South Africa’s democracy: in urgent need of a capable state

After many years of a post-apartheid society, we now know democracy only thrives where the state is sufficiently ethical, competent, and capable, writes Thamsanqa Mabandla. In this guest piece, Mabandla argues that 'the dream' has turned sour and contradictions are causing the unseemly break-up of the ruling party – these giving rise to waves of right-wing nationalism. But the trick is never to give up on democracy and to keep agitating for a capable state. By THAMSANQA  MABANDLA.

After decades of globalisation, the world political system has become obsolete – and spasms of resurgent nationalism are a sign of its irreversible decline. The nation-state as a universal, permanent, and unchanging social entity has entered a period of deep crisis. Our national political authority is in decline, and, since we do not know any other sort, it feels like the end of the world. A strange brand of apocalyptic narrow nationalism is so widely in vogue currently. Nation states everywhere appear to be in an advanced state of political and moral decay from which they cannot individually extricate themselves. Even if we wanted to restore what we once had, that moment is gone. But to acknowledge this is to acknowledge the end of politics itself. 

Governments are increasingly controlled by outside forces and possess only partial influence over national affairs: this has been the reality of our own democracy, and it feels like a terrifying return to primitive vulnerability under apartheid. South Africa’s ceremony of innocence has been drowned in violence, factionalism, venality, corruption, lawlessness, and expediency which have now become the order of the day.After many years of freedom, we now know democracy only thrives where the state is sufficiently ethical, competent, and capable. If not, being a mere democracy is just a symbolic act and not enough to build a country. South Africa’s democracy has also taught us that even change which seems revolutionary can leave the essential patterns and horrors of the past intact. You’d be blind not to see it and damned if you ignore it.

The country’s present depressing reality is too common to easily capture the gnawing sensibility seeping across all aspects of social life. The majority remain trapped in poverty and unemployment and the daily dread of life under democracy and its mutations act as a symptom, pointing to something not yet discernible or understandable, an uneasy sense of anticipation. Most citizens appear worse off today than they were before, and the contradictions established by settler-colonialism remain visible. South Africa’s democratisation seems caught up in what the poet Lebo Mashile once referred to as "the existential crisis of a miracle overstretched" and what Achille Mbembe aptly describes as the dialectic of the dream that is always on the verge of becoming a nightmare.

The lingering question is:  Why has the post-apartheid state failed to move beyond the limitations of its apartheid forebear?

Since coming to power the ANC government has politicized democratic institutions and social inequalities have been widening. The state capture debacle and the collapse of the state-owned institutions have further deepened cynicism of citizens about their own democratic institutions and democracy itself.As such, it is easy to understand the commonly held view that, a large part of the apartheid ediface now appears enmeshed in the ANC, and the liberation movement has become enmeshed in capital. Clearly, the ANC is imploding from the weight of its own contradictions. Despite this, South Africa’s high levels of discontent remain deeply etched in the political-economic order as the gulf between South Africa’s haves and have nots is vast.

What it means to be a South African is now murkier and blurrier than it was at the dawn of democracy.

Political polarisation and populist right nationalism has given rise to the othering of others. By constructing the ‘other’ i.e., foreigner, the invader as a source of our problems reflects post-apartheid’s aborted project of nation-building. Persistent Afrophobia, xenophobia, racism,are some of the many enduring reactionary tendencies engulfing society today as new forms of articulation that attempt to displace idealistic desires for a Pan- Africanist inclusionary outlook. There clearly is a rising momentum of sporadic and unpredictable community organisations that have sprung up and organised around the nexus of anti-crime / anti-foreigner sentiment. The progressive-leaning voices are only ‘winning’ this battle on social media platforms.

Nevertheless,  relentlessly attacking the state and slamming the idea of being a democracy only serve to delegitimise our common endeavour to overcome the legacy of our past. We must reimagine the state that interferes to create markets - not reduced to policing the system, a state as a servant of the people – built around public-spirited  civil servants whose loyalties and commitments to state affairs are not determined by their allegiance to race, gender, class, or political affiliation - but by their patriotism and service to the people. Only a strong, capable state, not a diminishing one, is required for our democracy. It is incumbent on the political elites to respond constructively by seeking support for a capable state across opposing political blocs, and thereby reinforce the legitimacy of democracy.

By Thamsanqa Mabandla, campaigner for people-centred democracy and seasoned development practitioner.