DA: Doldrums or Bright Horizons?

It's hard to write rationally about South Africa right now. The sheer clownishness and brazen greed of our political class, the moral ugliness of our socio-economic inequalities, the compulsive rapaciousness of our elites, the demoralisation of the centre, the mind-blowing contrast of South Africa's natural beauty and pockets of excellence set against social collapse, loss of moral and intellectual integrity and the rise of violent criminality overwhelms contemplative thought.

But it's precisely under these extremes that it is essential to keep a clear head and longer term vision. Doomerism is all too seductive as is denialism. Humans have created a world they were not designed for. We are facing the 'trap of progress' and no-one is ultimately secure. We require a moral stoicism and obstinate optimism. It's in that spirit this article is written.

According to Frans Cronje, DA is fading in the polls and failing in the coalitions . But no worries: the new ANC finance minister, Mr Enoch Godongwana, produced a brilliant budget. South African ship of state is under full sail so to speak. Adrian Gore says government is doing fine, just a little slow and inefficient but, he assured us, the corporate sector has their back.

And Rob Hersov? Oh well, Mr Hersov, very sadly told the DA that he no longer loved them. He has a new bevy of sweethearts: the FF+, ASA and especially Gayton McKenzie of the PA who is "well-read, erudite with a deep love of poetry" - or similar. There are others I'm sure.

Well the fact is that the DA has taken a hammering recently. Promising coalitions, especially in Gauteng, have crumbled (but see Nelson Mandela Bay) in a mix of farce and tragedy. By-elections in which the DA might have been expected to win or at least make decent showing have ended in disheartening defeat.

In short, South African pessimists have a lot to pessimise over. We reached a crunch point towards the end of the previous millennium when South Africa made a choice to remain a unitary state under a constitutional, liberal, transformative democracy.

Or at least some of us did. And of these only a very few did in full consciousness of what such a choice would involve. Few fully appreciated how difficult democracy is under optimum conditions, nevermind in a country with South Africa's history, cultural divisions, ethnic diversity, massive inequalities, location AND ideological differences. There was a lot of wishful thinking around.

No longer. As of now, and for a decade past, we're in free fall. Only those protected against the consequences of state failure can afford such fantasies. 'Failing' can mean different things ranging from State disintegration into outright famine and generalised violence to staggering along the abyss beset by mass poverty, personal insecurity and crime.

There is absolutely no doubt we meet the latter definition of failure, with a significant chance of progressing further into the full monty.

In my view the 'adapt and nudge' version of political reform is corporate South Africa in tacit alliance with the ruling ANC cartel. In the kindest version of this scenario the Ship of State is kept afloat, the current pockets of relative affluence and functionality are somehow maintained, possibly even extended, hopefully with some benefits filtering-down to the masses.

This is fantasy close to outright cynicism. Contrary to what the corporate sector may believe, the ANC government and the criminal cartels will call the tune, not them. Infrastructure will continue to disintegrate, those with skills will immigrate, crime at all levels will worsen, the educational and health institutions will deteriorate further and poverty and inequality will mount.

Faced with these trends and increasing public resistance, the government will become more extreme, Western investment will lessen, the role of the Russian-Chinese bloc will increase. Who knows what will happen after that?

Politics is not a harmless sideshow. Yet listening to many of our politicians, especially those from the swarm of ego-driven, single-issue parties and much of our media, that is precisely how they regard it. A game in which the voters are pawns and they're playing kings and queens.

This is an immature politics of opportunism reflecting the dire socio-economic demoralisation and fragmented state of the country.

Yet, amazingly, enough we still have a party which remembers what national purpose is about. A party which retains the institutional and cultural imprint of hard-won freedoms resting upon an adult ethos of personal responsibility, integrity, and social conscience.

Everyone knows its name, the Democratic Alliance. It's the party which makes the trains run on time, without the fascism. We need it desperately in South Africa. But what are the caveats?

One. The South African soil is unpropitious. You cannot just transplant a foreign plant like liberal democracy into such inhospitable soil and expect it to flourish. It has to be carefully tended and defended. Given the political and historical terrain of SA that's an immensely difficult and arduous task.

The DA will have to adapt the classical model of Liberal Democracy to local conditions and still keep the trains running - and the lights on, etc etc. There is no place for ideological or undue strategic rigidity.

I personally would like to see a strong, state-led social democracy alongside a vigorous entrepreneurial class. A South African-Nordic hybrid. We are going to have to find our way between purist meritocracy and a forms of representative diversity along different dimensions.

Is that tricky? You betcha, but that's life in the 21st century, especially in South Africa.

Two. Path dependency and indeterminate destinations. Put in normal human terms, we don't know where we're going and we don't know how to get there. So what do you do in such a situation?

You keep and treasure what is working and try to build up the rest. That at least the corporates got right. The thing about South Africa is that it's a multi-dimensional mosaic. Spread the benefits. Part of Gore's article makes sense in those terms.

Three: Stop the criminals taking over. That's going to need the political will, proper policing and protecting the institutions of democracy. It's going to be immensely difficult and yet utterly essential.

Four: Don't allow the struggling middle class and economically marginalised to be treated as voting fodder any longer. They're the future of South Africa over the long haul. They need a message of solidarity and hope which the DA can and must provide. That requires some charismatic but down-to-earth leadership.

I remember when Aunty Helen, as the Chairperson of the DA Federal Council is disparagingly called nowadays in some quarters, blew into DA leadership about 15 years ago. She was a blast of fresh air, the most charismatic leader the DA has ever had, AND a stickler for detail. The DA (and Cape Town and the Western Cape) bloomed like Cape vyggies in early Spring.

That mix of purpose and adventure is what we need right now. We can't have safety first in our present predicament. The DA can help South Africa walk this tightrope, but it must find the votes.

That's where we come in.