Revolutionary gains

In 1994 an earthshattering event occurred in South Africa. The National Party government, which has governed the country for more than 40 years, have been replaced by the African National Congress. Actually, this statement in itself is not entirely accurate; what actually happened, was that a White Government, which governed the country since Unification in 1910, was replaced by an African-dominated government. Taking the argument even further back, it can be said that the country experienced a paradigm shift from colonial rule, which started, in the south, in 1654, and in the north in the 1800s, when the Boer-states were established, and consolidated in one unity when the English forced it to integrate after the Boer war.

No country or regime can forever oppress the majority of its population. At some stage, if after e few years, or after centuries of years of oppression, the subjected majority will rebel. Nobody wants to be a slave infinitely. Strangely enough, in a rather uncommon manner, the domination of the National Party ended, strange, because it was not militarily defeated, and the economy, in spite of severe pressure put on it due to increasing global isolation, was not severe eroded, and was not on the brink of collapse. FW de Kerk made all the difference. For some, his actions were the results of a spoiled person wishing to became a giant on the world stage. For other, it was the visionary realization that the struggle was over, that the country couldn’t afford to be thrown into a bloody civil war, with increasingly global isolation, and that the best possible settlement needs to be reach before it was too late.

Considering what transpired in the country over the coming three decades, it is, for a conservative analyst like myself, crystal clear today, that a settlement needed to be reached, but that much more guarantees needed to be built into such a settlement to guarantee the freedom and right for cultural, linguistic and economic plurality to so-called White Afrikaners and, perhaps other minorities. This needed to be done while the power of competition was still available. Preferably, there should have been some kind of jurisdictional self-government built into the Constitutional dispensation, whether it be geographically determined, opt culturally. Now is too late.

Considering the dominant narrative in the world after the Second World War, which was one of equality, human rights and decolonization, Apartheid was, as the United Nation’s declared it at some stage, “a crime against humanity”. Besides, the oppression of the people of your country, because of their race, and especially the suffering caused in the process, will be repulsive to any ethical person. That was the problem with Apartheid South Africa; that was what made it the scoundrel of the world, and stemmed it government illegitimate.

But “technical” the government of South Africa pre-1994 was not a bad government. It built an extensive network of highways and trains, the port was working (actually, it was among the most efficient in the world), the country’s medical and militar6y industries were regarded as players in the big leagues globally. State owned enterprises functioned exceptionally well. South Africa was the richest, and militarily most powerful force in Africa. Economic growth was on parr, and even surpasses, that of the world.

There was corruption, all right. Yes, that were “cadre appointments”, mostly from the ranks of the Broederbond; or, especially in the private sector, and especially in higher echelons of power, from the ranks of the closed inner-circles of the English-speaking business fraternity. But three things were different from the post-1994 era; firstly, corruption was not nearly to the same scale or extend. Corruption was not institutionalized. Secondly, even where there was corruption, in the allocation of state tenders, for instance, the services or benefits were still delivered, at good quality and quantity, and, mostly, without massive price escalations. Thirdly, the “Broederbond appointments” were generally competent persons, more often than not, the most competent available. Even Broederbond aspiring candidates were expected to growth through the ranks, to gain experience, and tap from an efficiency institutional memory bank, before applying Also, this version of “cadre deployment” has had a natural point of reversion; if it was clear that the Broederbond preferred candidate was not the best, he was overseen and the obviously best suited candidate was appointed.

The elephant in the room, was the fact that all of this happened in the framework of racial discrimination; the bulk of resources, opportunities services were reserved for one population group, namely for White South Africans, That has caused poverty, lack of access, and growing discontent in the ranks of non-White South Africans. And rightfully so.

 But the situation did not improve since the earth-shattering revolution of the mid-1990s. And yes, the demise started in 1994 already, not when Jacob Zuma assumed the Presidency.

Venezuela, Zimbabwe, even Russia and Cuba; all states built on destructive revolutionary ideology, anger and shared misery; or, as it is better known, socialism and communism, initially experience a “Golden honeymoon period”. This is when, and while the new rulers; at this stage still really committed to "the people", start re-mobilizing the country’s resources and distribute it among the masses, their main supporters. In the process, expenditure, and capital creation are artificially high, which attract investors.  But this erodes the infrastructure and structural capacity of the state (mostly dependent on one or two dominant products for which there is a huge demand on the markets). Not long, and the capacity has been exhausted, and the price of the main commodity has dropped. Then the entire deck of cards simply collapses. By this stage, the line between the state and our people has blurred to oblivion, and so has the line between the state and the ruling class, best duplicated by the head of the class.

From moment one, the paradigmatic rules of the game are changing, and the process starts for putting in place policies and bureaucracies that are simply not workable in modern-day economic global realities.

In South Africa, the new dominant paradigm of "transformation" was nothing else than a slogan to justify the transfer of existing assets from White to Black, and to stole everything with any real or imagneable value.

That is what happened in South Africa. The Nelson Mandela-effect, the “rainbow-nation” rhetoric, the 1995 victorious Springbok team, the spirit of reconciliation, enchant the world, and then specifically the Western world. It takes very little to “Hollywoodied” the Western world, and movie – upon – movie was made about Nelson Mandela and the South Africa miracle. For many years, but at least twenty, no serious critique or bad-mouthing of the ANC and its leaders were tolerated in the capitals of major Western powers.

Initially, billions of dollars poured into the country to “assist with the rebuilding of the country” and the “construction of a non-racist, non-sexist and truly democratic society.” Water, electricity and sewerage networks were enormously expanded, until it reached more than 90% of the country’s population. And then the electricity network started collapsing, the sewerage networks started collapsing and the water networks started collapsing. The highly corrupt low-cost housing projects came to a virtual standstill.

Why? Because the same happened what happened in all other regimes born out of social revolutions:  The fat of the economy was stripped away, the revolutionary incompetence imported to [populate the bureaucracy reach a point of starving and it choked.

The Mbeki and Manual financial team may have been rather good at their job of managing the country’s economy; I don’t really know. But the government, per se, was never as good as it was praised for, then and later. The rot, the pillars for demise, was laid then, the period immediately after 1994.

In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez was initially hailed as a national hero, a Mandela-like character in his own country, because of the economy prosperity he brought. The same happened in Zimbabwe, post 1980, and in Cuba, back in the 1960s. Until specialized foreign companies were chased away, in the name of “thee people must benefit from the country’s wealth”, until the ideology resulted in cadres control, which resulted in competence being replaced by incompetence in the bureaucracy, and until the country’s riches increasingly find its way into the pockets of the inner-circle of loyalists, rather than to the people.

It was the Mbeki and Manual team that oversee the wide-scale replacement of competent and experienced municipal staff and technicians with incompetent, experienced ANC loyalists, under the ideological slogan of “they show potential.” Competence was chased out of Denel, Eskom (on large scale), Transnet, the SABC, universities, schools and the public service generally. The number-game of “representativity that reflects the demographics of the country’s population” became the driver for extreme levels of nepotism and cadre deployment.

At the same time, the bureaucracy, this enormous system of institutions and SOEs, had to play a more-and-more important role in the economy and society, because the socialist and collective-type of ideology policies introduced necessitated that. But, because of the disastrous loading of incompetence and the institutional knowledge gap that was created as a result of the rapid replacement of key competency by incompetence, the bureaucracy has become incapable of fulfilling its role.

All of this would still have been tolerable, somewhat, if the country’s economy was growing. However, literally everything is in a state of demise; and this process started in 1994. It started with the “Sarafina” corruption scandal, then the Weapons” deal (with the weapons purchased at enormous cost mostly being useless barely 25 years later. Infrastructure is on the brink of total collapse.  Municipalities, education, universities, the Defense Force, SOEs, health services, policing, all started collapsing, and then, for all practical purposes, just give in unto itself.

Nicolás Maduro, today, is a multi-millionaire, Putin is a billionaire, Robert Mugabe was, at the time of his death, one of the richest persons in Africa. Cyril Ramaphiosa is a billionaire; heavens know what “business” he has actually even engage in to bring him all that wealth. His brother-in-law, Patrice Motsepe, is one of the wealthiest persons in Africa. He started out through BBBEEE deals. Our presumed next President, Paul Masathile, owns properties it simply cannot afford on his Deputy President salary.

Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment has never been broad-based; it was always about enriching the small group of politically connected elite. It is about revenge, a struggle, a fight not yet concluded.  It is the vehicle, the ideological key, into the wealth of the state-generated economy.

Image source: 123RF