The Most Dangerous Man in South Africa
Is a 19th century German philosopher.
About a week ago, I wrote a post entitled “The ANC Will Die”. Some people told me this was a ridiculous notion. I think JZ’s proving those critics wrong today.
This week we have seen Number 1’s response to losing three major metros to the DA. He has taken charge of state owned enterprises, and is building a narrative to get rid of Pravin Gordhan, perhaps the most respected ANC leader right now internationally.
In short, he is looting our democracy.
In most normal political parties, the party structures would now just hold a vote of no confidence and move on with governing instead of these power games (which hurt the poor most of all).
But this is the problem with the ANC. The ANC is not a political party. And that’s why I am convinced they have no future.
Perhaps one of the most influential people in the world today is a man named Georg Hegel. He’s been dead for a long time. He was a German philosopher who came up with this idea which we can call the dialectic of history – where everything in history in is in conflict and this conflict gives way to higher, more spiritual forms.
Marx would turn this philosophy upside down, or, according to him, on its feet, by stating the world is not spiritual, but purely material, and that conflict between the classes will eventually give way to higher forms until we have communism and the withering away of the state.
This is the left wing deployment of Hegel. But there is also the right wing deployment of Hegel, which holds onto his spiritual idealism, that the sacred exists, that freedom is mutually won, and that the past must be maintained and conversed with in order to progress.
I mention Hegel not because I subscribe to his philosophy, but because if our society knew about Hegel we would be far better equipped to understand the ANC's suicide mission.
The ANC was radically affected by its encounter with various Communist regimes during the Struggle; so much so that we are the only democratic country in the world in which a communist party is technically in power owing to our regime’s tripartite alliance – Cosatu, the ANC, and the SACP
The problem with the ANC’s Hegelianism is that Hegel believed that some bodies, such as Napoleon in his day, and indeed himself, could embody the world spirit. Or in the Marxist reading, a body like the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, could form a revolutionary vanguard that could re-make Russian society.
We see this in ANC rhetoric concerning the National Democratic Revolution that it must lead to its conclusion, in its view of itself as the necessary guiding element in all transformation. This is why the ANC has not yet become a normal, liberal political party with open contest for its leadership positions and a clear demarcation between itself and the state it leads.
This is why it is so hard for good members of the ANC to root out corruption; or to vote against the party line in parliament. This is why the ANC will rule until Jesus returns. This is why the ANC has been increasingly clashing with the media. Because the ANC is body at the heart of all change – its health becomes the measure of the nation’s health. In a sense, it is bigger than the country.
And this is at the heart of Zuma's political identity. If he and his cronies are the ANC, and an action serves their interest, then it must be good.
When your organisation is par excellence the revolutionary force for good, reform becomes difficult. You can’t oppose a policy in your party. Even in the US, Republicans vote against other Republicans in Congress all the time. Recently Obama allied with Republicans to oppose some members of his own party on trade issues.
The ANC is still very popular and powerful. But a political body that has no way of reforming itself cannot survive.
As JZ himself says, the ANC comes first, not the country. And he is the ANC right now.
If Zuma's face is still on ANC posters and t-shirts come the 2019 elections, the DA will not have to spend any money on its own campaign.