Recientes episodios de violencia extrema están indicando el inicio de un difícil proceso político en Sudáfrica: cómo darles derechos civiles y políticos a quiene casi no tienen ninguno.
There’s only one solution to the mess we’re in
FUTURE mapping as anything but scenario projection is a risky game, whether it is in economics, politics or sociology — at least the latter gives you cover through lack of specifics. Nonetheless, SA is at a crossroads, albeit a potentially amorphous one.
For more than three years now, we have witnessed an extraordinary uprising by the underclass. There are signs of a nascent worker revolt unfolding. In and of itself, this is no real surprise; it was virtually inevitable that a country with SA’s history of popular activism would not long be able to avoid such activism, given how blatantly the new establishment has been structurally and behaviorally co-opted into the patterns of extreme economic inequality.
What is surprising, though, is the extent to which we seem to have been wholly unprepared for it. Actually, that may not be quite true; some would argue that increasing state security was one way of preparing for it. Even if that were true, we apparently have either prepared poorly or not quickly enough for using suppression as an instrument.
This is not, in my view, a country that can be kept at bay through the threat or use of violence. The state-security apparatus is therefore not a genuine option for growing revolt; it would guarantee only sustained and violent civil strife and potentially even civil war. If the National Party could not quell the violence, there is little to suggest that the African National Congress could sustainably do any better.
To get back to the point of preparation, what is surprising is how unprepared we were to counter this even with a story. We have nothing to say or offer to those on the verge of revolt. No platitudes, no vaguely believable excuses — emperors, queens, masters of the universe and apparatchiks all find themselves naked to the core. That is almost more dangerous than the emerging revolt itself. It is compounded by an extraordinary denial and, dare I say it, arrogance.
SA’s business and political elite are completely dissociated from the reality of our political economy. They have plenty of platitudes about the relative deprivation and unfair distribution of income in SA, but no-one, least of all politicians, is willing to demonstrate leadership through action on how we address this challenge. Well, we may have run out of time.
It is common cause — now a cliché — that we have had poor leadership. We have pilfered money while shouting platitudes about the need to improve the distributable share of national income. We have sat in plush offices, paying lip service to investment, enterprise development, affirmative procurement and investment in skills. South African business laments the poor education in our schools while spending significantly less on skills and training of blue-collar workers as a percentage of the wage bill than India, South Korea and a host of other emerging markets.
The lack of leadership has not just been from one quarter; the country’s elites have all fiddled while Rome burned. Some were too drunk on power and focused on its preservation, others were arrogant and naive and sanctimonious about waiting for the failure they knew was so inevitable.
The failure of our elites to co-operate means we now face a potential revolt and have limited resources to contain and direct it into a more productive mode of engagement. We are, as a country, naked, despite the layers of cloth lying at our feet.
In the absence of both creative capacity and/or a credible story about significantly altering patterns of income distribution, SA’s working class and underclass may well define a chaotic and likely destructive path to economic transformation.
There is, in truth, only one solution and it is inelegant, inefficient and will be resisted by the very elites who have lost touch with reality. It is time to engage civil society in a genuine dialogue about the country’s future. This is the only option because there are no (sustainable) policy or management changes that can be effected quickly enough to placate a disenfranchised majority that has grown tired of watching others eat while living off our waste. I am now on a first-name basis with the chap who goes through my rubbish bins every Friday.
A genuine dialogue would do two things. First, it would give us the chance to create quick wins as defined by those on the verge of revolt, however unsustainable the tactic. Second, to the extent that it includes evidence of trying to make bottom-up solutions work, it will buy us time to improve the things that are immediately possible, such as plugging the budget wastage and improving public-service efficiency. It would also begin to create the kind of accountability without which frameworks such as the National Development Plan are a pipe dream.
What is surprising, though, is the extent to which we seem to have been wholly unprepared for it. Actually, that may not be quite true; some would argue that increasing state security was one way of preparing for it. Even if that were true, we apparently have either prepared poorly or not quickly enough for using suppression as an instrument.
This is not, in my view, a country that can be kept at bay through the threat or use of violence. The state-security apparatus is therefore not a genuine option for growing revolt; it would guarantee only sustained and violent civil strife and potentially even civil war. If the National Party could not quell the violence, there is little to suggest that the African National Congress could sustainably do any better.
To get back to the point of preparation, what is surprising is how unprepared we were to counter this even with a story. We have nothing to say or offer to those on the verge of revolt. No platitudes, no vaguely believable excuses — emperors, queens, masters of the universe and apparatchiks all find themselves naked to the core. That is almost more dangerous than the emerging revolt itself. It is compounded by an extraordinary denial and, dare I say it, arrogance.
SA’s business and political elite are completely dissociated from the reality of our political economy. They have plenty of platitudes about the relative deprivation and unfair distribution of income in SA, but no-one, least of all politicians, is willing to demonstrate leadership through action on how we address this challenge. Well, we may have run out of time.
It is common cause — now a cliché — that we have had poor leadership. We have pilfered money while shouting platitudes about the need to improve the distributable share of national income. We have sat in plush offices, paying lip service to investment, enterprise development, affirmative procurement and investment in skills. South African business laments the poor education in our schools while spending significantly less on skills and training of blue-collar workers as a percentage of the wage bill than India, South Korea and a host of other emerging markets.
The lack of leadership has not just been from one quarter; the country’s elites have all fiddled while Rome burned. Some were too drunk on power and focused on its preservation, others were arrogant and naive and sanctimonious about waiting for the failure they knew was so inevitable.
The failure of our elites to co-operate means we now face a potential revolt and have limited resources to contain and direct it into a more productive mode of engagement. We are, as a country, naked, despite the layers of cloth lying at our feet.
In the absence of both creative capacity and/or a credible story about significantly altering patterns of income distribution, SA’s working class and underclass may well define a chaotic and likely destructive path to economic transformation.
There is, in truth, only one solution and it is inelegant, inefficient and will be resisted by the very elites who have lost touch with reality. It is time to engage civil society in a genuine dialogue about the country’s future. This is the only option because there are no (sustainable) policy or management changes that can be effected quickly enough to placate a disenfranchised majority that has grown tired of watching others eat while living off our waste. I am now on a first-name basis with the chap who goes through my rubbish bins every Friday.
A genuine dialogue would do two things. First, it would give us the chance to create quick wins as defined by those on the verge of revolt, however unsustainable the tactic. Second, to the extent that it includes evidence of trying to make bottom-up solutions work, it will buy us time to improve the things that are immediately possible, such as plugging the budget wastage and improving public-service efficiency. It would also begin to create the kind of accountability without which frameworks such as the National Development Plan are a pipe dream.
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