On career politicians
AR: You have talked about career politicians and their weaknesses. In itself there’s nothing wrong with career politics. Every society needs politicians.
MM: It is the era. The problem with this is that the ANC did not prepare (for office). The comrades came into government (in 1994) with no pension, no work experience. For example a Fort Hare graduate of 25 years of age leaves the country in 1962, returns 30 years later, he’s 55. And when he goes to parliament it is an insecure occupation. So there nothing wrong with politics as a career. In fact, I’m using the word career in an honourable way. When I distance myself, I’m saying as a personality I’m not that (not a career politician). But as a function in society, society cannot do without it. The issue was now you’re going to be a professional politician. You are not the freedom fighter who’s just reacting without asking “what do I get?” That is one problem. And that’s why I said we were short-changed.
In not listening to the others we kept on thinking that if we reassured the minorities, showed them our record, went back to the Freedom Charter, told them how we’ve been to jail and everything together, men, women and even children of all colours in exile, and now post-1994 they’re looking at Mandela and how we’ve peacefully resolved the matter they will change their outlook. We didn’t stop to appreciate how are the other parties were campaigning. The singular message from every other party has been: be afraid. They kept evoking the fear factor so they kept driving the minorities away from coming together. So you see this nation-building agenda is really in an onerous space where the consensus that is there in the constitution disappears when it comes to elections and political fighting. It’s a challenge.
The other day, because of an interview when I was retiring, I was asked this question in the context of xenophobia in SA. I responded that in 2001 I published a supplement, which was inserted into every newspaper in SA. It was titled “ THE GREAT DEBATE: UNITY, DIVERSITY AND RACE IN SOUTH AFRICA”. That same week the editorial of the leading newspaper claimed that race issue is over, there’s no racial problem in SA! We didn’t want to talk but we invoked this fear and therefore it is driving people in that way of thinking. The black vote is split. It’s the white and the other minority voters that are voting in a particular way.
AR: Coming together remains important but the fundamental challenge surely is socio-economic upliftment, getting that right — and having an efficient government focused on it.
MM: Absolutely. That proposition is spot on. But achieving that proposition in a society that we come from needed a consensus. One, there shall be land redistribution. How, what, is debatable. And then debate by saying we’ve debated, we’ve debated, we’ve debated now let’s try this and we will review the matter together in say three years’ time. Because we shared a view, we have differences on how we should do it. The economy. Debate, debate, debate prevailed but we end up by saying we will review the matter together.
President Zuma, set up the Presidential Planning Commission in the Presidency. Every member of the PPC came with his /her own viewpoint. It did not matter whether you’re Marxist, Leninist, whatever, you put the facts and your proposal on the table. Keep your philosophy to yourself. The outcome is the New Development Plan (NDP). We designed it, it is being implemented, and we will look at the results. If the results are not taking us where we want to go and we say, where are we now, then we talk about what steps we need to take to move forward. That’s the type of consensus that South Africa needs because of the tremendous disparity from which we’re coming, not just income but the psychology. We were living in mental ghettos and we needed to get out of the mental ghettos.
If you look at the Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP) of 1994 what happened in the mandatory Government of National Unity, the government agreed with the proposition, and the question becomes how do we achieve those goals. Minister Derek Keys comes as Minister of Finance. He proposes that a 5% extra levy on tax will provide the funds to deal with the wherewithal for the RDP. We accepted it. 5% extra tax for one year to solve the problem! And the minute we started for example touching the land issue the current owner says you can’t take my land or that the State must pay some inflated price.
So I’m talking about that type of thing where we have to consciously say . . . each political party would have to say, my party would not campaign on the basis of fear because we come from a society, which taught us to fear each other. After that the Afrikaner can say, I want my homeland, I want this, I want that, but he says the one thing, I will respect the fundamental rights. This too was resolved through discussion. Number two; I will never play the fear card. Instead what has become the swear word, the swear word, is the race card. And yet the transformation at the race level is the issue that has got to be addressed.
Where we’ve come on the economy is a very important point. We have come both for South Africa and Africa to the issue of integration and infrastructure development. We still need to refine that a bit. But if South Africa’s Government concentrates on that infrastructure development, makes sure that movement in the country, the region and the continent — goods and services, people — make sure that communications, ICT, make sure that power — and by the way is going to be a big problem, you can smell it, water and sanitation. Big problem, because it’s a lack of maintenance as well. If the Government keeps that focus and continues to try to move in a public/private sector partnership model, with all sorts of variations but so it creates a business friendly environment, we’ll get there. So that’s where the Zuma Government is.
On Africa’s place in the world
AR: one of the big changes in the last decade has been the Chinese involvement — transformational. And yet at the same time you could look at what’s happening now and you say, look, once again Africa is still being used as a giant mine.
MM: Worse. There are instances now happening around the issue of food security. I’m not going to name the countries but they come, they take over large tracts of land, they promise to develop the agriculture and they promise to buy the products, but when they come they bring their own labour, they bring their own wheelbarrow. There’s no skills transfer taking place, no technology transfer taking place.
We are living in a space where the way to get out of that Cold War mentality is to create competitive models from other countries because I think this model is the easiest to beat. This is the crudest model. What I’m saying here is that, guys, the field is open, come with your superior models. That’s why I’m not naming the country. But I think you know it, I know it. Is there change happening? The positives again, the regional blocs, some working better than others, but inceptions of the idea of integration, economic integration, concrete programmes on infrastructure development, each country having its own issues of how to make it attractive to business, that’s happening. But it’s also happening because we are living in a world where this is the space. You want to make money, this is the space.
AR: Africa?
MM: Africa. But the question for me is what is happening correct, and my test what is correct is, is it building your productive capacity? Is it skilling people, creating jobs? But even more than that, are we doing it in ways that revives an innovative spirit. I know you use the word entrepreneurship. I’ve long gone beyond that word. Over the last few years since I began teaching at Bennington, I left Bennington in 2008, I’ve come to the conclusion that the era we’re living, in is the innovation era. And the reason is simple.
Everything about us, and I’m not talking about South Africa alone, the majority of societies in the world, from birth our language with the children is don’t do this, don’t do that. That’s the wrong language. That kid is exploring and discovering the world, is curious. You need to nurture that curiosity because beneath innovation is curiosity. But our education kills you and tells you don’t, don’t, don’t. America, USA, shocked me. It is the most innovative society I’ve seen. I was shocked that even in Bennington in Vermont, in a very ordinary family dinner, here are two, eleven-year-old kid and 13-year-old kid, sitting at the table, at ease in the conversation, asking questions, raising issues and the parents doing their best to answer, to engage. But not a word to tell them, you’re talking nonsense. That’s what we need here.
AR: So how does one spark that off in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Africa?
MM: I’m working with a friend of mine who came to visit me in hospital. We had a discussion on this matter and he’s just finished running four groups of about 30 youngsters, experimenting with this issue. But you have some very powerful people in Britain. I think one chap is called, Sir Robinson. He chaired one of the education studies. But he confines the education in the sciences. I’m saying, no, you must stimulate curiosity in everything. You and I can walk down there, ten of us can walk there and there’s a leaf on the ground. Nine of us have not noticed it. Maybe the tenth one has noticed it and two years later you’ll find that leaf in his painting. He’s watching, he’s looking. This observe and seek to understand has been drummed out of us. So the how, big question, but is it at the heart, is it the bedrock on which human society has evolved.
All sorts of things have happened in history have taken us always forward. The mechanical revolution, the clock. It gave us a sense that in science we can dominate nature and we made enormous progress. We had the industrial revolution on that basis. Now we talk about a technological revolution. I have no quarrel with all that, but none of that happens without the innovative spirit. None of it.
You see it with, there’s a fad in South Africa, small business development, informal sector, and how many jobs has it created?
AR: Not very many.
MM: And what kind of jobs? Is that the future? Yes, it’s a bridge, it’s a bridging action, but if you divert your energy to that then your long-term sustainability is not going to be there. So these are the kind of challenges, but they’re challenges that have no easy answers.
MM: In our constitutional democracy power is distributed between Parliament, the Executive, the Judiciary and a variety of others institutions. By its nature any institution that is entrusted with power seeks to increase its power. But power is finite and to increase its power the institutions can only do so by decreasing the power residing in one or other institution. But power is finite. It is going to take it from somewhere else. And where do they want to take it away, from the Executive. But it is the Executive and Parliament that ensures we are a democracy. We must be careful. Otherwise we may end up with elite rule. Now, nothing wrong with interplay and tension among institutions — this tension is healthy -, provided we see this tension that is built into it and don’t destroy the tension, but manage the tension. You make mistakes, you’ll come right, but don’t take it as a spider’s web and just take a broomstick to run through it.
So this is where we are sitting. We’ve had all the small debates. Many have resorted to the courts, that’s all. Yes, they should go to the courts if they want to. But the threat that this country is facing, we can change Zuma through elections but once you have given absolute power then you can’t change it.
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