JUDITH FEBRUARY | South Africa’s struggle with transition and unmet expectations

Transition: "The process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another."

The word has an effortless ring to it, as if a country can simply move from one state of being to another and that all the centuries of conflict can simply vanish at the stroke of a pen.

As our country navigates the tricky waters of coalition government, it seems as if we are yet again in very complex territory, this time without the wisdom of our 1990s leadership.

Many were awed by South Africa’s transition, impressed by our ability to have moved from a hurtful past to a common future.

South Africans, so jaded by 31 years of democracy, were struck again by the mistakes we made and by how very ordinary and at times tawdry, our leaders have become.

Our democratic state is almost daily laid bare for its neglect, brutality and corruption.

Marikana and Life Esidimeni are but two examples of this. Sadly, there are many, many more.

Institutions are only as strong as the men and women of integrity who populate them.

The Ramaphosa presidency has fallen far short of taking the action needed to fix infrastructure and the economy, even though many aspects of Operation Vulindlela should be lauded.

But Ramaphosa has been inert in acting against dysfunctional and corrupt members of his own Cabinet and party, unwilling or unable to use his power even at moments when he had the greatest support outside of the narrow confines of the ANC.

Thembi Simelane remains a Cabinet minister and similarly, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni is the President’s mouthpiece, ill-considered as she is facing a Hawks investigation, for instance. 

We may speak the language of modern governance on issues like climate change, but this government led by the ANC, is a relic with a corrupt, incapable state, unable to do much. And the ANC, having lost its electoral majority, appears unable to fathom that it cannot govern alone.

The failure to pass a budget in February was a disgrace and since then, the ANC and DA have predictably been arguing in public about VAT increases and such, seeming to use the media as a negotiating tool.

Every day we are bombarded with reports of the GNU teetering on the brink. In a world that is increasingly unhinged, this instability could not come at a worse time.

Despite our progressive Constitution, we have also learned that rights are still only won through struggle, even in a democratic society. Hindsight is 20/20 vision and often pointless, but if we had to do it all again, what might we have done differently as we sought to build a just and equitable society based on the rule of law?

It’s still all about the economy. South Africa’s youth unemployment sits at 52%. A staggering figure, while unemployment, in general, is at 33.2%. A crisis by anyone’s definition.

So, lesson one of the early years would have been to try to fix the economy in some way and create sufficient trust between the economic players based on an understanding that a fair wage, creating a proper skills base, artisanships and entrepreneurship should be supported. Importantly, too, that some form of shared sacrifice would be necessary to deal with the ravages of the past.

Lesson two: Education is the greatest investment. Clearly, post-apartheid South Africa’s most abject failure has been education; even though we have spent more on education as a percentage of GDP than in any other area.

Too many curriculum changes, the loss of experienced teachers and an insufficient embedding of the culture of learning, some errant teachers, and weak administration have hampered our ability to educate the next generation for a different kind of economic reality. Too many South African children simply drop out of school before reaching matric and the annual "puff" surrounding the matric pass rate is just that – puff when only a smidgen of those who passed can reach university. It is nothing short of tragic.

In a post-1994 country based on a flawed notion of empowerment, education has often taken the back seat in a national discourse that prizes crass wealth accumulation above the emancipatory power of a decent education. This will continue to cost us dearly and there are no quick fixes. Lesson Two is, therefore, a sobering one.

And then Lesson Three might be that our trust deficit was papered over by the "rainbow discourse" of 1994 and our Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) never allowed us to fully deal with the past.

"The past" lies between us in every debate about race and class, in every disagreement about structural inequality and an economy built on cheap labour.

Too many victims’ questions remain unanswered while the perpetrators walk amongst us. Accountability thus becomes more complex in a land of unfinished business.

As Antjie Krog says so eloquently in the epic Country of grief and grace:

but if the old is not guilty
does not confess
then of course the new can also not be guilty
nor be held accountable
if it repeats the old
(things may then continue as before but in a different shade)

And so "transition" is indeed a "process", ongoing, difficult, messy and uncomfortable.

And despite the sacrifice and sheer joy of 1994, we have a very long way to travel to arrive at "another state or condition" as envisaged in the Constitution.