Interviews

Clash of Cultures between Exiles and those who Remained Inside.

From the interviews, it appears as if the question of cultural shifts around policies and priorities and practice within the ANC, including regarding issues of transformation emerged with contestation between various interests in the ANC. The transformation trajectory could be seen as a reflection of the various points of ascendency of either of the groups. In the early 1990’s, it was more likely that it was UDF (United Democratic Front) activists on the ground that would have been more likely to be the ones talking about social transformation and not necessarily the ANC leadership of exiles. So the differences meant that each group approached and profiled different aspects of the transformation and that there was not a cohesive approach or line of march. The “organic” or ad-hoc way that policies and positions were arrived at was, in fact, developed out of contestations between the two.
‘The post apartheid government was made up of people belonging to the broader liberation movement with different perspectives, experiences and practices. Those who were in exile and had had to work clandestinely, which produced a particular culture and perspective, and those who stayed and worked inside South Africa were used to different styles of operation and perspective. For the latter, being in the situation meant that those on the inside acquired very different skills including community mobilizing and organising, and had developed a more open culture of participation, consultation and local involvement. In exile the culture was hierarchical, not as consultative or democratic, and more insular with strict understanding of control and the consequences of disobediance. The clash of these two cultures and perspectives was evident throughout the last 18 years, but was particular evident both in the manner in which the GEAR (Growth, Employment a d Redistribution) and in the manner in which the leadership change occurred at the Polokwane conference in which President Mbeki’s presidency of the ANC was replaced by that of President Zuma.’
‘If one speaks from the perspective of the ANC, the Freedom Charter was the defining document, although we always knew it would be subject to different and differing interpretations. At the height of the confidence of left- thinking within the movement, these interpretations were aligned to the 1969 Morogoro Strategy and Tactics document which interprets elements of the Freedom Charter, but it became clear in the late 1980s that the exact nature of this interpretation would differ over time , especially as the ANC began to talk to white South Africans, and also due to the realignment of the global balance of forces (and the fall of the Berlin Wall). This led to the drafting of new documents, including the Constitutional Principles for a Democratic South Africa which began to refer to a mixed economy with a role for the private sector, which had always been one interpretation of the contents of the Freedom Charter. We also had to think about trade and land (the question of land had always ben highly contested in the camps, especially the question of whether or not there would be private property.
So the Freedom Charter was fudged, but it does lend itself to different interpretations. This thinking was part of the evolution globally of left forces. When O.R. Tambo visited Cuba in the late 1980s, it was Fidel Castro that asked why the ANC was talking about nationalisation within the then current global alignment. Again, when Nelson Mandela left prison and visited the Chinese communists, they challenged his earlier thinking (about private property), it was not just the west. However, it could be that the approach taken to issues of ownership could have been mechanically interpreted amongst the left, so that the means then became the end, rather than effecting real transformation. The threat of conflating the means with the end is part of the evolution of thinking within the liberation movement.
Also, one of the issues was about the nature and structure of the political system, including considerations about human rights and multiparty democracy. The nature of ‘liberal freedoms’ and the attainment of individual freedoms is not per se in contradiction to radical left wing projects, but a mechanical interpretation of socialism in rigid definitions could not see that these could be compatible.’
‘The ANC did not have a notion of social transformation pre-1994. At the 1969 Morogoro conference (and proceedings) – they did not actually think that they would take over government, and thus you get no details of the reality of life and a transformed society, and then in 1992 you get Ready to Govern, which was the first attempt, and then the Reconstruction and Development Programme, but both of these are aspirational, without any appreciation of the real challenges, which included having to raise money to do what had to be done under the RDP – which is

why within two years they had to adopt GEAR. The ANC inherited a bankrupt state and therefore they had to stabilize and grow the economy to get the money. Thus the RDP and Ready to Govern both show glimpses of ANC transformation, but this was disrupted by the dangers of BEE (Black Economic Empowerment), which was a white business counter- strategy of co-option of leaders (of liberation) as their insurance. These leaders were meant to be the thinkers and leaders of social transformation, but then came the tension between personal interest and social transformation.’

‘(The trade union movement grappled) with the alternative to Apartheid- our programme that would replace Apartheid. The Reconstruction Pact emerged in the early 1990’s, Cosatu drove this pact. After the strike and the replacement of Derek Keys … a call was made for an “Economic Codesa”- to negotiate the transformation of the economy, premised on the notion of a Developmental State. This call was shot down by the ANC- whose focus was on re-launching the party. This process saw the internal political leadership displaced, some moved into the ANC. That’s where we lost the centre, the cohesion, and ended up having to negotiate the labour market transition as the core issue. White capital spotted the opportunity and launched BEE, which became the only instrument of economic transformation.
The RDP focus was how budgets and people are used through an integrated intervention; we inherited a bankrupt state and public service.
The RDP was replaced overnight by GEAR- not by a committee or constitutional structure of Government or the ANC.
GEAR sidelined human development and replaced it with a construct where the State is the deliverer and implementer, and Civil Society’s role is not significant in terms of the GEAR construct. GEAR made Citizens by-standers.’
‘I was attracted by the integrity; the gallantry of the liberation struggle attracted me, the caliber of leadership and the heroism of the liberation movement. I had no concept of freedom in 1994, I was in matric, and I only got that at university when I was recruited into SASCO and changed theory into praxis. There was no vision of the ANC’s view of social transformation that you could say was well known at he time.
But talking social transformation, the ANC has revolutionized my village, through water and electricity, which brought TV – you cannot believe the impact of TV on my village, even the way that you dress, it changes society, and also refrigeration, so even your food began to change and you no longer live on daily food that you have to grow your self.’
‘We did not have a single view in terms of the broader trajectory and the specifics of the transformation. We were clearer about what we didn’t want. The broad brush-strokes we all accepted was the end to discrimination and the apartheid system and there was a commitment to respond to the immediate preservation of the majority.

The vision was not just anti-discriminatory in nature- but extended to having a country where the range of divisions, including spatial, cultural etc., would be overcome. In that regard we have failed.

Many of the change interventions envisioned in Ready to Govern came about more organically as opposed to being highly planned, we were overwhelmed and for the most part acting on the hoof.’