Reading the archive left by the struggles against colonialism and apartheid is a sobering experience. These days the host of grand visions for the future that populate that archive must be measured by close to a quarter of a century of rule by the ANC, as well as by the oppression under which better futures were imagined.
There are all kinds of other metrics that we could use if we wanted to put numbers to the social cost of “unutterable treason”. Trade unions, granted a grudging respect when they were anti-Zuma, are now routinely vilified in a manner that exceeds a rational engagement with empirical facts. Conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated malicious insinuations have become common.
But what is lost in this lemming-like rush to the right is that, although the clean-up of the state is necessary, on its own it will not be able to contain, let alone resolve, our problems. That caste, always speaking in the name of the nation, will make it clear that “the vocation of their people is to obey, to go on obeying and to be obedient till the end of time”.
It is generally understood that the democratic gains won in 1994 would have been subject to increasingly rapid reversals had the ANC faction who cohered around Zuma sustained its control over the party and thereby the state.