experiencing protest action more frequently than during the first five years after liberation. It appears as if the goodwill that characterised uhuru has disappeared. The question is why?
The big question advanced in this book is this: is there a developing climate of moral incoherence in the public conduct of the ruling elite, leading to social and economic contradictions? And, flowing from this: has this climate created a political and civic culture that threatens the realisation of the main aspect of the dream of liberation – the promotion of a democratically integrated socio-economic and political system? At an empirical level, the argument goes, this climate translates into poor service delivery accompanied by a measure of self-righteous political arrogance, a disregard of conventional norms of integrity in the political conduct of elites, corruption in conducting the business of government, a majoritarian culture in parliamentary and legislative work, patronage and clientelism. All these militate against the realisation of the dream, i.e. the common good, and point to an absence of a coherent value consensus regarding the moral duties and obligations of representative governance. Admittedly, some of these ills have become common cause such as when in his address at the ANC’s 51st Conference in 2003, Motlanthe, then secretary general of the ANC, referred to corruption and a lack of a service culture among cadres, this was an observation echoed by President Mbeki in his address at the same conference. Five years later, at the 52nd Conference, President Mbeki devoted a significant section of his address to the problem of corruption and a poor culture of service among officials in government. Interestingly, this is not a new development in South Africa. The National Party was notorious for using its majority in parliament to pass unsavoury legislation. Also, by definition and in practice, apartheid was a system of patron-client relations where the volk comprised the beneficiaries. In addition, the problem of a public morality that is riddled with elite dominance, patronage, corruption and favouritism is not peculiar to developing polities of which South Africa is a part. Rather it operates universally but is more visible in developing countries especially where behavioural norms for conducting political and governance work have either not been fully institutionalised or are being contested, and where the consequences to the poor majority are devastating. This is compounded by the powerlessness in the majority of the population where there are problems of literacy and the consequent lack of access to information.
In South Africa, the causal factors of this apparent incoherence in public morality are closely interlinked with the immaturity of political institutions: first, the absence of a clearly defined break between the liberation movements and political parties; and second, the lack of separation and independence of the state from society where society-state relations overlap. Added to this is the capacity problem besetting a great number of spheres in government and in the management of state business. Universally, the institution of politics is in itself either corrupt or corruptible but, where political institutions are developed to a level of distinct functional differentiation, and accepted norms of conduct govern the operation of political institutions, there are mechanisms of containment. The first precondition of a distinct functional differentiation, a clear separation of powers between the various spheres of government, exists in South Africa. The second, i.e. the existence of accepted norms of conduct governing the operations of government, is heavily disputed by organs of civil society. However, where these institutions are partially diffused within other social institutions, such as the state, the party, the lineage and the history, normative confusion arises and corruption and corruptibility are likely to be exacerbated.
For instance, there seems to be a general belief in South Africa that transformation and capacity are synonymous, such that when genuine opportunities are presented to individuals, they will rise to the occasion. Such a belief is accentuated by the systemic inequities under apartheid. The oft-repeated refrain is that since apartheid denied the majority opportunities for self realisation, the imperative for redress surpasses all other considerations. There is no denying that the ultimate goal of transformation is to address these very inequities. Nonetheless, what is at stake is that this could be at the expense of performance and could lead to what sociologists refer to as a structural fallacy, i.e. a belief that the fixing of the structure of inputs will make individuals respond. That has not always been the case, and the result is that a tension has developed between the calculus of transformation and the imperatives of performance. But because of the contradictory expectations from disparate constituencies raised in opposing cultures of entitlement, the normative conflicts become more pronounced.
The second causal factor is a product of the Messianic cult that developed during the colonial and the apartheid days. Over time, and because of the severity of the oppression and the consequential hopelessness among victims of discrimination, political leaders assumed the status of saviour and were deeply revered. This response derived from the reverence of the liberation movement to which the leaders belonged. One negative development emerging from this pertains to the process of selecting incumbents to office. The operational belief is that liberation heroes make the best managers of change. Selection is predicated on the incumbent’s record in the liberation struggle, at the expense of a proven ability to perform in a number of instances. Such linkages instil a sense of sanctimonious arrogance predicated on political immunity from conventional scrutiny. While it can be argued that in established democracies leaders would be nervous of public opinion and would perform to expectation or face removal from office if they failed to do so, in the post-apartheid era an absence of nervousness on the part of governing elites to the reactions of ordinary people has developed. There is a creeping system of patron- client relationships – a civil society beholden to the political elite has gradually lost the ability to counter-organise against the elite in politics and in government. Counter-forces to elite nonchalance such as the churches and other organs of civil society have, in the main, been co-opted into the dominant cult of the political saviour.
The third factor relates to leaders in key positions of authority, what Ali Mazrui refers to as the monarchical tradition, which, although universal, is more common in African politics.10 This tradition manifests at four levels. At the first level, the leadership has the quest for “aristocracy and demonstrates social ostentation as a show of power. Leaders thus engage in conspicuous consumption because the expectation is that power and wealth are synonymous. Part of conspicuous consumption is expressed in profligacy where public representatives and officials either acquire expensive artefacts or patronise a host of clients and admirers, which necessitates large spending that is usually financed from state or public sources. The consequence of such behaviour is that the elite engage in acts of corruption in order to accumulate the requisite resources.
At the second level, the political leadership personalises authority and this generally leads to a personality cult where the leader is above criticism. Such reverence of political leadership renders criticism of the same leadership as disloyalty. To some extent, participation in the struggle for liberation accords such reverence to the political leadership, and promotes individuals to the status of demigods. After all, how can individuals who have made such serious sacrifices as to go to jail or be forced into exile not occupy positions of prominence in the state and in government? Such positions carry the attributes of compensation for the sacrifices made and recognition for their role in liberating the masses.
At the third level, authority is sacralised: leaders assume a sacred position of power in the political domain and, once sacred are beyond moral reproach.
At the fourth level, and especially in Africa, the political leadership demonstrates a quest for a royal historical identity. Credentials in the struggle for liberation bestow this identity in the case of South Africa and probably elsewhere in Africa and in the world where leaders assume the status of icons: Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Nyerere, Mandela and Lincoln to name a few. Liberation movements possess a royal aura and the leader tones it down or rises above it in humility, in accordance with their personality. Unfortunately, the humble leaders of the Kenyatta, Nyerere and Mandela era are creatures of the distant past in the current hubris of the political elite where the politics of power and material acquisition appear to be the order of the day.
Transformation has, therefore, assumed a completely different context and has come to imply compliance with a national agenda that is determined
