Ideology is becoming SA's Berlin Wall
A huge commotion is being made this year about the Twenty Years of Democracy. According to all the indications, however, our South African constitution, which is the basis of our democracy, is under severe pressure. Ironically enough it is on 9 November this year, 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall that heralded the end of Communism and the Cold War.
In South Africa the Berlin Wall has had a different form, however. A form of the Berlin Wall has very systematically started becoming an ideological buffer between South Africans and the South African Constitution in the past few years.
At a recent property rights conference in Johannesburg, former President FW de Klerk said: "The SACP had already received about 30% of the ANC's parliamentary seats long ago, without winning a single vote itself." Members of the Central Committee of the SACP also fill senior positions in the cabinet, especially with regard to the setting of economic policy. The SACP's control extends even further.
The tripartite alliance's Secretaries-General (ANC, SACP and Cosatu) are all members of the central committee of the SACP and the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is their point of departure and ideological agenda for South Africa, which will play out in two phases. The first of these two phases will be a national democratic revolution during which power will be held by a broad coalition of groups representing different class interests, followed by a second phase in which the Communist Party would do away with the coalition agreement to obtain sole power.
Recently Anthea Jeffrey of the SAIRR said: "The SACP and Cosatu have openly declared that they regard the NDR as the most direct route to socialism and then communism. The ANC does not openly support this goal but it does admit that the glue holding the triple alliance together, is precisely this joint commitment to the NDR."
A recent discussion document for the Afrikanerbond, which looks at the 20 years of democracy and the threats to constitutional democracy, refers to the tactical points of departure of the National Democratic Revolution, among others, as follows:
The party (Luthuli House) must make its power and influence felt in the political field (levels of government; defence force; police; the intelligence service; etc.), the economy and financial sector (agriculture, mining and banks); semi-state institutions (SABC, ESKOM, Denel, Transnet, etc.) and on broader civil society.
The identification, consolidation, co-ordination and management of constructive power bases at all levels of the state, economy and broader society with as aim the promotion of the revolutionary ideal.
Therefore the NDR has in its application already advanced far in the South African context and must be seen as the ideological Berlin Wall between South Africans and the South African constitution.
The building blocks of the ideological Berlin Wall
Therefore, when the NDR is compared with the South African Constitution, the following can be seen:
NDR: The party leads and controls the state (party-state view).
Constitution: A multi-party dispensation is a part of the greater constitutional and political dispensation.
NDR: No clear distinction between the state and non-state dispensations.
Constitution: A clear distinction between the state and non-state dispensations.
NDR: The party must transform the state and non-state environments with an interventionist and development-oriented approach as focus.
Constitution: The state's task is democratically restricted and not of an interventionist nature.
NDR: An equal society as outcome.
Constitution: A free society as outcome.
NDR: The unassailability of leadership in a political context.
Constitution: Accountable leadership in a political context.
NDR: "Machtstaat " idea
Constitution: "Rechtstaat " idea
The NDR's fundamental values: transformation; historical rectification; social justice; economic redistribution; state intervention; black empowerment.
Constitution's fundamental values: political democracy; constitutionalism; social responsibility; strong civil institutions: the supremacy of the law.
We can dismantle the ideological Berlin wall, but the constitution requires a renewed commitment and consolidation, and continuous maintenance. Several experts assert that there are five specific conditions that must apply before a democracy can be regarded as consolidated, namely:
1. A free and strong civil society.
2. An autonomous "political society" with sufficient "social control" over the structures of the state.
3. All the political actors are subject to the supremacy of the law which protects civil liberties.
4. A transparent, responsible and functioning state administration.
5. An established and institutionalised economy in which a market economy and the private ownership of production factors figure prominently.
Civil society was ready for this in 1994, but it has been actively undermined by the governing party and its alliance partners, with the shifting in of the ideological Berlin Wall between the citizens and the constitution.
Jaco Schoeman is Chairperson of the Afrikanerbond.
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