The mainstream media is alarmed by the formation of the MK Party. It's composed of disaffected supporters. The alarm is exacerbated since Jacob Zuma has thrown his support behind it. The liberal-left blames Zuma and his supporters for SA's state: corruption death spiral, failing state and social and economic decline. While Zuma and those on his coat tails bear a huge responsibility, the entire ANC was and is responsible.
Daily Maverick asks how can Zuma's supporters still back him after what he's done to the country. They've demonized Zuma, and rightly so. But corruption has worsened under Ramaphosa. As president of the country and ANC he failed to act against those in his party, cadres and others complicit in state capture and failed to implement Zondo Commission recommendations. Members of his cabinet including himself (Phala Phala) who have credible allegations implicating them in corruption are sitting pretty. He was head of the cadre deployment committee, the records of which the ANC refused to hand to the DA in defiance of a court judgement. He has defended cadre deployment, recognised as the key instrument of state-wide corruption.
The economy worsened under Ramaphosa's administration too. This proves that he's no different to his predecessor, only he has a manufactured air of sophistication that fooled so many people including moderates and centre-rights.
While state capture gained momentum under Zuma, it did not start or ended with him. He is a member of a party-state ecosystem that initiated and facilitated criminality and corruption on a grand scale. It's hard to know when it started but it was always in the ANC, maturing with the arms deal.
So the diagnosis that Zuma (and his supporters) is largely to blame for almost everything that's gone wrong over the past 30 years is inadequate and simplistic.Coincidentally, in his column last Saturday William Saunderson-Meyer asks a similar question to DM except to broaden the scope: how can the ANC attract such support despite their disastrous rule?
This is not to say Zuma and the MK Party should not be examined. But DM168's suggestion Zuma, his supporters and MK are the most dangerous people in the country now, and just before the most important election since 1994, is exaggerated, swayed in no small part by the liberal-left's dislike of him. The ANC, and the criminal gangs associated with it, is still the most dangerous threat to the country.
Another of the liberal-left's tropes that I disagree with is the exaggerated "it’s going to take a long time to undo apartheid’s legacy [sic]".
Corruption has siphoned an estimated trillion rand in 30 years. That's the actual cost but there's also the incalculable opportunity cost too, both impacting every aspect of the nation - social, economic, infrastructure and so on. Then there's the almost totally incompetent way the ANC managed the state, inept cadres a big problem.
These and the ANC's backward and backward-looking ideology are responsible for SA being what it is: a struggling country, rapidly heading towards a failed state (see Fragile State Index). SA's indicators - unemployment and inequality where it's the highest in the world, poverty, HDI, crime, education, corruption etc - make dismal reading. These cannot be blamed on apartheid's legacy.
If from the first five years after 1994 (almost) everything had been done right and there was the will, apartheid's legacy - basically, the disparity in socio-economic opportunity between the races - could and would have been reversed, or begun to reverse, by now.
Where to begin? In a generation, the worst of poverty can be overcome. Other countries, some starting with fewer resources than SA and world-wide support, did it. In fact, BEE, affirmative action and doubling the number of mostly sinecure government jobs created SA's black middle class, a number larger than the entire white population. Unfortunately, this sudden wealth led to massive consumerism rather than building sustained, long-term investment in the country, an accusation often made against the private sector.
Since 1994, unemployment has increased by over 10% (official rate). That's not apartheid's fault. This despite a huge increase in tertiary education enrollments (10% unemployment among tertiary graduates, on its own a drastic number), over 50% being STEM and economics management fields. Poverty is still over 50%, most being blacks then browns. Poor education, lack of opportunities and unemployment are drivers of poverty. These are not apartheid's fault.
Crumbling, neglected and mismanaged facilities - schools, hospitals, police stations, roads, etc - and entire entities - municipalities, Eskom, SOEs etc - are not apartheid's fault.
I agree, though, the private sector's "massive markups" (big business makes up to 50% more profits than similar companies abroad) and certain business practices. To an extent I agree they could have invested locally but that's with the qualification the environment - policies, regulations, conditions like infrastructure, high taxes and ANC's overall anti-business stance - has been deteriorating to the point it's now difficult for businesses, large and small, in South Africa. If not for the robust but now struggling private sector, SA would already be a Zimbabwe-like failed state. (I once thought SA would never be that bad but another five years of the ANC will take us there.)
The private sector must share a portion of the blame, though, for encouraging and kowtowing to the ANC and being active participants to BEE bribery and an oligarchic economy, eg banks, cellular networks which have strangled the economy for profits, for so long. Like South Africans in general, they only awoke to the existential threat the ANC posed mid-2022 with sustained load-shedding and the real possibility of Eskom's collapse, and lately, Transnet's dysfunction. If not for that, it would have been business as usual.
In 1994 the ANC inherited functioning, world class departments and organisations that in only 20 years they've ruined. It took the previous regime most of the 20th century to build them to what they were. Now even some on the left including ANC are admitting institutions were properly managed during apartheid and the country is failing.
In 2017 Trevor Noah had a show in SA. Commenting on society, he said (many) South Africans still looked backwards, not forwards; this wasn't progressive. This is true. I'd say among, ironically, well-off non-whites, particularly those on the left (or those too ideological), have a chip on their shoulders about apartheid - allegedly it's still to blame for the status quo when manifestly it is not true. Those making the assertion are either duplicitous left or far-left politicians, or unwilling to admit that democracy under a black-run government has been an abject failure, thereby making the racist prophecy true.
We're 20 years beyond blaming apartheid for anything and beyond looking for scapegoats when the culprits are still present and flourishing.
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