South Africa’s Storms and Good Hope

Recent days have seen Cape Town once again pummelled by heavy storms, high rainfall, severe winds and tumultuous seas giving credence to the title ‘Cabo Tempestado’ (Cape of Storms) the name given it by Portuguese navigator Bartholomew Dias after passing around a terrible storm off the Southern African coast in 1488 as he sought to circumnavigate the African continent in search of a trading route to the wealth of India and the East.

Source: Unsplash

In the socio-economic-political spheres the country, as described by Prof. Dr. Irina Filatova’s, June 16 RIAC article South Africa Stands on Verge of Massive Domestic Crisis appears to be facing escalating multi-faceted storms.

Systemic corruption, mismanagement of state owned entities, public sector bloat, an increasingly belligerent revenue collection service that treats South African’s more like chattel slaves than citizens, amongst the world’s highest unemployment and rates of violent crime, among the world’s worst performing countries in terms of maths and science scores for high school graduates and an unacceptably high rate of tertiary educational dropouts. This isn’t breaking news but the logical outworking of the ongoing National Democratic Revolutionary (NDR) philosophical narrative adopted by the governing African National Congress (ANC). It is true that under these policies the country is being directed to an ever-stifling centralisation in the name of common good collectivism.

It is an undeniable and deepening crisis, one which the governing ANC/SACP/COSATU¹ Alliance will find increasingly difficult to navigate in order to avoid losing their outright parliamentary majority which they have enjoyed for an unbroken 28-year tenure since 1994. According to recent reports and polls, including statements by the SACP, the forecasted outcome of the next general election is that the ANC will lose their parliamentary majority and be forced into some sort of coalition with smaller opposition parties. The most likely partner in this respect would be the extremist far-left leaning Economic Freedom Fighters who favour nationalisation of mines, banks, agriculture and the private health sector.

A less likely outcome is that there is sufficient defection amongst ANC voters to the centre/centre-right parties liberal (Democratic Alliance/DA), socially conservative (African Christian Democratic Party/ACDP and Freedom Front/FF+) or the emergent but electorally untested Independent Candidate level movement (One South Africa/OSA). These parties, despite differences, share a broadly similar political and economic outlook (protection of the rights of the individual, free markets, privatisation of state owned entities et.al) and at the provincial, metropolitan and municipal level demonstrated the ability to work together in order to run efficient, comparatively corruption free administrations in their respective spheres.

The political stakes are rising, compounded by the various debilitating factors described by Dr Filatova, a toxic cocktail that if not neutralised could push the country off the edge into a failed state or the even worse case of a Hobessian ‘war of all against all’ scenario. The situation in many ways resembles the early 1990’s when fears of a full scale political/tribal war between the ANC and the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party). The added risk of a military coup by the South African Defence Force generals to stop what they regarded as a communist takeover of the country. The very prospect of a peaceful outcome seemed remote with the IFP refusing to participate in the elections. Efforts by America's Henry Kissinger and Britain’s Lord Carrington failed to reach an accord with news reports of cataclysm, doomsday and apocalypse being forecast for the country.

Yet events turned out quite differently to what many had predicted, the IFP finally agreed to take part in the elections. The threat of a military coup when senior officer General Constand Viljoen registered the Freedom Front as a party on 1 March 1994 sending a clear message that the only feasible option was through the political process. Peaceful elections took place in what many believed to have been a miraculous trend reversal. South Africa had survived the storms and seemed to have entered a new and hope filled era.

That was then. Today the euphoria of the Rainbow Nation lies dead and buried in the graves of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It would seem that the socio-economic-political storms for which we are so accustomed have returned with a vengeance.

Alongside the decrepit and ailing political state of affairs the future direction of which could swing in any number of ways there exists a robust and resilient private and non-governmental sector consisting of multiple entities that are self-consciously working to counteract the decline of and fill the vacuum caused by dysfunctional local government as well as building alternative structures in multiple spheres that have become synonymous with the general socialist drift of the ANC. Chief amongst these groupings is the Solidariteits Beweging (Solidarity Movement).

The broader Solidarity Movement could best be described as a confederation of civil society organisations, including but limited to a Trade Union (Solidarity), Civil Rights (Afriforum), Social services (Solidarity Helping Hand), a private university and other training institutions.²

British born political scientist, journalist, historian and emeritus fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford describes the function of the Greater Solidarity Movement as “quite explicitly building a state within a state”³

Johnson goes on to say: “As will be seen, not only is the Solidarity Movement incomparably stronger than any other part of civil society but it is also far more assertive and ambitious. That said, the movement is keen to turn its back on the apartheid past. It wants to “bring about a South Africa where all will be free and equal before the law and will be treated with dignity and fairness”. It stresses “self-reliance” as the answer to “state decay” and emphasises “Christian democratic values” and a free market economy. It is particularly concerned with minority rights and has taken up a great variety of legal cases. While the Afrikaans community is closest to its heart it has also offered legal assistance to members of other racial groups.”

It appears that funding is raised solely from voluntary individual member contributions with no state or large corporate support.

Some of the key figures in the broader movement are Flip Buys (BA Communication & Political Science, Hons. Labour Relations). Kallie Kriel (BA, MA Political Geography) CEO of Afriforum and Deputy CEO of Afriforum Ernst Roets (LLB, LLM). Roets is the author of the book, “Kill the Boer⁴: Government Complicity in South Africa's Brutal Farm Murders” has been interviewed by, amongst others, Tucker Carlson of Fox News and by Russia Today about the violence faced by the countries farmers.

Naturally, Solidarity is just one visible example of what is taking place on the ground as Johnson describes it: “A stampede away from reliance on the state has been under way for some time. Many residents have invested in solar panels and boreholes in order to be no longer dependent on the state for electricity and water and those who can rely on private health, security, education and transport.” The trek away from dependence on the state is not restricted to South Africa’s High Net Worth Individuals and middle class professionals but is becoming equally attractive to the working class and informal sector. Private sector schools have begun investing in some of the poorest socio-economic areas around Cape Town. Curro, a Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed company in February 2020 opened a cutting edge private school, fees for which have been offered at a price point commensurate with the income level of the residents of Delft. Delft, an area on the outskirts of Cape Town with an estimated unemployment rate of 43% (pre-covid) and where less than 50% of the residents have graduated from has been deemed by Curro to be a suitable location in which to invest for the future. If the project is successful, it could become the model for a country-wide rollout.

In the health care sector, private listed companies Mediclinic, Netcare and Life Healthcare have also been pursuing, in addition to their network of hospitals, the development of clinics in lower income areas.

It is not within the purview of this article to investigate the extent to which private companies in security, banking, technology, agriculture, mining, and professional services have adapted and continue to operate in an often openly hostile environment. Providing goods and services reflective of a thriving advanced industrialised country and not that of a developing one. Suffice to say that the collective de-centralised strength of the non-state sector may well prove to be robust enough to absorb the impact of a massive domestic crisis to prevent descent into complete chaos. The genuine work of reconstruction from the grass roots could then begin in earnest.

South Africa has had its fair share of storms and it would appear that the clouds are darkening again as the next crisis gathers momentum. When news of Batholomew Dias’s successful passage past the southern coast of Africa reached Portugal it was taken to be a good omen that a sea-faring trade route to India could be opened. In anticipation there of the Portuguese King, John II, changed the name for Cabo Tempestado to Cabo da Boa Esperanca - The Cape of Good Hope. It is that same spirit that looks ahead past the challenges and dangers that beset this beautiful country to that has opened up the realisation of the possibility of a peaceful and prosperous future.

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[1] The so-called Tripartite Alliance was formed in 1990 after the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of revolutionary organisations. The member organisations consisted of the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress Of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Much of the membership is intertwined with the ANC as the political expression of the broader movement in the National Legislative Assembly. The SACP, whilst a registered political party, has never contested an election, its leadership however sit as Members of Parliament or cabinet ministers under the banner of the ANC.

[2] https://beweging.co.za/en/what-is-the-solidarity-movement/

[3] https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/thinking-about-state-failure-iii-2

[4] The struggle song - Dubul' ibhunu - includes repeated chanting of the phrase ‘aw dubul'ibhunu’, literally: shoot the boer (farmer) and continues to be used at public rallies by some political parties, notably the EFF