sector that is facing many challenges of sustainability. The problems of liquidity and indebtedness for BEE mining share-holders are particularly acute.

Malema’s angry response

Charmingly, Malema ends off his response with the comment:

We also do not need the permission of white political messiahs to think.

And before that closing paragraph there are oceans of vacuous rhetoric and bombastic bullying  you have to fight your way through to find an argument with which to engage.

Cronin is, according to Malema: White, reactionary, “counter progress”, not reflecting the views of the SACP, misunderstanding the Freedom Charter, “very sad”, guilty of isolating Malema from “the organisation” and he “reaches reactionary conclusions”.

I have picked Malema’s statement apart with some care and there is absolutely no content (that answers Cronin) except for bullying and vague appeals to authoritative historical ANC figures. This quote is a good summary of everything Julius Malema had to say:

It is sad that previously, those who look like us were considered intellectually inferior by the white supremacists, and today Comrade Jeremy reflects the same sentiment, even before he interacts with the views of the ANC YL.

Right near the end of his rambling abuse, Malema says (as if he has imperfectly copied it from somewhere else):

Part of the models we are considering as an approach to Nationalisation of Mines is the Botswana model where De Beers is a 50% partnership with the Botswana government and still pays royalties and tax.

Well that doesn’t sound too stupid (if you ignore the grammar) , but we will have to wait and see.

Conclusion

The great nationalisation debate is alive and well. Unfortunately the exchange examined here is between our most sensible communist and the exasperatingly gung-ho ANC Youth League leader – these are hardly realistic poles in the debate.

We will continue to focus on nationalisation and the state of the debate in the Ruling Alliance. But meanwhile, what is interesting in the exchange between Cronin and Malema is that both made it abundantly clear, that while they are not happy with the constraints, there would be no circumstances in which either would propose a solution that lies outside of  The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. How adult is that?

Transparently struggling with corruption

My impression is that the ruling ANC government thinks of corruption as one of the three biggest challenges we face – the other two being unemployment and effective social delivery.

I don’t think I could usually be accused of giving them too much benefit of the doubt, but I recognise the above statement is more about what I hope for than what is demonstrated by what this government says and does.

However, yesterday the government established a high profile commission on corruption just after Transparency International released its annual index.

In Transparency’s index, the 4 least corrupt countries are New Zeeland, Denmark, Singapore and Sweden and the most corrupt are Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan with our very own Somalia at the bottom of the log.

South Africa ranked 55 of 180 countries – so it could have been worse, but it could have been better.

Below is a screen-shot of where we come on the tables; but for the original report click on the image.

Statement on Alliance Summit

Just to make things easier, herewith the statement on the Summit released a few minutes ago:

Statement on the Alliance Summit

13-15 November 2009, Esselen Park, Ekurhuleni

The African National Congress, South African Communist Party, Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African National Civic Organisation gathered at the Alliance Summit, in Esselen Park, Ekurhuleni.

The focus of the Summit was to review the implementation of the Programme of Action that emanated from our shared electoral platform in the 2009 Election Manifesto. The alliance thanked millions of our people for the confidence they have shown in the ANC led alliance and returning the ANC to government in the elections held in April 2009. Summit also reconfirmed the resolutions of the last Alliance Summit held in May 2008 and the Alliance Economic Summit held in October 2008.

The Summit took place in the midst of the global economic crisis, which has had a profound impact on the workers and the poor majority of our people: nearly a million jobs have been lost in the formal sector in the course of this year. There have been company closures, mass layoffs and deepening indebtedness for many South Africans.

Against this background, in the coming period we shall be working together as the Alliance on the following key programmatic areas:

Economy development: All Alliance partners reaffirmed the commitment to ensuring the vigorous implementation of the NEDLAC Framework Agreement on South Africa Response to the Global Economic Crisis. The Summit agreed that there is a need to link our short-term counter-cyclical response with our long term objectives of transforming the structure of the economy and moving to a different growth path. We support Government’s infrastructure investment programme as key component of South Africa’s response to the crisis.

The scale and scope of industrial policy needs to be increased, and funding needs to be increased commensurately. The summit agreed that the Alliance Task Team on macro-economic policy must remain seized with reviewing and broadening the mandate of the Reserve Bank.

National Planning Commission: The Alliance agreed with the broad thrust of the Alliance discussion document on the Green Paper on National Strategic Planning. In particular we agreed that there is a need for the National Planning Commission (NPC) located in the Presidency, which will be chaired by the Minister in the Presidency for the NPC and whose main responsibility will be to ensure an integrated strategic planning across government.

Towards energy security and sustainability: The summit recognised the importance of energy security in order to advance the developmental agenda of the country. The summit also noted with concern that the successive tariff increase requests through the multi year price determination by Eskom will negatively impact on society, the economy and jobs. The summit therefore supported efforts to have the tariff increases minimised.

The summit also agreed that we will ensure that government-led energy policies place greater emphasis on sustainable and renewable technologies and the creation of green jobs. We also agreed that our energy mix must contribute to our international obligations to promote a cleaner environment and mitigate the effects of climate change. The alliance will conduct a campaign for energy efficiencies and to promote the use of alternative energy sources in society.

Rural development: The Summit agreed to work towards a comprehensive approach to rural development which will focus on the following: food security, transformation of the apartheid spatial reality, expansion of provision of social and economic infrastructure, the plight of farm dwellers and farm workers and systematic promotion of co-operatives.

Education: The Summit reaffirmed education as a key priority of our movement. A mass campaign for basic education, public sector workers will play a role in this campaign. The ANC-led Alliance will launch a quality education and teaching for all – to be launched before Alliance Education Transformation Summit next year. The Campaign will mobilize our communities, the parents, the learners, the teachers and government education of officials. This will include the enforcement of “non-negotiables” agreed to at the previous Alliance Education Summit.

With regard to our approach to higher education and training the Summit agreed to continue with a process to realign and build capacity for FET colleges and align the SETA’s to produce skills to meet our developmental objectives. We support the call and will participate dynamically in government led summits on Higher Education and Skills development to be convened in 2010.

Health: The transformation of the national health system will require strategic leadership through the Alliance to mobilize society around a social compact for health care transformation. Central to the implementation of the Ten-Point Plan for health care transformation is organization and mobilization of our people.

In the period ahead we will, working together with government and SANAC, mount a campaign for HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment, which includes campaign for HIV/AIDS Testing and Counseling, involving mobilization of our society.

We will also mount an ANC-led Alliance campaign on NHI – which will involve public education, and engagements with various sectors of society around the vision and the principles of NHI. This campaign will also emphasise improvement in the quality of health care in our health institutions.

Local government: The Summit supports the development of Local Government’s “Turn Around Strategy Framework”, led and driven by the ANC led Alliance and implemented by Government at all levels, through the full involvement of communities. The intentions of the Turn Around Strategy are to deliver quality, affordable and reliable services to South Africans. An Alliance Summit on Local Government will be held early next year, to focus on service delivery.

ANC Centenary Preparations The Summit noted the centenary celebrations of the ANC and we affirmed our support for the preparations towards 2012, which will not be just ANC-led Alliance celebrations but for our people as a whole.

2010 Soccer World Cup Next year our country will host one of the biggest sporting event in the world, the FIFA Soccer World Cup. We call on all South Africans to rally behind Bafana Bafana, our National Team.

We wish all South Africans a happy and safe festive seasons and a prosperous new year. We call on those who will be on the road to exercise extreme caution to minimize road carnage.

Issued by:
African National Congress
South African Communist Party
Congress of South African Trade Unions
South African National Civic Organisation

Enquiries:
Jackson Mthembu (ANC National Spokesperson) 0823708401
Malesela Maleka (SACP Spokesperson) 0822261802
Patrick Craven (COSATU Spokesperson) 0828217456
Dumisani Mthalane (SANCO Spokesperson) 0797647257

The Alliance Summit is the business

The Alliance Summit on the weekend has significantly reduced confusion about policy and risk – although monetary policy is still under review.

Background

1. “The Alliance”  met at Esselen Park, Ekurhuleni  this weekend.
2. This meeting consisted of the the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African National Civic Association (SANCO).
3. According to a joint communique press release the summit was to be “attended by the ANC National Executive Committee, led by its President, cde Jacob Zuma, the Central Committee of the SACP, led by its General Secretary, cde Blade Nzimande, the Central Executive Committee of COSATU, led by its General Secretary, cde Zwelinzima Vavi, and lastly, SANCO National Executive Committee, led by its President cde Ruth Bhengu.”

Rumours

The big rumour was that Gwede Mantashe  attempted to achieve acceptance that “The Alliance” and not “The ANC” should be the centre of policy making – I doubt this, but it is what the Sunday papers were saying.  The same rumour claims that Julius Malema led the charge of ANC traditionalists against this sacrilege ….. difficult to tell if it is true (Mantashe said the story was cooked up) but it gives an interesting twist to the ongoing rehabilitation of the ANC Youth League president.

Reports

1. Cosatu and the SACP lost the battle around Trevor Manuel and the NPC. The National Planning Commission, located in the presidency and headed by Trevor Manuel but also consisting of a panel of independent experts and charged with the responsibility for integrated strategic planning across government is now a fait accompli. This is how Trevor Manuel conceived of his mandate in the Green Paper and it seems Trevor Manuel and the ANC have won the day against Cosatu and SACP criticism.
2. There was a strong indication that the ANC had agreed to re-examine the South African Reserve Bank mandate. Mantashe  announced after the summit that they had discussed “how best the Reserve Bank should talk to the development priorities of the state …. The summit agreed that the alliance task team on macroeconomic policy must remain seized with reviewing and broadening the mandate of the Reserve Bank.” This is carefully phrased and is unlikely to panic the markets – but risks remain and financial markets and sovereign risk agencies will be watching this space.
3. The summit clearly opposed the electricity hikes proposed by Eskom: “We are totally uncomfortable with the 45 percent increase. The summit also noted with concern that the successive tariff increase requests through the multi-year price determination by Eskom will negatively impact on society, the economy and jobs. The summit therefore supported efforts to have the tariff increases minimised,” said Gwede Mantashe in the post Summit interview.  This is likely to be popular with almost every constituency – except for those who believe that Eskom is best left to manage its own affairs …. not a significant demographic at this stage of proceedings.

The bottom line

The ANC has usefully asserted its authority.

The idea that “The Alliance” could or should determine details of government policy was becoming deeply disturbing and untenable. This is not only because of the policies espoused by Cosatu and the SACP are generally seen by investors and businesses as hostile, but also because there appeared to be no centre to policy making, and therefore no predictability – and therefore a serious risk overhang.

In an environment where policy making has no centre we started to hear the worst and most self-interested voices raised bombastically and claiming authority. The Alliance Summit went some way towards increasing investors ability to dismiss the noise.

Cosatu does the right thing

Something very interesting on the sideline of the resignation of Bobby Godsell as chairman of the Eskom board and the non-resignation of Jacob Maroga as CEO.

If a situation is impossibly confusing, or your view is obscured for some reason, then look around and check where others are looking – look at the stances they adopt.

The Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League have lined up to accuse Godsell and the Eskom board of racism; the state-owned enterprises have become a  “slaughterhouse” for black professionals bemoans the BMF.

On the other hand, and to its enormous credit, you have Cosatu (in the person of Zwelinzima Vavi) defending Godsell and the attempts (Godsell has led) to make Eskom equal to the task of providing South Africa with adequate and sustainable power.

Cosatu versus the BMF and the ANCYL? It’s not often that organisations reflect their ideology and class interests so precisely.

This situation  looks very much like the industrial working class versus crony capitalist wannabes.

Cosatu is still  controlled by the interests of workers employed in the real economy of minerals extraction, power generation and manufacturing (although these interests compete with those of public sector workers who often have different imperatives). The Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League are political formations whose only interest is in ”leveraging’ preferential access to the state for the purpose of the advancement of its members.

Zwelinzima Vavi must be deeply concerned about economic growth – it is the imperative placed on him by the position he occupies. The imperative of the BMF (and to some degree, the ANCYL) is to maximise the advantage its their members derive from BBBEE and employment equity laws – and from their proximity to political power.

I think this fault line is fundamental to where we are heading and struggles here will constantly alter and trim our direction. I also think, in this instance, Cosatu is on the side of the angels; standing, as it often does, against the alarming spread of vampire capitalism in this country.

Julius Malema is the Coming Man

PREPARE YOURSELF

Take a deep breath, put your shoulders back and look  through the frenzy.

Reading the Democratic Alliance’s Diane Kohler Barnard pour scorn on the “rotund” and “Idi Amin-like” Julius Malema I couldn’t help but think that she is leaving herself as few choices as J.M. Coetzee leaves his fictional characters.

Julius Malema is a powerful contender for future ANC leadership – and is already a powerful politician. I think his rise to lead the ANC and possibly the country may be unstoppable. I fear that Barnard’s feisty and admirable rhetoric leaves her, and those she represents, no paths upon which she might ride her high horse back, when this is all over.

Barnard, recounting how Malema allegedly attempted to bully his way through a traffic violation with : “Don’t you know who I am?” arrogance, says:

[Julius Malema is] the man who believes there is one law for South African citizens, yet another law for him. He is the man who will slap a neighbour who has the temerity to ask that the music at his housewarming be turned down at 3 in the morning. He is the man who has turned hate-speech into an art form [...]

Barnard’s anger is palpable as she sneeringly reminds us that Malema has said he would fire Thabo Mbeki and any ANC parliamentarian “should he get the urge”

Malema’s ego and contempt for the law the rest of us must respect, is unparalleled [...] Is this, to quote the President, someone you honestly believe is a ‘leader in the making – worthy of inheriting the ANC”?

Well, is he “a leader in the making”? Is he “worthy of inheriting the ANC?”

The answer to the first question is: “yes” – more about that below.

The answer to the second question is irrelevant. Could we agree what this historical artefact: “the ANC”  is; could we agree on what its characteristics and values are? Could anyone make this judgement call?

Frankly,  history can give a fig whether you or I think Julius Malema is worthy of inheriting the ANC – or, quite frankly, whether the ANC is worthy of  inheriting Julius Malema.

This is not about what you or I think or believe or hope for; it is also not about what Diane Kohler Barnard and the Democratic Alliance and those they represent hope for and hope to accomplish.

This is not, unfortunately,  about how things aught to be, or about what is fair and just in the moral universe.

This is about how things are; this is history as a raging torrent.

A de facto leader

Assuming “leader” is neither complimentary nor derogatory  – the word can be either or neither – it is clear that Malema more than fits the common sense meaning of the term.

• Malema has been hot-housed as a boy in ANC training institutions and groomed for leadership after  joining the organisation at the point of its unbanning in about 1990;
• He has led the two key feeder organisations, the Congress of South African Students and the ANC Youth League;
• He has become the crucial port of call for politicians and individuals hoping to build support for any initiative that requires ANC support;
• He personally played an important role in the rise to dominance of the faction that backed Zuma for president;
• He is the only ANC politician – aside from Jacob Zuma – who has a significant and deliverable mass base; both numerous and militant;
• His rhetoric (in my opinion) is closer to the views of the core constituency of the ANC than the publicly expressed views of any other South African politician;
• His name/face recognition is almost unparalleled.

Julius Malema was born in the Northern Transvaal (Limpopo Province) and raised, like Jacob Zuma, by a single mother who worked as a domestic worker. This is the hard school of South African life and these kinds of  credentials are still highly valued in the ANC.

In the last few weeks Julius Malema has come over all statesmanlike:

• He acknowledged Thabo Mbeki’s key leadership role – of the ANC and the country;
• He declared the rector of the University of the Free State “one of our own” – thereby helping to defuse growing racial conflict on that campus.

This is deliberate marketing, evolving the brand [firebrand to Dollar Brand ...] while the news media, opposition politics and certain dinner table discussions remain obsessed with each new Malema gaff or his latest confrontational tirade.

It is striking how similar the Julius Malema story is to the Jacob Zuma story.

The human need is to normalise the inevitable or the inescapable present. Three years ago media and dinner table sentiment about Jacob Zuma was almost identical to the sentiment held by the same groups of people about Julius Malema today.

The central dilemma in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.

Is accepting – and trying to get your head around – the present and future leadership role of Julius Malema the moral equivalent of  the choices made by J.M Coetzee’s Lucy, the daughter of main character David Lurie in the 1999 novel Disgrace? Lucy (who is white) is raped and ends up seeking and receiving protection (and more) from Petrus (who is black) who is closely associated with those who raped her in the first place. Even if you have not read Disgrace I think you can understand the dilemma.

Is Julius Malema the Great Defiler – of our constitution, of the bill of rights and of our hopes for non-racialism?

No more than that previous rape accused, Jacob Zuma.

It sometimes feels that Julius Malema is deliberately teasing; upping the ante to cause his opponents to shriek ever louder and sound ever more shrill.

I have no idea whether he has the sense of humour or sense of the absurd to be deliberately inviting the kind of scorn he receives from those Dianne Kholer Barnard represents – and a smattering of those she hopes to represent.

But I have no doubt that it will be Julius Malema who laughs the longest.