In a stark warning, David Makhura of the ANC signals that South Africa may be on the brink of a revolution if the GNU fails. Yet, as the government rallies for investment under the guise of patriotism, underlying issues persist: oppressive labour laws, economic restrictions, and rampant crime. Without significant policy shifts, these factors spell an imminent socioeconomic crisis. Drawing parallels with apartheid’s decline, the current trajectory mirrors a precarious future, necessitating radical reform for true transformation.
Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.
By RW Johnson
David Makhura, the ANC’s head of political education, has warned business that if the GNU fails “South Africa is headed for a revolution”. “If the GNU fails, we are all finished” he said. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___ This unusually frank assessment was, however, merely the build-up to the usual ANC demand that business must invest – with investment seen as a moral imperative which businessmen should perform out of a spirit of patriotism. This is, of course, absurd. Businesses invest when they can see a reasonable prospect of profit and if they stop behaving in that manner they will soon go bust. Â
We have been here before, many times. The government brings together the social partners, tries to get the trade unions to make some meaningless declaration of goodwill, promises that in future it will try to ensure reliable electricity and transport – and then demands that business invest massively. This never works, not only because investment doesn’t work that way, but because the trade union promises are worthless and the government is supposed to guarantee electricity and public transport as part of its basic job. You really might have expected that by now the government would have looked at other well-functioning economies – South Korea, Japan, Germany or even China – and realised that none of them proceed via national dialogues, the swearing of social compacts etc.
It is good, for once, to see a senior ANC figure like Mr Makhura admit that his party has brought the country to the edge of ruin, but what does one make of his talk of a revolution ? There is none in sight, no real revolutionaries, nor even any conception of what sort of revolution he means. What one can say, though, is that the steady fall in per capita incomes, the ever growing toll of unemployment, and the terrible poverty of more and more people means that the widespread breakdown of social order is indeed in prospect. A murder rate of 75 killings a day, omnipresent crime, runaway corruption and beggars everywhere are all evidence that this breakdown is already happening. But sooner or later, if we carry on as now, there will indeed be a real social explosion, one which may well dwarf the riots of 2021.
And the big thing to grasp is that the GNU has in no way changed the government’s trajectory. The ANC has carefully kept all the economic portfolios and its easy assumption is that all established ANC policies – the illiberal labour laws, BEE, NHI, the racial quotas in employment, the Mining Charter, almost certainly prescribed assets and so on – will all just continue as before. Yet these are the very laws which prevent investment and economic growth, which have given South Africa the highest unemployment rate in the world, and which are bound to further increase unemployment and poverty. Currently the government happily talks as if the GNU plus a more reliable electricity supply will alone lift economic growth to 5%. This is nonsense.
It is always sensible to compare the ANC with its National Party predecessor. The National Party built a mighty edifice of apartheid laws. It wasn’t just about pass laws and Slegs Blankes notices on park benches. There were laws re-shaping the entire country in terms of the Black Homelands policy and the Group Areas Act. Laws forbidding not just inter-racial marriage but even inter-racial sex. Laws banning people, house-arresting them, banning books and films, 90 day, then 180 day and then unlimited detention laws. Separate universities, job reservation, sporting segregation, prevention of political parties having multi-racial membership, racially based conscription and so on and on. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s those of us who opposed that horrible system could not but quail at its immensity. It enveloped the whole of life, so much so that the idea of a free multi-racial society seemed like a mythical impossibility. After all, to get there would mean dismantling this enormous edifice of apartheid laws and practices.
Yet by the late 1980s the system had begun to collapse. The universities went multi-racial, more and more mixed race couples lived happily together in defiance of the Group Areas Act – and then came 1990. Within a few months De Klerk got rid of most apartheid laws and the few that remained were done away with soon after. After all those years under the looming shadow of the apartheid edifice, it was all over remarkably quickly. Quite soon afterwards I discovered that black teenagers had little idea about what apartheid had been all about.
It may well be that we are heading for a second such bonfire of the vanities. If the ANC keeps all its present laws nothing is more certain than that poverty, inequality and unemployment will increase. And when even nice, reasonable men like Mr Makhura appeal for more investment they do take for granted that the government will not repeal any of its immensely destructive legislation. What they really mean is that business must compensate for the deficiencies of the trade unions and the government by throwing a great deal of money at the problem. This is a foolish and empty hope which merely reveals that ANC people somehow fail to understand that the problem lies in themselves and their policies.
Of course business is encouraged by the very existence of the GNU and by the more co-operative attitude which is visible at government level. So the atmosphere is better. Good. But that is nothing like enough. What we need is the equivalent of De Klerk’s speech of 2 February 1990 when he made it clear that he would repeal the apartheid laws, welcome home the exiles and negotiate a new democratic constitution. If one translates that into current terms, Ramaphosa would need to announce the repeal of all racially-based laws and all the restrictive labour laws and instead embrace a completely free non-racial society. The bravery of De Klerk’s speech was that it accepted the brute fact that all the government’s policies for two generations and more had been completely wrong and misguided. Sooner or later the ANC is going to have to accept a similar mea culpa.
But that is not going to happen now. At very best we are now at much the same stage in ANC terms that PW Botha reached at the Rubicon in 1985. Our GNU is, in that sense, rather like the launch of the tricameral parliament. It signals some real change though far from enough. But underneath the tectonic plates are already shifting. The avalanche of change which took place in 1948 and then again in 1990 suggests that if we stay true to our historical rhythms that when change comes it may do so all in a rush.
Looking back at the apartheid example one realises that the system’s gradual loss of credibility was a crucial factor. It became clear that the black homelands policy was not going to work, that more and more people were ignoring the Group Areas Act, and that the rest of the world was moving on, leaving South Africa more and more isolated. We are in the same situation now. The government has just pushed through the Employment Equity Amendment Act setting targets, sector by sector, for corporate employment with racial quotas at every level. The sheer absurdity of trying to force this strait jacket onto any multinational company willing to invest in South Africa is quite patent. Amidst the world’s highest unemployment, the government is pushing through a law which will drive jobs away.
No other country in Africa has laws like that; indeed,no other country in the world does. This is a fair measure of how far the ANC has aped its Nationalist predecessor, for apartheid South Africa also stood unique in the world.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Botswana – once the poorest country in the world – now has a considerably higher per capita income than South Africa. Before long Namibia too will overtake South Africa in per capita income levels. And Mauritius is now 60% better off than South Africa in per capita terms. At election after election the ANC promises “a better life for all” and yet social inequality and poverty keep increasing way beyond apartheid levels. This is quite transparently unsustainable. So while, for the moment, we are pleased to see the tepid and largely atmospheric changes wrought by the GNU, what lies ahead is a torrential deluge.
Read also:
