Oscar van Heerden
The ANC Through the Years
Dr. Oscar van Heerden - The ANC Through the Years
- Hi, everybody, and welcome to tonight’s Lockdown University. We are focused on South Africa in these sessions, and you probably would’ve met Phumi and I in one or two of the other ones, including Tuesday’s with Judge Johann Kriegler. Tonight we’re very, very happy and privileged and delighted to have Dr. Oscar van Heerden with us. He is a scholar of international relations, particularly on international political economy, and emphasis being on Africa and the South African development region in particular. He’s completed his PhD and master’s studies at the University of Cambridge. He lectured international relations at Witts, and was also a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Johannesburg under the NRF Chair for National Relations and African Diplomacy, that’s Professor Chris Landsberg. Now, his experience over the last two decades and the reason that we want to talk to him tonight is because he has been in strategic support at the ANC’s headquarters in the late 1990s. He’s been a part of the South African Qualifications Authority in 2000, and since then he’s also been an independent consultant. But that part where he started off with the ANC has been something that’s led him to write a book which Phumi has been reading, and which I’m sure will make very good reading for the rest of us in South Africa over the next few months because we are all interested in the history of the ANC, where the ANC have been, where they are headed, what their chances are in this upcoming election, and as everybody who is on this call probably already knows, this is crunch time. The ANC are not exactly in the most strengthened and obviously, let’s say, advantaged position that they maybe have been in previous elections. So I’d love to welcome our guest for the evening, and to welcome him to Lockdown University, Dr. Oscar van Heerden, as well as my cohost, Phumi. So thank you, Oscar, nice to see you and thank you for joining us. Oscar? You just got to unmute him, please. There we are.
Thanks, Gareth, for that introduction, and thanks for having me.
What an absolute pleasure. I think what we’d like to start off with and Phums, if you can unmute Phumi please as well, where we’d like to probably start, and many of the people who are part of this lecture this evening may already be aware of much of the broad history of South Africa so we won’t need to go into too much detail there. But I think specifically zeroing in on the ANC, and I think particularly the ANC in the last 30 years is where our interest’s at, right, Phumi?
Absolutely. And I think Dr. Oscar, from your very privileged position, kind of also talking about the transition from an anti-government movement to a governing party, and you having been in the bosom of all of that, just sketch for us some of what we may not know from the outside, what we may have missed, what we may not have seen beyond the headlines, and kind of your experience over the past 30 years, and how today, looking back, you are feeling.
Yeah, thanks, Phumi. Thanks very much, guys. Let me start by saying that on 27 April, 1994, when I was able to cast my, for the first time, my democratic vote, my right, to actually choose the government of my choosing, by then I had already been denied that right for five years because as you know, we are eligible to vote from 18 and I could only cast my vote at 22 years old. And that was just me. Of course, my parents and my grandparents had been waiting even longer to exercise such a right. And of course, I’m sure people are aware that particular right amongst other freedoms came at a huge cost in terms of the anti-apartheid struggle. Many have died for it and paid the ultimate price. Others have been imprisoned and jailed, detention without trial, and so on and so forth, and just general harassment by the repressive apartheid government. So you can imagine it was a very joyous, very significant day in the lives of ordinary Black South Africans across the divide.
I think the one point I do want to stress, Phumi, is that often people say that the transition was such that it was a miracle, it was so smooth. And in many cases it was smooth because there was no revenge that was exacted from the Black majority on the white minority citizens and so on. But I do think it’s important, especially to our international participants, to know that between 1990, from the time when former president F.W. de Klerk actually unbanned organisations and released political prisoners and invited those citizens that were in exile to come back, from that moment on up until the very eve of the 1994 elections, there was extreme turmoil in South Africa, what is popularly referred to these days as Black-on-Black violence, that was happening, where people had to now defend themselves, a self-defense unit had to be put up. And there was a healthy dose, I think with the TRC, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I think there’s ample evidence that there were third force elements from the apartheid regime involved in fueling that violence and that fighting amongst Black South Africans. So it was a very tumultuous period. Something that people don’t often hear about or perhaps don’t even know is that just a week before the elections, bombs were going off in Johannesburg, in downtown Johannesburg, and the Johannesburg International Airport was bombed and so on by far right-wing elements and so on and so forth.
So it was a very tumultuous period, but it did not dampen the spirit of the huge majority of South Africans who could see their freedom on the horizon. And of course on the day, you know, the huge long cues that were there where people wanted to, for the first time, express their democratic right. And then indeed they did, they elected the African National Congress into power. Now that’s the first thing I wanted to talk about. The Mandela era was one of reconciliation, I think everyone would accept that, it’s one of reconciliation where he made a huge effort to try and bring the various race groups together to find some common ground as to be planting the seeds of nation building, and I think that is important. And people bought into that project. And I think in many ways, we will come to it a bit later, perhaps, the national question, the race question is still very much prevalent within everyday life of South Africans, particularly in the body politic. It’s not something that is completely disappeared, but we have made tremendous strides where we can find common ground around sporting events, around all kinds of national symbols and so on and so forth. And just the collective outrage, for example, in recent days towards the Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party in South Africa, having images of burning the South African flag, it really infuriated South Africans across the colour divide because we see it as a symbol of unity and so on and so forth. A miscalculation, I think, on their part. But there was also, apart with that reconciliation, there was also the issue of debt. And it’s something that, again, I want to also make the point.
Because often you get the narrative that this amazing country, well-endowed country was handed to Blacks and they just messed it up. And unfortunately that couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean, the truth of the matter is that the country was literally bankrupt in 1994. So much so that the government of national unity had to make a loan from the International Monetary Fund in order to fund the first Democratic elections and to pay the civil servants within government, within the military, the police, and so forth. There was no money to actually pay for their salaries and so forth. So a R800 million loan had to be made from the IMF. Thankfully, we’ve paid it back, that loan has been paid back over the years. But it’s important to know that when we look at the fiscus currently and you look at foreign reserves that are there, and at the moment it’s plus-minus to the tune of about US$45 billion, US$47 billion. That is money that had cumulatively been built up by successive administrations since 1994 to at least give us some cushion in terms of foreign reserves within our bank account. The Mbeki ara was about growth and delivery. All of you will know that 1996, two years into democracy, we’ve got this amazing policy document called the Reconstruction Development Programme, where we are going to reconstruct and develop for our people. But because of the former point, there is no money in the fiscus, we had to reorientate ourselves policy-wise. And so the government decided to impose a self-imposed structural adjustment programme instead of going and making loans from the IMF and the World Bank, which is what a lot of post-colonial African countries did, they find themselves in a debt trap, they can’t get out of it, and before you know it, their policies and things are dictated to by the World Bank and the IMF.
And because South Africa was one of the last countries on the continent to obtain its freedom, it could learn from those lessons. And so they simply refused to go and make a loan of that magnitude. Instead, they said, look, our people have been suffering for a very long time, another five years of suffering is not going to be a fundamental crisis. And so we need to tighten the belt, we need to cut spending and so on, and begin to make sure that we re-position ourselves as a country financially. And that’s exactly what the GEAR policy did, growth, employment, and redistribution. There was lots of redistribution, there was a little bit of growth. I think you’ll all know that under the Mbeki administration, we saw growth levels between 5% and 6%, all be it for a very short period, a few years. But it was necessary. There was a commodity boom, there was money to be had, and a lot of that was put into savings and spent on delivery and so forth. And that’s why to this day, people still profess that the Mbeki years were really the good years in terms of post-apartheid. But that is also where the beginnings of the, what I call the political economy of corruption started coming in, started creeping in. I think it’s important, without wanting to make it sound as an excuse, because corruption is a blight on our current political landscape, but I think it’s important that people know that this corruption trend has been coming on since apartheid South Africa. In fact, even before with the colonialists, the Cecil John Rhodes and the Oppenheimer ilk will also have their fair share of having engaged in various forms of corruption. And so there’s a culture within the South African political class, and in the private sector, for that matter, of just the culture of corruption.
And I think one of the things that the ANC government did not really anticipate is power of money and the lure of money, if I can put it like that. They put a lot of policies in place, a lot of big things was put in place, but at no stage did they think that they were going to contend with money. And so what we find today is the political class and others trying to take shortcuts to self enrichment, to in aggrandisement and so on. And even if it means they must do it illegally, they’re prepared to do it just in order to have wealth and money. But we will come back to that point. So the political economy of corruption starts coming in with the Mbeki administration. It was probably there with Mandela’s administration, but the euphoria was such that there was not really attention given to corruption as such. And then of course, it crescendoed under the Zuma administration, it just went to new heights. And I don’t usually want to refer to the nine wasted years, I think you talk of the six wasted years under the Zuma administration. It’s a technical point, but I think it’s important know that by the time Zuma takes over in 2009, there’s a few good things that happens in the first three years of his administration. Such as the successful hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, we joined BRICS as a grouping internationally, among a few other things. And it’s also important, and again, I don’t want to, I’m not a Zuma fan, but I think it’s important to say that with all the shenanigans of the Zuma administration, the foreign reserves still grew, small, incrementally, but it still grew even under the Zuma administration, even though they were stealing from SARS and they were stealing from all kinds of pots and giving it to the Guptas and so on.
And I’m sure there’ll be questions around that period as well. Not our finest hour, the ANC has acknowledged this as a governing party. They elected Zuma as their president twice and this is what he gave the country. A ANC in taters, an ANC brand almost completely destroyed, and then of course, it takes Ramaphosa to come in when the ANC brand is at its lowest ebb. And there’s even now talk of it falling even further with the upcoming elections below 50% and so forth. I don’t think that will happen, but we can discuss it certainly. And then of course, with Ramaphosa, and I’ll conclude with the Ramaphosa era, the Ramaphosa era, that’s been five years, or six, if we take the 2018 year when Zuma was forced to resign, thankfully. So it’s been six years, and that six years really was marred by two major events. The one is of course the COVID pandemic, which just completely hit the South African economy, in fact, the global economy. We lost a million jobs and we had to manage through that particular pandemic. And I think people understood that the previous pandemic was mismanaged in such a way that it led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. And so this time around, I think Ramaphosa’s presidency is credited with the manner in which they steered the ship under that pandemic of COVID-19. Reduced loss of lives, listening to the science, following the science, challenging the world global pharmaceuticals in terms of vaccinations and so forth, and challenging first-world and developed countries wanting to hoard vaccinations and the likes.
And I think that’s an important process that was taken. But, and this is my final point, the ANC decides not to focus on the last term of Ramaphosa, instead going into this election, it talks over the last 30 years. And so let’s look at that quickly, very briefly. Over the last 30 years, we have managed to do all the big things right. And what I mean by big things is our freedoms and the practising of democracy. Our freedoms are enshrined in a world-class constitution and a bill of rights. And our courts have proven over and over, including the highest court in the land, the Constitutional Court, that it is independent and it will defend and protect our rights as enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so that’s a very important thing. We have an independent fourth estate, independent media in other words. They can write what they like, they can say what they like, they can investigate what they like. There will be attempts in all democracies to try and cajole and try and pommel certain journalists and certain media houses, but nothing that suggests a repressive government that ties to silence the media and tries to intimidate them to a point where they can’t write what they want.
And I think that’s important. So we have an independent media, an independent judiciary, we have a functioning legislature, national legislature, that has also exercised its roles and responsibilities in terms of repealing of many apartheid laws, and of course developing new laws that protects the LGBTQ+ communities, that protects women and children, and so on and so forth. So the big things it seems we have done right. The problem is that it is the small things. And here I’m talking about the interpersonal, the relationship between me and Gareth, me and you, Phumi. The relationship, for example, when you look at Marikana, the Marikana massacres, the relationship between employees, mine workers, and their employer, Lonmin. And that can be replicated across the board. But it’s about the relationship between workers and employers, and what is the interpersonal relationship there? Are they just seen as ones that sell their labour and must be exploited? Or is there some modicum of humanity in the relationship between employers and employees? The highest paid worker and the employer, which is usually the CEO, and the lowest blue collar, that gap is so wide, hence South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. Then there’s the relationship between citizens and the police. We look at the June 2021 protests, the looting and the criminality that happened, where the police did not have a handle on the matter and just allowed it to take place because they were intimidated and so forth.
Did it mean that there’s a breakdown of law? Did it mean that the youngsters, in particular in the main that participated in the looting just didn’t have any regard for the law of the land? This kind of interpersonal relationship between those that must enforce the law and those that are breaking the law. We saw, for example, also, Nigerians, foreign nationals, attacking a police station and so on, and so becoming very emboldened even though they’re in a foreign country to even attack law enforcement and so forth. So those interpersonal skills is really, really important. And then maybe a final example I can think of is between the educator and those that are wanting the education, students. And so if we look at NSFAS, and the dynamics of NSFAS over the last 30 years, the fact that we now provide some safety net and free higher education to certain students that fall within a certain income bracket, and yet we see it is marred by problems. There’s continuous protests, students are always burning and breaking down university properties and so forth at the beginning of the years. And it seems that educators don’t have an understanding of that relationship, of what it is that students are experiencing on a day-to-day and going hungry and so on and so forth. So what I’m saying is that we’ve done the big things right over the last 30 years, but if we want to consolidate our democracy, then we need to concentrate on the small and the little things, which is the interpersonal. And this again, is where I say the race issue comes in.
Because when we look at these upcoming elections in the next 20 days, and you analyse elections prior, you then see that people are still voting according to their lagers, the lagers that they feel comfortable in. And so English-speaking whites predominantly, of course, not exclusively, but predominantly still vote DA, your Afrikaner white community is more comfortable with your Freedom Front and your Freedom Front Plus. And then you have your Christians voting for Christian parties, Muslims for Muslim parties, and so on and so forth. So very much still on these lagers, which is not good for nation-building. And that’s the final point I want to make. If we want to come together as a nation and grow as a nation, then we really need to pay to this issue of non-racialism, non-sexist, democratic South Africa. Thank you.
Sure. That really does paint quite a vivid picture, I think, around many of the big things, to use your words. And I’d like to take a moment, maybe a step back into your own, if you’re happy to share, in your own personal life. Because I know you came from the UDF movement into the ANC, which at the time the ANC was banned so those kind of movements, those youth movements were important to keep the struggle alive, and then being folded into this organisation when it was unbanned. Did you find when you came into the organisation that it was what had been built up in your mind during the struggle years what this party was about?
Yeah, so I got involved in the struggle in 1985 at the tender age of 13. And the reason was my consciousness was awakened because one of my fellow classmates was shot and killed by the police. We were in our final year of primary school. We saw there’s soldiers around, I grew up in Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape, and we knew there’s soldiers around and there’s always a bit of things happening, but you don’t really know what it’s all about. Until, as I say, I come to school one Monday morning and we are informed that fellow student, Quentin Bailey, was shot and killed by the police. The circumstances, apparently, was that he was playing in his backyard, there was commotion and protest by high school students. He sort of looked over the fence to see what was going on, and unfortunately, a ricochet bullet, a live bullet from the police then hit him and killed him instantly. And so we have to then go to his funeral. And of course, again, something we weren’t familiar with, the funeral was politicised because by the time we get there, there’s students singing Hamba Kahle, there’s a serious presence of police and military personnel in and around the church, the Anglican Church in Rocklands. And of course, as I now can say retrospectively, it didn’t take long for the police to say everyone must disperse, absolutely no respect for the funeral. And tear gas started flying, dogs were set on us, and it was just mayhem, chaos, everyone running in every direction and being sjamboked and so on and so forth. So that evening, I had a few words with my mother, and I said what the hell is going on here? And she had to sort of lay it out to me and say, well, things are not what it seems.
Did she allow you to say what-
And that was probably my first political education lesson that I got from my mother. And of course, the following year, as soon as we entered high school in 1986, there’s still a state of emergency, these draconian laws are still applicable, and yeah, the rest, as they say, is history, I get involved in the struggle. Those days, Phumi and Gareth, you had three choices on the Cape Flats. You either immersed yourself in the church, and I’m talking of seriously immerse yourself in the church because everyone needed to know that you are someone from the church. Or you go and you become a gang member. You join a gang and you get yourself involved in gangsterism, which has all the concomitant associations of drugs, and abuse, and, and, and. And probably, as is the case on the Cape Flats, I would’ve found myself in prison much sooner than I would’ve wanted to be. And then the third option was, you find a mission in life, a goal, and you say to yourself, there’s an apartheid, a crime against humanity, and you want to overthrow this government and you want to set yourself and the people of South Africa free. And so you immerse yourself in that goal and endeavour. And that’s what I did from that tender age of 14. And of course, by the time I’m 17, I’m on the wanted list, the police is looking for me, the special branch is hunting me down, raiding my mother’s house every second week and so on and so forth. And it’s just, yeah, you know the usual drill. Eventually, they obviously, they always catch you. Eventually they caught me and there was detention and so on and so forth. But it just strengthened your resolve, you know? But then we come out-
Resolve? And the reason I ask that question in particular is because for me, being a young person growing up in the township, we’ve always understood that the people who were drawn into the movement in any way were drawn there by principle, were drawn there by resolve, were drawn there because of big events in their lives, like the death of a friend in your circumstance. How then down the line do, and your words were, money is powerful, is this organisation that is built by these kind of principled people, how is it that it has found itself so corrupted? I mean, when the pandemic was happening, people were dying and we had comrades stealing money, we had such looting of state coffers. How do those two things live together? And for you, having been in the movement throughout this time, what would you say is the reason this has come to this place?
Look, I mean, the truth is, the way I would answer it is that the ANC being this broad church, as they always say, has had to contend with this issue of corruption for a very long time, even before it took power in South Africa. You look at Pixley ka Seme, who was credited for, one of the founding members of the ANC, he ran a Ponzi scheme when he was involved in the struggle where he would involve people to give him money and he would pretend he’s having a stokvel for funerals and so on, and then he disappears with the money. I mean, that’s just one anecdote. But the point is that there had always been bad apples within the ANC as a movement. I think that the exile years also was difficult, it was a difficult period. The ANC was classified by leading governments in the world as a terrorist organisation, and so no one was prepared to give it money. But they had to find ways and means of actually getting that money. Some of the money came from Russia, some of the money came from China and the Vietnamese, and some from Cuba. But there was also other things that they’re to engage in to try and get money. And so by the time the ANC comes back into South Africa, it is already quite corrupted, or at least some of the comrades is already quite corrupted. And then of course, you’re now a political party in the democratic South Africa, you have no money, what do you do? Even Mandela, the great Mandela, used to know that he had a task to try and fundraise, to go to the Sultan of Brunei, to go to Muammar Gaddafi, and others, and say we need money in order to contest the next election. There’s rumours, for example, as recently the ANC went and got money from the Saudis to try and fund the 2024 election campaign and so forth. Now of course, as long as these things are done within the rules and it’s declared, then it’s probably okay. But the point I’m trying to make is that there’s always been this culture of survival. And then when we now got our hands on the levers of power, and including the purse strings, well, then it was just Christmas. And so we are now wanting to pull back on that because people think that they can get away with it, you see? And the more you then have relations-
Our current president is a perfect example. Cyril Ramaphosa is a product of the largess of big business just handing him enormous value in their businesses for nothing but his connections to the ANC. So the man at the top is a perfect example of what you’re saying, Oscar.
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, and there’s many examples of that. It’s not only Cyril, it’s Tokyo, it’s Wendy Luhabe, and many others where these private business knew that they needed to court the political elite, or at least some of them, to give some modicum or resemblance of normality. And that’s where the problem started. Because everyone now thinks that they can follow that path, that they can demand money and so on and so forth. We see it even through the construction mafia, the taxi mafia, everyone just feels entitled that people must just give them money because why not? So that culture is something that is very pervasive, it doesn’t help. And I think it’s important, it is important to make the point that it doesn’t help that the private sector also are found wanting in terms of the various collusions that’s happening. Whether it’s on flour and the price of bread, whether it’s with bicycles because a lot of us are suddenly now wanting to become fitness freaks, or whether it is indeed around the bank charges. I mean, we know the banks just recently, a year or so ago, had to pay a R250 million fine because they were cheating us on our bank charges. So this kind of stuff is happening all the time, it’s a culture of corruption, and I am just thankful that people like yourselves in the fourth estate, but also NGOs and many others, and slowly but surely even government officials are now coming to the fore and blowing the whistle and saying, no, but this kind of looting and corruption can’t continue and so forth. And I think these are signs of a maturing democracy, and it’s an important, it’s a step in the right direction.
So I just want to pick up on a couple of things. I loved your breakdown of the various eras, the Mandela era of reconciliation, the Mbeki one of growth and development, the Zuma one of corruption, and then Ramaphosa’s one of nothing, if you don’t mind me filling in that word, you didn’t say it, but I will. Because really nothing has happened in his first or supposedly this next term. But you did mention those interpersonal things, and I want to just pick up on one or two of them quickly. And obviously I’d love to have your comments ‘cause I don’t think you’re entirely sympathetic to the ANC even though you know more about the internal workings than we do, which is why it’s so nice to have you here. But you mentioned Marikana, again, behind the scenes there was the current president weaving his ways through the company which he was a shareholder in, which was the company that was abusing those workers. You mentioned education, but the ANC’s ties to SADTU are well-known. SADTU holds everyone in this country hostage when it comes to education, and we have particularly poor outcomes in education despite the fact that we spend more than any other nation in the world, proportionally. You mentioned the riots, and again, the reason for those riots was an internal battle in the ANC and the expulsion and then the criminal charges brought against the former president, Jacob Zuma, his supporters were the ones who largely started those riots. So, so far three, and the last one, big business and inequality. I mean, again, big business and inequality, we know how big business and government cooperate to the detriment of the average South African citizen. We know that government, big business, and the trade unions are all in cahoots, and the only losers in that picture are us. So when you talk about the ANC losing on the interpersonal things, I don’t think it’s that they’re losing, it’s that they’ve been in charge of those things and they’ve screwed those up as well as the other things that they’ve screwed up. It’s not, and these are on the side that they haven’t really, we can’t blame them for these, I say we can
Look, I mean, I think you’re absolutely right. But the truth is also that the relationship, the cosy relationship which is often not spoken about between the private sector and the political elite is also glaringly obvious. You look at, for example, when we talk of the nine wasted years or we talk of the Gupta era, the role that private business, KPMG, Bain, and others played in fermenting this, and some of the banks, for that matter, is criminal to say the least. You look at criminal how-
[Gareth] Criminal.
Private sector now and the run up to this election, and they’ve done it before in other elections, the amounts of money that they’re making available to smaller parties, to individuals, to try and somehow break the stronghold of the governing party, it’s unbelievable the amount of money that they’re throwing around. So the point I’m making is that in as much, you’re absolutely right, the ANC is always centre to a lot of these things and the interpersonal, but close on their heels is the private sector that is also just fermenting this kind of stuff. And so I think what’s important is civil society and those elements within the the media, amaBhungane and others such as yourselves, must hold these people to account. Because not doing anything and leaving it in the hands of the politic is very, very dangerous.
Mm, so, and I think about the interpersonal-
Sorry, Phumi, to just come back, just to conclude your previous question. So when I then in 1996 go and work at the ANC head office for two years, it’s the first time I then, or let me put it this way, let me put it this way. The evening of the elections in 1994, I was privileged to be part of the media sort of nerve centre of the ANC throughout the elections of 1994. I was one of five young university students that was asked to come and assist. And so you were interacting with the Mandelas, and the Sisulus, and Pallo Jordan was there and many others, people, you know? But the point I want to make is that the evening, when it’s now the results are announced, there is this big party at the Carlton Hotel, which is where the nerve centre was, but it’s obviously on a different floor, and it’s a massive party. And the entire leadership of the ANC is there, people that you have admired during the 80s, people that you had listened to on Radio Freedom, Tambo and Mandela and all of them. Well, Tambo wasn’t there, but you know the point I’m trying to make. And you try and greet all of them and you want photos with all of them. And it was a very emotional, nostalgic moment.
And then two years later, I go and work for the ANC and I’m now in the inner workings of the ANC, in the boardrooms in the corridors. And you see very different people, the very same people, but you see them in different roles, in different responsibilities, and reality sets in. I’ll give you an example of a very good friend of mine who’s now late, Comrade Essop Pahad. We’re in a meeting, we’re talking about another elections that’s coming up, I forget which one, and Jessie Duarte, also late, unfortunately, was in charge of the posters. And she informs the meeting that we secured the posters, it’s going to cost X per poster, and Essop says, “What kind of Indian are you? Couldn’t you have negotiated a better price?” But I mean, it was tongue in cheek, it was a light moment, but you see these leaders in a different light in a different way and so on and so forth. And especially when there’s crisis, then you see people react very differently. I mean, I was there on the day when the Inkatha Freedom party decided just a week before the elections to come and march to Shell House. And how we indiscriminately shot and killed many of the Inkatha Freedom Party supporters and so forth.
And the police just standing there saying, wow, we are not going to get involved in this Black-on-Black violence. So you see people in different light. And gradually, my perception and understanding of the ANC matured, because there was a romanticism at the beginning, and I think that’s where you want me to go. There was a romanticism at the beginning about this amazing organisation with these amazing leaders who come from exile and there they’re here to liberate us and so on and so forth. And then you begin to experience them, live with them, work with them, and you see different personalities, different people. And you grow with that organisation over time and you see how corruption starts creeping in, how people prioritise money more than friendship and so forth. I mean, I have some of my closest friends, as they say, are ministers and deputy ministers today. Zizi Kodwa is one of my closest friends. We grew up together on the streets in Guguletu and Mitchells Plain. And now I’m told there’s charges that are being drawn up against him for alleged corruption. I mean, it’s not nice, but this is the reality.
I thought you were going to to say some of your closest friends are now billionaires after all of the corruption.
Well, there’s that too, but I think-
But I think that interpersonal, can I ask this question, Oscar?
[Oscar] Yeah.
About that interpersonal, because I think you’ve painted so vividly how the person and the myth are not the same. We hear a lot about the interpersonal friction of individuals within the ANC that have also led to factions.
[Oscar] Yes.
So is that also something that is bigger than what the ANC can manage? And is it one of the things?
The ANC is a political party now, it’s all about power. And power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And yes, if I’m number six on the list and suddenly someone changes the list and I’m now number 20, I’m going to have an issue with that. I’m going to take issue with it because you are taking my bread and butter away from me, so to speak. So what I want to just conclude with my hypothesis is that the reality set in for me, romanticism out the window, we are dealing with a political organisation with real individuals, forget about the myths, and let’s interact in that way. And so there are two groupings in the ANC. The one that is saying we still need to create a better life for our people, we still need to build more houses, give more access, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then there are those that say we want to use the ANC as a shortcut to enrichment, to wealth, and so on and so forth. And these two are clashing at all times, and have been for a very long time. And that brings me to one point I want to respond to with Gareth’s point about Ramaphosa. I put it to you, Gareth, that in the five years of Ramaphosa’s term, he had restored the dignity of some of our institutions that was hollowed out under the Zuma administration. He got rid of Abrahams at the NPA and brought in a credible Batohi. He got rid of Tom Moyane at SARS who was really taking us down the doldrums, and brought in a competent leader like Kieswetter. And he had re-imagined SAA and Eskom. Those two projects are not yet complete, it’s underway-
They’re still imagination.
[Oscar] Say again?
They’re still imagination, but that’s-
[Oscar] Yes.
Look, you may have a very good point-
I think the seeds-
About getting rid Abrahams and bringing in Batohi, and Tom Moyane out and Kieswetter in. But really, I mean, if you’re digging that deep, and the ANC’s digging deep at the moment, and this is really, we haven’t got a lot of time, but I think their campaign, Phumi and I were talking yesterday about how they’re trotting out and wheeling out old stalwarts to help them fight this campaign. You mentioned Tokyo Sexwale earlier, Thabo Mbeki is out on the campaign trail, I think quite reluctantly, who knows? These people do feel a tremendous sense of family within the ANC. The ANC for many of them was their family during the struggle. They didn’t have any other interpersonal relations outside of the ANC 'cause it was a, not just a broad church, but everyone belonged to it and that was your chief sense of responsibility and loyalty. But they really are grasping at straws at the moment because the young people in the ANC, however young young is in the ANC, 'cause we used to joke about the Youth League being 40-plus years old, but it seems to me like it’s just this club of people who’ve done extremely well to pass around favourable contracts and tenders to each other. The younger people in the ANC, maybe there’s still a spark of hope among them, but it’s all these old geriatrics that they’re wheeling out to come and make the ANC look relevant again. No young people except for Fikile Mbalula and maybe Paul Mashatile-
How young is he? He’s 50. He’s 50, Gareth.
Fikile is my age. No, I would have to respectfully disagree because I think that there is a number of young leaders that have come through the ranks in the ANC. We talk of Ronald Lamola, we talk of Thembi Simelane, we talk of Khumbudzo, who’s the minister in the presidency, we talk of Alvin Botes, there’s quite a lot of youngsters that have come through the ranks. And yes, the ANC Youth League was in disarray for a number of years after the abrupt departure of Julius Malema, but they’ve now come full circle and they’ve got their house in order and at least they’ve got a national executive. And let’s see how they’re going to try and pull together the Youth League again. But I think it’s one way of looking at it that these old geriatrics are being pulled in, I think the geriatrics decided for themselves. Remember Mbeki decided in the last election not to participate in the election campaign and the election trail. He’s doing it this time around because he feels a sense of responsibility. His treatise that he gave at Freedom Park is what I think compelled him to participate in the election campaign. Because he does think that Zuma and Zuma’s ilk is busy with the counter-revolutionary project that has really compromised the country and the ANC. And we might agree or disagree with that treatise, but that’s what he believes. And I think that’s why he decided he’s going to throw his weight behind Cyril’s administration because he can see Cyril is fighting these forces in the ANC as well as outside of the ANC now in the form the MK party and so on and so forth. Kgalema is, I mean, he is still very much able and so on. So I don’t think these people are are being forced to be in the campaign trail. As to Tokyo, I don’t think anyone asked Tokyo, I think Tokyo is on his own. He just sort of jumped up and said let me also do my bit, and before we knew it, he’s popping up in Soweto. I don’t even think that the Luthuli House is necessarily aware, but they won’t obviously say to him, we don’t want you to do it, because they can do with all the help they can get.
So we have eight minutes and we have 17 questions. And what I’m going to try and do, there are four which all relate to the same thing.
Q&A and Comments:
Lots of people in shock at the revelation of the Nationalist government, the pre-freedom government being broke and being corrupt, and everyone asking why would they have been broke? Do you want to talk a little bit about that, and then I’ll move on to some other questions?
- Yeah, so very in a nutshell, the 60s were tumultuous and stormy years for the Nationalist Party government, hence they had to ban the ANC and have the Rivonia Trial to try and really crush the leadership of any liberation organisation, the PAC, the ANC, the South African Communist Party, et cetera, SADTU and the likes. But then there were the boom years of the 70s, the economy really grew exponentially, there was a commodity boom, the National Party government had lots of money in the coffers. Things were going well, and they could then prop up the cross-border wars in Zambia, in Angola and so on and so forth, so it was good. But then as they got into the 80s, and particularly after students, not that I want to claim students were the sort of end all and be all and the panacea. But after 1976 when students got involved in the struggle, and it wasn’t just the trade union movement and adults, but schools, universities was now beginning to also say, the youth were going to say no, so far and no further, from there onwards, the repressive government had to spend more money on trying to repress the population. Prisons were getting full, et cetera, et cetera, money started leaving the coffers. And so by the mid 1980s, '85, '86, the Nationalist Party government is in serious financial trouble, they literally cannot keep going.
And so part of the change of heart in 1990, besides losing the war, the Cuito Cuanavale conflict in Angola against the Cubans, SWAPO, the MPLA and of course, Umkhonto we Sizwe, it leads to Namibia’s freedom in 1989. So it was a domino effect. And by the time the Americans and the British pick up the phone now that the Berlin Wall has fallen, they say, look, you are out of money, you are losing wars, the internal protest and mass mobilisation is unprecedented, it’s time for change. And that’s why the National Party government did what they did. Now there are pundits out there, and the other night, Dave Ruit was one of them, who said they probably could have kept on going and fighting for another 10 years, because the truth is that even though you don’t have money, you can still borrow, you can still cash in, cut budgets and so on and try and keep it going. But it was really going to be ruinous for the country, and the wealth that was sitting with white South Africans was going to be lying in peril, and so it was a clever decision, it was a wise decision to say it’s time to move to normality. Let’s send out people to Senegal, to Dakar, and start talks about talks. Let’s have secret talks with the ANC in Sweden, Switzerland, and in the UK, and so on and so forth. So I know this is difficult for people to comprehend, and I picked it up, and the reason why I mentioned it is because I picked it up at the Franschhoek Literary Festival where I mentioned it one year. And people were literally swinging their heads saying, no, no, no, no, no, that’s not true. But the truth is that is the truth, the country was bankrupt.
Roelf spoke about it quite extensively. I was at a talk where he spoke about that too. So it it’s fascinating.
[Oscar] Who’s that?
Roelf Mayer.
Oh yes, yes.
Q - He also speaks about it quite extensively. I wouldn’t know where to find it though. And then with three minutes to go, because one of the other books that you have written is about foreign policy, the politics of Mbeki and foreign policy, whether it’s consistent or confused. And there are a couple of questions that have come up that are also asking about this, that are asking about the dichotomy of South Africa’s democratic aspirations, and at the same time seeming to align itself with repressive regimes like China, like Russia, and so on and so forth. Would you like to speak a little bit about that?
A - Sure. Look, firstly, the term repressive regimes is just a false term. Repressive regimes means that those governments are repressing their people, they are stripping them of basic rights and so forth. And if you look at both of these countries that is usually mentioned, China and Russia, it’s so far from the truth. You cannot have a dynamic economy such as China’s for more than 30 years, it’s the fastest growing most dynamic economy with the largest growth in the middle class of millionaires and billionaires in dollars, with technological advances, et cetera, when you are oppressing your people, it’s just not, it’s a misnomer. So what we should rather say, Phumi, is that these are governments that have different forms of governance practises. Because democracy as we know it in terms of the West, which is what we practise in South Africa correctly, is not necessarily the only method of governance. Some countries have theocracies, like Saudi Arabia and others, others have got one party states, and there’s many of those, and so on and so forth. It doesn’t necessarily mean that if it’s not the model that you have, that those are repressive governments.
I mean, I’ve been to both countries, both China and to Russia many a times, and I can tell you people are living very peacefully, they love their government, they support their government. The dark days of the post-1990 era when the Soviet Union had to break up and there were oligarchs that were running, mafias literally running the economy, Yeltsin drinking himself into oblivion, Putin is the one who brought the country back to where it is today. And the Russians are not forgetting that. It doesn’t mean I support Putin, I mean, I don’t know the guy, but we have to talk about the realities and look at all lenses. Similarly with China, where China was 40, 50 years ago, I mean, and where it is today, I mean, the Chinese people can’t forget this. They’re now travelling, millions of them, millions of them are leaving the country, going on tourisms in America and elsewhere, Europe and so on, and they all come back to China. They don’t run away and say, we don’t want to go back. Now, does China have problems? Of course. Does Russia have some problems? Of course. Just like South Africa. And I mean, I’m the first to say we have huge challenges in South Africa, crime, we’ve got challenges around socioeconomics, unemployment, poverty, and so on and so forth. But I find it strange, Phumi, that people have this notion that we are in bed with these repressive governments, as they put it, but they themselves have got very nice cosy bilaterals.
I mean, China is the United States’ biggest trading partner to the tune of trillions of US dollars. Similarly, prior to the Ukraine war, Europe was benefiting from cheap gas and oil from Russia for decades. Suddenly today they want to tell us we are in bed with the wrong bedfellows. I think that South Africa is on the right track. It will determine its own foreign policy that is serving its own national interests.
And at one minute past seven, I think that is a good, lest they say, Gareth, you in particular, that Africans don’t know how to keep time. Thank you very much for coming on board and having this, I wish we could have gone through all of the questions, everyone, but we can’t. And some of the things that have been raised, there are other talks that we are going to be hosting over the next two weeks that will answer some of these questions. Oscar, you spoke about the Thabo Mbeki 30-year reflections, we are going to have a recording of that to share with everybody next week. So there’s still a lot to come and some of these questions will be answered. Thank you for participating. Thank you for coming and chatting with us, Oscar. Gareth, baba, do the close.
Yebo. No, I think that’s been extremely helpful. And people often used to think of the ANC as this completely closed tent, and if you weren’t in it and you didn’t know the inner workings, it was very complicated and clandestine, and there was this one who talked to that one and there were these hierarchies of power. And what we found is actually that’s not true, it was just like every other political organisation, just completely disorganised and chaotic most of the time. I do think that it’s, and you mentioned Thabo Mbeki’s speech that he made the other day, his treatise, I think that Thabo Mbeki probably has a better handle on it than most people, but of course he’s been outside the tent for a good decade and a bit. And I think that many people who are listening to this this evening may also be feeling like they’re not sure what the ANC really stands for now. We kind of know the history. The history has been written extremely well by people who are as well-versed as you are in its story. But I’m thrilled tonight that you could answer some of our questions, and that you could spend some time with us, I know how busy you are. By the way, for the audience, Oscar is actually currently on the campaign trail following the president. And got you another book coming out of this maybe?
Yes, there’s always the book in the works. I just want to say, to really encourage everyone to, on the 29th of May, to go out and cast your vote, and yeah, just practise your democratic right.
Very good. Well, thank you, Oscar, thank you, Phumi, and most especially thank you to you if you joined us this evening. We’ll be back with some more of these special episodes in a series on South Africa ahead of our next and probably most important since ‘94 democratic election. Goodnight everybody, thank you.
[Oscar] Goodnight.