In many respects the ANC is far better understood as a religion than a political party. It is a metaphor that works on a number of different levels, and delivers a great many, helpful insights.
This is not a reference to the ANC’s religiosity per se. The party, from the belief that it governs by divine will through to the idea that God will smite its enemies, is deeply enmeshed in Christian doctrine. Rather, it is the way in which religious faiths — Christianity in particular — seem able to accommodate any and all interpretations of its core belief system.
There are few elements of the Bible that have not been explained by one or other Christian denomination either way. For almost every sentiment in the Bible, there is a Christian school of said that reads it literally or figuratively. In this way, depending on which denomination you subscribe to, homosexuality, for example, can be regarded either as a mortal sin or not. And, of course, each denomination claims in turn to be the true keeper of the flame, so most issues cannot be objectively resolved — it depends what you believe or what you want to believe.
This is something applicable to the ANC, at least in terms of public perceptions and the way in which the party is understood and portrayed by the media. The ANC’s actual policy is another matter, to which we will turn later.
Any position under the sun
Political analysis in SA tends to be remarkably shallow. There are a handful of academics who have a deep and perceptive understanding of the ANC and, to a far lesser extent, the DA, but so far as the bulk of public commentary goes, there exists a disjuncture between the true nature of the beast, and whatever image of the party happens to be reflecting back in the morning media, and with which we are fixated.
In this way, for much of the media, the ANC is, much like Christian doctrine, whatever you want it to be, and your understanding of it almost entirely dependent on which sect inside the party you speak to.
For example, if you would like to believe that the ANC has profoundly failed to deliver on land reform and that there was no impediment to land reform outside of the ANC’s incompetence, Jackson Mthembu can provide you with that particular belief system, no problem: “Blaming the constitution for the embarrassingly slow pace of land reform is both disingenuous and scapegoating. We failed, finish en klaar”, he said in 2017.
However, if you would like to believe the ANC has done all it can do on land reform, and the last and final obstacle to true delivery is the constitution, then Cyril Ramaphosa can provide you with that interpretation.
Examples to this end are innumerable. To unearth any of them, requires almost nothing more than the briefest bit of research. You will be amazed that, even on those things you believe set in stone, there exists in the ANC a contrary view, which enjoyed some prominence at one stage or another.
Let us take something seemingly quite fundamental to the ANC: race. What would you like to believe? That the ANC is a non-racial organisation, that does not subscribe to race or ethnic-based politics or policy? Or that the ANC is profoundly invested in ethnicity and race, and absolutely insistent they form the basis of its political decision-making? Both answers are easily provided.
On position one, responding to the accusation that a “cluster” of Indians, whites and coloureds were seen to be in control of the economic ministries, Jacob Zuma defended the composition of his first, 2009 cabinet like this: "The fact of the matter is the ANC does not look at things from a race point of view. We are a non-racial organisation. It cannot be a crucial thing for the ANC to begin to look at race and ethnicity ... We never looked at things in terms of race and ethnicity, but in terms of nonracialism, as South Africans.”
On position two, responding to the accusation that Zuma had “Zulufied” his cabinet in 2014, then-secretary-general Gwede Mantashe would say that there are an equal distribution of first languages in the cabinet (that is, an ethnic diversity). And that this was the result of a “conscious decision by the ANC leadership, to achieve a balanced distribution, and that the result was not achieved by the “sole choice of President”.
It’s like this on almost every issue. And many of the contradictions are values based, as opposed to hard policies.
Take apartheid itself. Is it a legitimate excuse for poor service delivery, 26 years into democracy? Yes, it absolutely is. Also, no, it absolutely is not.
Eskom has been systematically destroyed over the past two decades. Load-shedding is a way of life. Jacob Zuma said of the reason for this, in 2015: “... the belief out there is that [load-shedding] is the result, perhaps, of the failure of government or the lack of leadership in the country, as many commentators say. The reality is we are dealing with the legacy of apartheid.” It's an excuse he has often used. Most notoriously, for the Limpopo government’s failure to deliver textbooks in 2011.
Of course, there are other denominations in the ANC on this issue. Then-ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa said in 2013 that “... placing the blame on the past, apartheid, race, and other external factors does not wash anymore. It is time for solutions of which we are the architects and it is time to shape our future decisively.” He and the likes of Trevor Manuel and the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela shared that view
So, choose your church.
Should police shoot-to-kill? Yes and no. Bring back the death penalty? Of course, and definitely not. Cut the wage bill? Absolutely yes but also under no circumstances. And so on, and so forth.
Some of these many and various views are born of factionalism, and proxies for something else. Some of them are born of populism, and the idea that whatever plays well on the day is and always has been the ANC’s position. Some of them are born of rank hypocrisy or expediency. But the effect is what matters.
Getting away with murder
Because political analysis is so shallow, and SA’s Goldfish memory so acutely limited, it is by these sorts of temporary, fleeting positions that the ANC is known and understood by many, who have no consistent or meaningful analytical frame of reference. There is the “good” ANC and the “bad” ANC both in general and particular terms, and on almost every issue.
It allows the ANC and its members to get away with murder, in a manner that the opposition cannot. Because the DA is generally (not always) more consistent and principled, less factionalised or expedient, contradiction and doubletalk tends to stick more significantly to it, in the public mind. Should a current or former DA leader, for example, be caught in a contradiction, it will likely mark them and the party’s reputation for some considerable period of time.
Perhaps more importantly, when deemed to have said or done something egregious, it will for all time be held up against the DA’s principles and values, and used to damn the party. You see this on things like “diversity”, a perpetual, hypercritical frame of reference for any DA leadership structure. And yet, for the ANC, whose leadership structures are effectively racially homogeneous across the board, no such frame of reference exists.
Here is another, good illustration of how the ANC gets away with murder on this front.
Mantashe (and the ANC generally), spent much of the period during which the public protector was investigating Nkandla, unfairly maligning and disparaging Thuli Madonsela and her office. In 2013, he said, “her conduct suggests that she is protecting interests of a particular section of society”, that “She has handled it in a manner that suggests that she is an interested party” and that, “As we approach the elections, this can only be construed as playing tactics and a political ploy to create negativity around the image and integrity of the ANC president and the ANC itself.”
In 2014, he declared the Nkandla investigation had “now become a political report, and we will handle it as such” and later that year, that “Her intention to discredit the ANC and its leadership in government has been consistent.”
He, along with many others, drove a relentless campaign to discredit the public protector and her investigation — personal, unsubstantiated vitriol, which ultimately came to naught anyway, as the president was forced to apologise to the country for breaking his oath of office to the country. It was a disgraceful period.
But when Madonsela left her office, in 2016, it would be the self-same Gwede Mantashe at her farewell dinner, to sing her praises and see her off. “I agree with premier David Makhura,” said Mantashe, “when he said you saved us from ourselves. You did and we never acknowledged that. You leave the ANC wiser as you go.”
You would have said, at the very least, Mantashe would have had the courage of his convictions. But convictions are a dime a dozen in the ANC.
Who is Gwede Mantashe today? Does he carry the burden of his Nkandla shame? Does anyone in the ANC? Many of whom said much worse than Mantashe. Is it referred to by the media, even in passing, by way of context? Of course not, what they did was undone, and so the slate was wiped clean. And besides, tomorrow they might stray again. So there is at least the possibility that they could awake either a hero or a villain. We shall see.
The real nature of the beast
Where the comparison with religion stops working is when you take a step backwards, and outside the 24 hour bubble in which so much analysis happens. Take a step back and behind the scenes, where it really matters, the real nature of the beast is unchanging, relentless and absolutely focused on its goals. All this doublespeak is neither here nor there.
When it comes to ANC policy, the ANC’s grand effect is plain enough to see, and it is not contradictory: the brutal hollowing out of the SA economy; the systematic, decades-long climb in unemployment; the centralisation of the state and nationalisation of services; the obsession with control yet inevitably accompanied by incompetence and thus, the destruction of institutions and the augmentation of mediocrity as a national mindset.
Those characteristics are not subjective. And there are not two sides to them. They can all be demonstrated with much evidence, and in great detail. Each of them is profound and irrefutable. And yet, none of them seems to mark any particular denomination in the ANC. It is true, there is a general perception these things come from and are caused by “the ANC”, but as we have seen, “the ANC” does not really exist in the public mind, rather a thousand churches, each different, and all with their own pastors.
Divide and rule
A reporter said of Helen Zille’s recent remarks about the number of racist laws today, that “she is the party,” and was “elected by the DA” — the party was aware of her views and thus co-responsible for them.
It is, of course, rarely, if ever, that such a position is applied to the ANC or its leaders. How could it be? Which party would you be talking about anyway?
Fikile Mbalula once said: "In fact, we need a black broederbond to go about putting black people in the mainstream economy without being unapologetic about it.” But that was him, and he is the leader of a particular church in the ANC. So that sentiment, a disgraceful abhorrent position, almost literally does not even exist in the public mind anymore, as if it emanated from some fringe cult, that is deemed by no means representative of the religion as a whole. And yet, it draws its inspiration from the same Bible.
This is how the ANC always wins with the media, at least in the long run. No-one in the ANC is ever responsible for anything because there is no coherent idea of a party to measure them against, and no will to separate daily semantics from long term cause and effect.
It’s a wonderfully brilliant game the ANC has trapped the media in. And it is remarkable how many in the fourth estate play it, blissfully unaware of the consequences. Divide and rule, the saying goes. Normally that applies to your opposition. The genius of the ANC, is that it has applied it to itself. And, when it comes to the media, it has proven no less effective.
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