Dear Sir
I thank Fiona Forde for bothering to write a review of my articles at such length: I am flattered by her attention. Mainly, we seem to agree. She repeatedly says "Johnson doesn't understand" this or that but she then simply rephrases my own conclusions on those questions, leaving me rather unclear as to what I am supposed to have misunderstood.
Beyond that, her piece leaves me in a quandary as to how to reply since at many crucial stages it fails to follow the normal rules of argumentation, simply making assertions, unsupported by any evidence. Thus, for example, I provided quite a lot of data showing the size and significance of the Zulu bloc within the ANC. Ms Forde doesn't dispute any of that but simply asserts that ethnicity doesn't matter.
I wonder how she explains the fact that ANC membership and votes have soared in KwaZulu-Natal since Zuma became President, while remaining stagnant or even falling elsewhere? Has she not noticed that Malema's ambition is to become Premier of Limpopo province, thus building a power base amongst his fellow Northern Sotho? The fact is that ethnicity is an inevitable part of life in South Africa.
Similarly, Ms Forde asserts that the present government and ANC leadership is on its knees, that there is a leadership void. I see no evidence at all for this. What is true is that all ANC leaders are progressively undermined by their failure to do anything about unemployment. It is not clear that they even understand how much the ANC's own actions have largely contributed to increasing unemployment.
But there are two things I can assure Ms Forde of. One is that, like her, I live and work in SA, not at some faraway desk. The same is true of Lawrie Schlemmer, who is the opposite of an ivory tower academic.
Secondly, Ms Forde repeatedly talks of Malema and other ANC leaders talking to, and having great pull with, "the masses". But she must realise that they don't talk to the masses. This is a common mistake. The people they address at ANC meetings are invariably ANC activists, who are by no means wholly representative of the wider electorate.
If you really want to know what the masses are thinking you have to do what Lawrie Schlemmer does, and pore over opinion survey data. If you do that you will find that all ANC factions, starting with the ANCYL, are massively unpopular with ordinary ANC voters. What they would like is straightforward old-fashioned African nationalism of the Mandela variety with the whole ANC working harmoniously together.
Yours sincerely,
RW Johnson
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