The ANC and its anti-future politics

SOUTH Africa stands at a precipice, not because of what our political class contains, but because of what it lacks: a compelling, coherent vision for tomorrow. The ANC, once the proud standard-bearer of liberation and architect of our democratic transition, has degenerated into something far more troubling than merely an ineffective governing party.

- 

It has become what political theo-rists might call an “anti-future” political entity: an organisation that defines itself more by what it opposes than what it proposes, more by the past it seeks to restore than the future it wishes to build. This fundamental failure of imagination threatens to condemn South Africa to permanent stagnation and, just possibly, to entrenching our maturity as a democracy.

Anti-future cul-de-sac

This phenomenon goes beyond ordinary political failure or temporary governance challenges. We’ve seen commentators assemble before that what makes the ANC’s predicament par-ticularly dangerous is that it has lost the ability to articulate what South Africa should become in concrete, achievable terms.

Instead, it governs through a series of defensive manoeuvres not to realise any particular vision, but to prevent alternatives from emerging and hold on to power. The tragedy is factionalism that it consumes all the oxygen that should be going to actual govern-ance. While all leaders jockey for positions and resources, municipalities collapse, infrastructure decays, and millions of young people face lifetimes of joblessness.

The symptoms of this anti-future mentality are everywhere apparent in our national life. Consider our politics, a circular impasse about economic transformation. Where we should be hearing bold, innovative plans for job creation, inclusive growth and indus-trial development, we get instead a tired litany of what must be resisted: “white monopoly capital” and “neo-liberalism”, among others.

These may be legitimate and valid concerns, but they do not in them-selves govern; one wonders if a party that only knows what it is against cannot build a country, cannot educate chil-dren, cannot keep the lights on and cannot create jobs. Into this ANC policy-making has driven us.

Ideology v practical solutions