HLUMELO BIKO: The rebirth of agency in SA

We are 28 years removed from the official end of apartheid. It’s been so long since the celebrations that cheered an end to extended colonialism in SA that few of us can remember the sweet taste of victory we had the pleasure to savour.

The past 28 years can be broken into three distinct periods of varying length. The first five years was a period of delirious hope, irrational exuberance and the build-up of unsustainable expectations. Led by Nelson Mandela, these years represented a time when goodwill, self-preservation and asset hunger jostled for national pole position.

This was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs on a nationwide scale meeting an almost debilitating type of shame carried by many white people. As a result the goodwill to show patriotism was short-lived, and predictably this was followed by a fast-dwindling capacity to forgive and forget.

By the time we arrived at Thabo Mbeki’s epoch-defining “dream deferred” statement, the nation had swiftly reconstituted itself to become a dichotomy — the land of us and them. The economy quickly followed suit. Under a decade of Mbeki’s rule we struggled to define both the ‘us’ and the ‘them’, ending up lazily using the same race-based classifications of old, accentuated by a dual economy, one for the fortunate and the other an informal economy for poor South Africans. It provided fertile soil for populism to flourish.

Led by a rhetorically gifted man who represented the finest, most polished black leadership, many of us black elites were able to feel proudly African, convinced that we were on the verge of genuine sociopolitical independence. But despite an enormously successful effort to bring basic services to every South African village, Mbeki failed to reconcile the formal and informal economies, leading to a huge increase in wealth disparities.

As a leader he also failed in the task of building a single SA vision. He was to many black people the definition of who the ‘us’ could be, yet he achieved this goal and defined himself by accentuating the ‘them’. Patriotism, of the short lived rainbow nation type, faded, then quickly evaporated.

The last 13 years have seen us descend into a type of chaotic existence we had never before conceived of. The ‘us’ has become angrier, less empowered, less patriotic and more disconcerted than ever before. The ‘them’ have become more arrogant, less tolerant and increasingly defiantly anti-transformation.

We have lost track of who we are, what we can be and what we had hoped for our children to become. A combination of poor leadership, institutional decay and a loss of what our national interests are have led us down this blind and dark alley. Along the way we have become poorer, less employable, less competitive and far more anxious about our future.

Despite spending R3-trillion on educating our children, our public education system is defunct even as private education continues to thrive and improve year on year. Our infrastructure is more unequally spread out than any time in modern memory, and urban homelessness mushrooms at almost every intersection, spiralling out of control.

The work of the worst apartheid architects is coming to fruition. In doing so, we have proven African scholar Obafemi Awolowo correct when he says: “For the true and real neocolonialists are no other than we Africans ourselves. It is we, in spite of our political independence and sovereignty, who voluntarily submit to economic, and sometimes diplomatic, dominance from outside our border”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa must end his obsession with consultation or face the prospect of being removed from office by forces internal to his party or driven out, democratically or not, by the public at large. He has failed to recognise this era as one that demands the assertion of agency. The statement he made recently claiming his “hands are tied” when it comes to implementing the 18.65% hike in electricity prices, despite his advisers projecting two years of stage 2 power shortages, is preposterous. It is for this precise reason that Build One SA (Bosa) has ushered in the age of agency by taking Ramaphosa and his government to court.

We can no longer sit on the sidelines as the president is outsmarted by those who do not have the country’s best interests at heart. We refuse to be misled under the false hope that yet more renewal inside the governing party is the answer to our problems. As a political umbrella movement for change, Bosa is proposing “Ten Big Ideas” that must be urgently implemented by the opposition government in waiting.

Underpinned by key values, encompassed in the African philosophy of ubuntu, Bosa has developed a pragmatic and progressive policy framework that is community-focused and inclusive. A model that relies on citizen activism and community, public and private partnerships, aimed at (re)building an SA economy that can deliver security, sustainability and prosperity to all citizens. We call this approach radical centrism. These are its 10 pillars:

1. National Venture Capital Fund focused on township special economic zones (SEZs), funded by the sale of listed and large private company shares owned by the Industrial Development Corporation, which are currently valued at R200bn.
2. Student performance grant for a C grade or better in a critical subject basket, including science, technology, engineering, economics, accounting and maths.
3. School voucher programme that returns the power to decide which school a child attends to parents. Improved payment packages for teachers and removal of teacher unions.
4. Take R15,000 of the R21,000 spent by the department of basic education on each child’s education and give this to parents in the form of a school voucher system that allows parents to choose which school they want to take their children to.
5. Voluntary national civilian service year combined with an expanded public works programme.
6. Basic income grant and an unconditional cash grant paid to young South Africans (my share programme).
7. Localised policing through the formation of small regional and municipal police forces with a strong volunteer component and the additional authority to deputise private security providers with peace-officer status.
8. Amendment of the Electoral Act to enable citizens to directly elect their public representatives at local, provincial and national level and hold them accountable.
9. Increase broadband, Wi-Fi and telecommunication access in all townships, rural and peri-urban towns, so we can use telemedicine to put a doctor in every home.
10. Sustainable nuclear: we need five 4,000MW-5,000MW nuclear stations built over the next 10-plus years. We must find international technology available from power suppliers in America, Europe, China and Russia.

Bosa is committed to creating a society that is truly integrated and inclusive, where all citizens can participate in and benefit from the country's economic and social development. We believe that taking a radical yet pragmatic approach to solving these problems through strategically sound innovative policy interventions will lead to an SA that can achieve fast economic growth, high productivity, lower rates of poverty and lower rates of inequality.

We believe the time for change is now and that together we can build a stronger and more equitable SA. We call on all South Africans who share our vision to join us in this effort and support our political movement in bringing about real and meaningful change in the lives of all South Africans.

We know the path ahead will not be easy, but we are ready and willing to take on the challenges that lie before us. We believe that by working together to put these 10 policies in place, we can transform SA.

• Biko is CEO of Build One SA.