By Eusebius McKaiser
At a recent conference held at the University of the Witwatersrand, various folks, including myself, were asked to meditate on the question of Mbeki’s legacy. A critically important issue is that of the quality of public discourse, and deliberative democracy more broadly, in the wake of Mbeki’s exit from the presidential stage.
Put bluntly, Mbeki simply has not done as much as he could have to help the African National Congress – and our body politic more generally – to transition from a politics of liberation, to genuine parliamentary, democratic politics. To understand the nature of this claim, and why indeed it is a critically negative impact on our politics, a few conceptual clarifications are necessary.
Deliberative democracy is one ideal type of democracy. In this kind of democracy, critical space is opened up for the free, rational exchange of ideas. But this is not just a procedural matter. So we should not restrict the yardstick for measuring the degree of deliberative politics that exists, by merely looking at whether there is a range of newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasters, televisions stations, universities, and the like, which could be accessed by folks wishing to contribute towards debate. The yardstick, in fact, should be much more substantive. The real question is whether there is a deeply entrenched political culture of respecting, promoting and celebrating the contestation of ideas. This political cultural yardstick is less elegant than that of procedural mechanisms that can be relatively easily enumerated. Nonetheless, a successful, vibrant deliberative democracy is one in which a potent combination of procedural openings, and deep cultural norms about the value of debate, are present in equal, indistinguishable quantities.
In South Africa, we have made reasonable strides on the procedural side of things. On the more substantive side, we have not yet arrived. Let us start with the good news. South Africa has a vibrant range of media. Newspapers exist without fear of being shut down by a paranoid government. Academics, pundits, and civil society more generally can express views on all sorts of topics without fear of being arrested, or gagged.
It is easy to regard these minimal standards of free speech as not being noteworthy. But, in the wake of the censorship policies, and culture, of the Apartheid regime, it is commendable that we have set up at least rudimentary structures that can facilitate free speech.
However, it is important, nonetheless, that we not be complacent. The reality is that the South African government still tries to interdict newspapers to prevent crucial information, when a potential scandal rears its head, from being published. Or, as Jane Duncan from the Freedom of Expression Institute narrated so well at the aforementioned conference, the South African Broadcast Corporation is a case study of a shamelessly overt attempt by the executive to exert explicit political influence on a public institution. So, while the existence of a press ombudsman, for example, is a good start, a deeper respect for these mechanisms, processes and institutions, require that we all – political parties included – obey the authority of these mechanisms, processes and institutions.
Similarly, the political processes that have been set up to facilitate the free contestation of ideas, especially on questions of policy, are admirable, but need to be nurtured. For example, the role of parliamentary subcommittees is, fundamentally, to provide robust oversight of the executive. And yet, sadly, we have seen parliament being quite feeble in discharging its role, with frustrated democrats like Andrew Feinstein having had no choice but to exit politics entirely. A general disdain by Mbeki to appear, regularly, and respectfully, in parliament, to face necessarily tough questions, contributed towards the fear on the part of parliamentarians, especially ruling party parliamentarians, about executing their role effectively.
The genesis, perhaps, of the vulnerable state of the free speech mechanisms we have set up in democratic South Africa, lies, somewhat obliquely, in the history of the ruling party. The truth of the matter is that the transition from a liberation movement to a genuine, run-of-the-mill political party which exists within the norms and bounds of parliamentary democracy, is a work-in-progress. In order to be an effective liberation movement, the ANC had to be patchy, in a sense, in its commitment to deliberative democracy.
The paradox with armies, for example, is that in order to protect democracy, they have to (with only slight exaggeration) be arranged autocratically in terms of their internal workings. Similarly, liberation movements could not be open in the publication of information, decisions, and debates about those decisions. By implication, participants in debates –within the liberation movements, that is – were limited, and often there had to be deference to the decisions of liberation movements in order for the practical goal of dismantling the apartheid architecture, to be achieved.
Now, when we contrast this sketch of liberation movements with the requirements of deliberative democracy, it is clear that the challenge is formidable. In a sense, we are asking of the ANC to undergo a radical personality change. And, rather obviously, the change cannot happen overnight. It is, necessarily, a long-term project. Someone who has had a short-temper all their life and suddenly recognises that it will be helpful to be a Mr Nice Guy (at least sometimes) won’t succeed in achieving a character change in the short-term. The thing about chipping away at a character weakness is that it takes enormous practice, and effort, because you are essentially trying to habituate yourself into new forms of living.
Similarly, showing a deep appreciation of debate, both in procedural terms, and more nebulous, but substantive, political cultural terms, will take a while. This is not an excuse of the impact of Mbeki’s legacy, or that of the ANC. On the contrary, we need to constrain our understanding of the history of the ANC qua liberation movement, by appropriately chastising the ANC leadership for not trying hard enough. There is no reason why, as a political agent, Mbeki could not have shown a greater appreciation of open deliberation. It is as if, like a short-tempered person, he predictably trots out the defence, “I just can’t help being moody! It just is who I am!” We are right to be disappointed by the impact of Mbeki’s disdain for deliberative democratic politics.
The net effect of these historical threads is that the state of our democracy, relative to the yardsticks of deliberative democracy, is regrettable. The ANC has not yet transformed sufficiently to a point where we could honestly characterise it as an organisation that respects internal dissent and discussion. This lack of internal democracy has, in turn, affected deliberative processes outside the ANC. We have the appearance of free speech, because we have newspapers, magazines, conferences, and the like. But a deeper political culture that includes an internalised appreciation of the spirit of the free speech laws is still some distance away. While we should not despair, complacency would be equally irresponsible.
Eusebius McKaiser is a political and social analyst at the Centre for the Study of Democracy. He is a philosophy graduate, having studied at Rhodes University, and later Oxford University. He previously lectured philosophy, before completing a brief stint at McKinsey and Company, a leading international management consulting firm. He currently writes widely on contemporary social and political issues in post-democratic South Africa.