Monday, October 26, 2009

Ideology versus efficiency

In South African politics one thing stands out prominently: the linkage between the ANC and the idea that it should govern from the left. There has been a lot of bluster and angry talk from COSATU around the green paper on national planning released by Minister in the Presidency, Trevor Manuel. Apparently the minister should consult unions before he does his job and comes up with policy proposals which are a mandated part of his job.


There is a terrible belief in this country that because a person was placed in a government position by the ruling party, that he/she must then think of the party’s ideology before doing his/her job. I have met Minister Manuel on two occasions and in those occasions when he was asked a borderline ideological question that questioned the ANC, he always answered from a partisan stand point. He is a party man through and through, yet COSATU hacks have the audacity to question his loyalty to the movement and openly attack him at conferences.


This recent bit of disagreement highlights a condition that affects certain people’s mentalities in this country, and that is the belief that a party must govern according to all of the promises made during campaigns. In reality this is impossible, for campaigning is nowhere near the same as governing. There is a saying in American politics that “you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.” This saying captures perfectly what most parties realize once they enter government: the reality of governance is that policy cannot necessarily be driven by ideology.


Looking at Barack Obama in the United States and his drive for health care reform, one gets the sense that this is not just a South African or African problem, but a global one. Obama promised that he would not sign a bill out of Congress on health care without a public option, one of the Democratic Party’s most valued ideological tilts in the debate on health care. Yet now the public option clause is optional in Obama’s administration and the inclusion of it would be a bonus rather a prerequisite for reform. George Bush also found out that ideology and governance don’t go together when he sought to privatize Social Security.


When the ANC came into power, they started off with the Redistribution and Development Programme as the economic policy, a policy that was designed to help the disinherited and main victims of the Apartheid regime. However the party soon realized that the programme did not work and would eventually lead to the state creating dependency.


When President Zuma announced Pravin Gordhan as Minister of Finance, I thought it was a brave and wonderful choice, for Mr Gordhan is not aligned to the ANC and is mostly a technocrat. Technocrats, in my view, are the best kind of government employee for they do not worry about upsetting constituents, or votes in upcoming elections. They focus on the job at hand and formulation of policies that better the country and its people. They are efficient and not beholden to alliances or party people who think they know better.


South Africa needs more technocrats and less ideologues. Ideology has a role to play in governance, but that role must be tempered with cold, hard realism that measures what is good for the country as a whole and what is good for the people. We cannot have a government that proposes to improve the lot of some people at the expense of the country’s reputation and credibility in the world.


Workers and unionists will argue differently; however, moderate socialism and the idea that government should exist solely to redistribute money to disenfranchised people and those who languish in poverty, is wrong and damaging. Whilst the idea of assisting the poor is noble and righteous, South Africa must avoid creating an attitude of dependency. The country must aim to build a developmental society that assists the poor with training and skills development as opposed to giving hand-outs. Governing along an ideological path alienates and divides people. It potentially creates unnecessary prejudices and should therefore, in my opinion, be left in the campaigning realm where it belongs.


Written by Tatenda Goredema.

Tatenda Goredema is the Deputy-Editor of VARSITY Newspaper.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Dumb It Down

A lot of people say that globalisation is good and it has and will continue to provide opportunities and jobs for much of the world’s populace. This is true, and there is no doubt that globalisation has brought about positive changes to the world, but I have a problem with one of globalisation’s uglier properties, and that is the exportation of programs and websites that encourage the belief that it is okay to be stupid or intellectually bankrupt.

Programmes that come with a “reality television” tag are probably some of the worst in the universe; they are some of America and Europe’s ugliest exports. They encourage unbridled greed, unashamed lying and deceit and worst of all, they create the erroneous impression that morality and ethics are things that can be subverted and ignored in pursuit of money.

Last year I watched with considerable displeasure as a certain social website came into being. This site encourages participants to tell harrowing details of their lives in a few hundred words and caps the end of the tale with words that make it seem like these people’s lives are worse off than others. This site is but one example of the gross and disgusting depths to which the world has sunk as a result of culture being subjugated by the spread of social values that are of Western heritage.

Whilst Pakistan faces insurgent attacks, women and children die in Somalia and face constant threat of violence, Barack Obama undeservedly wins a Nobel Peace Prize, and war ravages Iraq and Afghanistan, some people are watching “reality TV” and typing up their life stories for internet consumption. There is no doubt that the privileged among us sometimes feel cold and uncaring to the problems of the rest of the world and sometimes of our fellow countrymen, but how can one logically justify this sort of pursuit of triviality?

No one can claim to be perfect and as such I am nowhere near that, but the times of interconnectedness we live in demand that we, at the very least, take note of the suffering of our fellows and do something to improve the life of others.

There was a time when reading a book was better than watching TV, and when conversations were conducted face to face. The spread of globalisation has promulgated a shift away from physical social interaction and away from being well-read and well-spoken. It is a social sin nowadays to speak of Ancient Greek tragedies, recite poetry or quote text from Shakespeare or any other eminent writers outside of a classroom.

So, it seems to me that although there a lot of positives to be drawn from globalisation, some of which I have benefited from and will in future benefit from, there are also some negatives. To quote the book of Isaiah, society needs people who are “strong and of good courage,” people who are willing to change the status quo and refute the intellectually bankrupt values that globalisation seems to have brought into the social realm. High minded debates are taboo in a society that now promotes fashion labels, Hollywood celebrities and profligate drinking and sex.

The responsibility to change the downward cultural trend that globalisation has imposed on us, lies with the educated among us, for if the educated people don’t take up the cause, then nobody will. For as John Kennedy once said, “…the educated citizen has a special obligation to encourage the pursuit of learning, to promote exploration of the unknown, to preserve the freedom of inquiry, to support the advancement of research…”

Indifference and lack of interest in the problems of our time is no solution to the problem, and is unjustifiable in the face of what is effectively the gradual erosion of our moral conscience. Jack Kerouac once wrote, “If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.”

Written by Tatenda Goredema.

Tatenda Goredema is the Deputy-Editor of VARSITY Newspaper.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Death of Conservatism

I recently had a conversation with a friend, and after discussing the ordinary things guys discuss such as beer, women and sport, we moved onto a discussion about conservative views and why they seem to be dissipating or becoming less prevalent. I was recently tagged a fascist for some of my centre-right views, and my friend had recently come back from a trip to California and told me the story of how the politics in the state are decidedly conservative on a of lot issues, whilst the social behaviour in the state is mostly liberal.

This could partly be explained by the fact that California has some of the wealthier inhabitants of the United States and the conservatives among them are more comfortable placing their trust in the party of big business, the GOP, rather than “tax-and-spend” Democrats who are forever accused of seeking to expand government and taxing citizens to do so. The state is currently under Republican Governorship under Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The slow decline of conservative practices and views across most of the globe may be attributable to globalisation and the many liberal philosophies that come with it, or to the idea that conservatism represents people who are anti-gay rights, anti-abortion, anti-feminism and elitist. For whatever reason, a lot of people think that conservatism is taboo and unacceptable in the 21st century, I respectfully disagree.

I happen to be a moderate conservative and believe in some of the principles that conservatism advocates, but I cannot say that I am elitist, anti-different ideas or prejudicial in any way. Instead, I am a moderate conservative who has strong views on what should be done about crime, the lack of a death penalty in the country, social iniquities, the slow death of cultural practices and beliefs due to the increased interconnectedness of the world.

I am against the flagrant promotion of violence and sex on television along with the promulgation of some American television programs that encourage the idea that it’s okay to be dimwitted.

Detractors and critics argue that to be conservative or to believe in some of the things I mentioned is to be naïve and ignorant, but I respectfully disagree. I view a lot of issues in the world through political spectacles and the heavy defeat of the Republican Party in the 2008 elections in the US was a signal that in order for people in that country to believe in conservatism again and put Republicans back in the spotlight in the House of Representatives and the Senate, conservatism needs to be repackaged and promoted differently, the soonest opportunity coming next year.

In this country, few people complained when Bheki Cele was appointed National Police Commissioner and spoke of getting tough on crime, yet the language and tone of rhetoric he used was very much conservative in a country that is mostly viewed as left wing and liberal with a ruling party that advocates left wing policies.

The advent of the GEAR economic policy under the erstwhile President Thabo Mbeki was fairly conservative in its principles of promoting trade and allowing the markets to be independent and promoting Foreign Direct Investment ahead of redistributing wealth, as initially proposed by the ANC when it first came into power. The practice of inflation targeting, which has been widely denounced by trade unions, is another example of conservative practices that seem to sit well with a large portion of the well off populace.

These practices prove to me that although ultra conservatism and far right views are unpopular and often denounced, some conservative principles still linger and are acceptable. Thus, it seems to me that some of the dissent targeted at conservatism is based on a measure of ignorance; thus, learning and discussion is the only way to dispel the cloud of misinterpretation around the philosophies of conservatism. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “If we can enlighten the people generally, tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

Written by Tatenda Goredema.

Tatenda Goredema is the Deputy-Editor of VARSITY Newspaper.