STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Gilding ANC’s past will not help the future

While some of us hope for a better future, others prefer to improve the past. A recent much-discussed interview with former president Thabo Mbeki highlighted a strong theme in today’s political debate: prettifying the past to criticise the present. This works for those who do it. But it does not help the country get to grips with its problems.

As in his other recent contributions to public debate, Mbeki showed no interest in using his intellect to consider the strengths and weaknesses of his presidency. Instead, he insisted that he was removed from office by a campaign based on "lies". So nothing was wrong with the ANC or government under his leadership — he was forced out only because bad people, driven no doubt by ambition and greed, twisted the truth.

This describes a part of reality. But it also removes from discussion not only Mbeki’s moral responsibility for denying life-giving treatment to millions living with HIV and AIDS, but the questions his presidency raises for the future. Whatever their motives, his detractors would not have succeeded if there was no widespread sense in the ANC that power was concentrated in the presidency, that management techniques were prized above listening to people and that those who disagreed were treated as fools or frauds.

Mbeki was arguably then the most intelligent head of government in the world, but his presidency may have showed that a grasp of policy and a knack for seeing trends most others missed was of little help without an ability to build working relationships with people who differed or a willingness to respect those who did not hold degrees.

Mbeki would, no doubt, dispute this view. But refusing even to consider it because the problem is purely the failings of those who removed him ducks issues that need to be debated if the next group of leaders are to avoid the errors of those who came before.

The view that an ideal past was disturbed by bad people is also a strong theme of some ANC veterans who want leadership change. We hear that President Jacob Zuma and his supporters have "hijacked" the ANC and it is compared sadly with a past in which it apparently could do only good. This is often tinged with a sense of personal hurt, as if something the speaker owned has been seized from them.

Again this describes a part of reality — the integrity of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela does contrast sharply with that of many of today’s office holders. But it removes from debate questions about the ANC’s past that may show that some of today’s unpalatable realities are products of the "glorious" yesterday the "imposters" have supposedly tarnished.

In its heyday, the ANC enjoyed huge support because it was identified with a common desire for freedom. But that does not mean it was in touch with most people for whom it sought to speak. It usually meant talking to the next layer of activists.

As resistance to apartheid grew, it often spent more time trying to keep up with— and control — what people were doing on the ground than initiating it. While some of this may have been a product of harsh controls on political activity, this gap between leadership and the grassroots did not disappear when democracy was achieved.

Airbrushing the difficult questions out of our past enables some to escape responsibility for today’s problems. The cost for everyone else is a refusal to recognise how deep-seated these problems are

The ANC’s belief that it was not simply a political party but the voice of the nation sometimes produced deep intolerance of other black political organisations and those that were independent, such as the trade unions.

At a time when the president and his allies seem intent on putting the interests of connected politicians above those of the grassroots and imposing a party line on those who differ, these and other legacies of the ANC’s past need to be debated. This is impossible as long as we are told some rascals poisoned an ideal organisation.

This attitude to the past is not exclusive to the ANC. It finds an echo among those who insist that the political bargain of 1994 solved all our problems but is under threat from the selfish. The bargain’s failure to change an economic path that excludes many, or to tackle racial inequities, is hidden by those who want us to pledge loyalty to it rather than to question whether it left much business unfinished.

Airbrushing the difficult questions out of our past enables some to escape responsibility for today’s problems. The cost for everyone else is a refusal to recognise how deep-seated these problems are, which makes it impossible to find ways of breaking habits that hold us hostage.

The more the past is idealised, the more likely it is today’s political battles will not change the patterns that hold society back but keep them alive in a new form.

• Friedman is research professor with the humanities faculty of the University of Johannesburg.