By Dr Mamphela Ramphele Sunday Times 25 Oct 2009
quote We took pride in seeing our leaders in luxury cars and throwing ostentatious parties quote
Ours is a constitutional democracy which embodies the sovereignty of the nation in the citizen. The citizen in a constitutional democracy is the sovereign – the ruler. The citizen as ruler exercises her or his rights and responsibilities through various instruments, among which the vote for representatives in government to manage the affairs of the state is but one. The rallying call of the struggle for democracy – that “the people shall govern” – sets the tone for our constitutional democracy. But how has that translated into a shared understanding of how the people govern?
South Africa was blessed with Nelson Mandela as the first leader of this democracy. He had the ability to lead in a way that inspired confidence in our ability to transcend our past and build a future where, together, we could become a great nation. Trust between leaders and citizens was inspired by his moral authority, not because he was perfect, but because he was willing to confront his own weaknesses and the shortcomings of those within his own party, the ANC. It is that strength in weakness that bestows moral authority, by allowing one to have the humility to acknowledge vulnerability and to learn from mistakes .
Experience and practice over the past 10 or more years of democracy has, however, demonstrated that there are many among our fellow citizens, inside and outside government, who have a different understanding of what constitutional democracy means. We hear comments by some ANC members, threatening those who question the performance or utterances of some in the leadership with words like: “You must be careful about how you use the freedom we have given you, lest we take it away from you”! From left and right field there are also threats to make the country ungovernable if certain demands are not met that also put our democracy at risk and undermine the sovereignty of citizens.
It must be remembered that ours was not a freedom won through the barrel of the gun, but by the power of reason over conflicting interests. It is freedom won by citizens who refused to be cowed by the might of an oppressive government. This is our freedom. We owe no one for it. No one can take it away from us.
We are proud to reaffirm our belief that SA belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity. We need to recommit to making this unity in diversity work for us to ensure that the peaceful, non-racial, non-sexist, prosperous democracy to which we aspire , becomes reality in the lives of all citizens, especially the least among us.
The past 10 years have seen the emergence of a political culture not dissimilar to that of past apartheid governments, which is also a common feature of authoritarian regimes. The tendency to conflate the person of the leader of the governing party, the party, the government and the state is a worrying feature of our political system at all levels of government. The leader is treated as the sovereign. You even hear some political leaders referring to themselves in the royal “we”. How is that possible in a constitutional democracy where sovereignty lies with the citizen? Why are we as citizens not questioning this dangerous trend?
It may be that we idealised President Mandela too much and paid too little attention to our role as citizens to build our future together alongside our leaders. We became too dependent on the “Madiba Magic” and on leaders in general to drive the building of the future. We allowed leaders to live our lives for us. We took pride in seeing them being driven around in luxury cars, wearing expensive clothes, throwing ostentatious parties as if they were superstars. We became addicted to being spectators in the business of government turned into a soap opera. How else does one explain how a VIP security guard could shoot at citizens – the sovereigns – to clear the way for speeding government cars with flashing blue lights unless, in his mind, the politicians he is guarding are the real sovereigns?
The relationship between citizens and the government has, since 1994, been defined in terms of the extent to which the government delivers on election promises. The resultant relationship is one of giver and recipient rather than citizen and representative.
A giver/recipient relationship is a recipe for failure on all sides. However committed the government is to honouring its promises, it is in a no-win situation. The backlogs inherited from our ugly past are too large for the government to tackle alone. Even before the economic meltdown, there could never be enough money to deliver houses, water, electricity, education and health free to passive poor people in SA. The situation has been worsened by shrinking government revenues.
There is growing acknowledgement of the failure of management and leadership at many levels within government, especially at local level where social service performance is critical. The post-apartheid government has under-estimated the importance of technical skills. Financial management, infrastructure maintenance, water and sanitation provision need hard-core skills. Many municipalities have no financial managers, no engineers, no town planners and no risk-management capacity.
We are also paying the price of the unintended consequences of black economic empowerment. To empower unskilled, politically connected people by putting them in high-paying government jobs without due regard to their skills complement, is equivalent to making poor people pay for the empowerment of political elites. It is an act of disempowerment of the majority. This is evident in many poor urban, peri-urban and rural communities. And the appointment of people beyond their level of competence is itself corrupting. Employer and employee know the appointment is made for political expediency. That is corruption.
The culture of impunity with respect to the abuse of power and public resources in our public institutions has reached alarming levels. Even parliament is not immune. It comes as no surprise that after 15 years of watching how those in positions of power have enriched themselves at their expense, poor communities have taken to the streets to demand attention. Sadly, the protests often destroy the limited infrastructure in those poor communities.
The values enshrined in our constitution, of equality of all before the law and the outlawing of all forms of discrimination, has to find expression in the lives of citizens. Honest appraisal tells a story of a nation that has yet to reflect the values of our constitutional democracy.
Our nation is confronted by crime and corruption, failing education and health systems, growing poverty and inequality. Poor people bear the brunt of the insecurity that flows from this state of affairs. Substantive equality and equitable access to our nation’s resources are not yet a reality for most citizens.
What can citizens do to entrench our democracy?
We need to celebrate our achievements over the past 15 years and acknowledge that, given where we come from, we have travelled bravely along the journey to become the nation we envisaged in our constitution: a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous nation united in its diversity. But we also need to be honest about how far short we have fallen in living up to the values of our constitution. Acknowledgement of failures is the beginning of wisdom.
We also need to change our development model as a society. A society of passive citizens waiting for delivery of services from government is a society at risk. Imagine how much of an impact we could have had on poverty over the past 15 years if we had involved poor people in the formulation and implementation of development projects in their communities!
Take housing or human settlements. The involvement of prospective house owners in the mapping of settlements, the laying of infrastructure, the building of houses, including all the finishing touches done under management and supervision of experts, would not just produce better houses and neighbourhoods. It would also provide a skills-training base for thousands of young people trapped in poverty. It could defuse the time bomb we are sitting on, of 50% of those aged between 20 and 24 who are wallowing in despair: not in school, not in training and not employed.
We also need to review our approach to social welfare. Our tax base cannot sustain 13 million welfare-grant recipients. Nor is it desirable to have so many people depending on hand-outs. Why not learn from Latin America and turn welfare-grant recipients, other than the severely disabled and the aged, into trainees for productive lives as skilled workers or entrepreneurs? The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh is another example of empowering poor people by giving them a leg-up and not just a hand-out.
The key to a peaceful, prosperous, strong society is the unleashing of the energy of all citizens to be architects of their futures. No development can be sustainable unless it involves those who stand to benefit from it. Poor people are not poor in ideas. They understand their own situation better than outsiders. What is needed is space for open conversations with them as full participants.
We owe it to all those who sacrificed so much for us to enjoy this freedom to work towards a true constitutional democracy in which all citizens exercise their rights and responsibilities.
* Ramphele is former MD of the World Bank and vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town
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