inside politics

Analysis of and commentary on South African politics.
4 April 2012

The eternal battle between outcomes and processes


ARTICLE: What is more important – an outcome or the process designed to achieve it? How you answer that question will say a lot about you. Those primarily concerned with outcomes are usually responsible for change and, with it, progress. Those overly concerned with processes usually stifle progress, unable as they are to understand its purpose in the first place (to generate an outcome) – or to adapt when it fails. South Africa today places far too much emphasis on process. Indeed, in politics we have a process for everything (a tribunal, a committee, a review, a commission, an investigation, etc) but when it comes to outcomes – and with that accoutability – well, they are far harder to find. So it is worth exploring the relationship between these two things, to try and better understand the role each plays.

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4 April 2012

In conversation about tolerance


SERIES: Two heads are better than one, or so the saying goes. Jacques Rousseau is a lecturer in critical thinking and ethics, as well as a columnist for the Daily Maverick and, in discussion with him, the series In Conversation will look to explore a key concept or development in a few email exchanges. Few ideas get more attention than in South African public debate than that of ‘tolerance’ – and, with it, the seemingly omnipresent idea of ‘offence’. We get offended a lot. Too much perhaps? In response, tolerance seems to have become an excuse to avoid the proper critical examination of bad ideas and poor thinking. These, among others, are some of the issues explored this week.

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3 April 2012

Mbeki’s 1994 TV debate nightmare


SERIES: In this edition of From the Archives: As the Republican Party process to determine a presidential candidate plays itself out in America, with a seemingly endless stream of televised debates, it is worth asking why we don’t enjoy a similar culture of public debate in South Africa. Why did Jacob Zuma and Helen Zille not debate each other on live television in the run-up to the 2009 election? The answer to that question is a complex one, and a lot, I suspect, to do with Zuma himself. But the ANC more generally has never really advocated for this kind of thing, certainly Mbeki fought it tooth and nail – and he was no Jacob Zuma. Why? One reason is the ANC’s obvious attitude to debate but, with regards to Mbeki, the answer might be a little more personal. Here follows a retrospective on the first and only time democratic South Africa presidential candidates debated on live TV – in the run-up to the 1994 election.

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3 April 2012

On authenticity


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Politics and public life lend themselves to compromise and appeasement. Both these things, in turn, help to generate an incentive structure that often does not reward but punishes authenticity. Constantly those that would seek out public office are encouraged to present to the world a version of themselves that is as inoffensive to as many people as possible. But what happens when one attains a position of power? Does that incentive still hold, or are people then more inclined to reveal their real selves?

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2 April 2012

What would a society mired in mediocrity look like?


ARTICLE: Mediocrity is a devilish thing – pervasive and insidious and yet so ill-defined. It is relatively easy to understand what excellence is, much harder though to define its nemesis. What I have tried to do in the article below is describe what a society firmly in mediocrity’s grip might look like. It is a helpful exercise, if only because it makes it easier to understand the important role excellence plays and its general effect.

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2 April 2012

Bitou at the brink


FEATURE: The story of Bitou municipality (Plettenberg Bay) and how the ANC’s closed crony model of local governance corrupted democracy and development in the area. Described by the DA’s David Christianson, the story sets out how the ANC administration, through the mismanagement and misuse of resources, brought the municipality to its knees, and the extent of the problem with DA inherited when it came to power in Bitou in last year’s local government elections. It is a powerful illustration of the kind of damage poor governance can do and, much like the story of Gauteng’s Nokeng Tsa Taemane municipality which Helen Zille set out during the election and DA Mayor Gesie van Deventer’s description of what the DA found when it took over Drakenstein demonstrates that much of the ANC’s poor governance is only fully revealed when it is removed from power.

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30 March 2012

South Africa and the Sorites Paradox


FEATURE: The Sorites Paradox posits that, in removing individual grains of sand from a heap, one can never tell the exact point when it stops being a heap and becomes something else. It is also called the ‘little-by-little’ argument and speaks to one of humankind’s great weaknesses: our inability to spot gradual but fundamental change over time. What happens when you apply the paradox to the ANC? Is it the same party it was in 1994? Has it changed fundamentally? If so, when did it happen?

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29 March 2012

Moral outrage: the groundwork for authoritarianism


ARTICLE: Often South Africa seems willingly to throw itself into a fit of moral outrage about something incidental. We are currently in the process of doing exactly that, this time about the word ‘refugee’ and what it means. And so it is worth taking some time to try and objectively understand what moral outrage is, its nature and form. In the short piece below, I try to identify its general characteristics.

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29 March 2012

Refugees: The ANC’s xenophobic bigotry revealed


FEATURE: Moral outrage often says more about those outraged than the issue at hand. The hysteria surrounding Helen Zille’s use of the word refugee – particularly from the ANC – makes the case: the meaning of the word is beyond dispute, the prejudice which has fuelled the way it has been perceived, however, has hardly been touched on. And a closer inspection of the ANC’s actual response on the matter suggests it has a lot of answer for – a new target for South Africa’s media to focus its moralising on. Whether or not it does so, however, is different question, the answer to which is revealing.

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28 March 2012

Was Shiceka fired for promoting the DA?


FEATURE: As part of the speculation preceding President Zuma’s decision to fire former co-operative governance minister Sicelo Shiceka it was reported the ANC was unhappy with the way his department kept highlighting in its reports how well DA governments were performing. Since he has been fired, the national department has produced none of the comparative statistical information it did in the run-up to the 2011 election. So, was the way the minister’s department promoted the DA a contributing factor to his removal from office? And, more to the point, will the ANC government ever make that kind of comparative data available again?

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27 March 2012

The nature of good leadership


ARTICLE: What is the nature of good leadership? That is a question that has elicited a thousand answers. In the article below, I look at a few of the requisite traits. In particular, the central importance of a vision and its relationship to sacrifice: that a good leader understands, in order to progress from one state of affairs to another, they must be willing to sake something on that transition and that you can tell a great deal about a leader by the extent to which they are willing to do this.

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27 March 2012

On secrecy


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Secrecy is often thought of as something involving the withholding of information but, in contrast, equally it can be understood as the management and control of information. In turn, secrecy has a certain kind of relationship with trust and, depending how it is used, it can either enhance it or undermine it.

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26 March 2012

How political correctness makes for bad analysis


FEATURE: There is a tendency in South African political analysis to explain away problematic behaviour or positioning by being optimistic about it. That is, to suggest it is not a problem and that it needed be cause for serious concern because everything is going to be alright. That, however, leads to poor analysis. In the piece below I look at a piece by Eusebius McKaiser that illustrates this kind of thinking and how it lends itself to misunderstanding the politics of the ANC.

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26 March 2012

Affirmative Action and academic appointments


FEATURE: In a piece focused on academic appointments, Adv Mark Oppenheimer – a DA Young Leader – looks at affirmative action in its various forms and how each relates to the idea of justice, before concluding that only equal opportunity affrimative action can be described as a truly just remedy in overcoming past injustices. Affirmative Action has been in the news lately for a number of different reasons, from UCT’s admission’s policy to the Department of Correctonal Services’ new employment equity plan. The arguments Mark addresses and disproves are important and the relationship he focuses on – between redress and justice – critical to both this issue and South Africa’s development more broadly.

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23 March 2012

Accountability necesitates explanation and consequence


ARTICLE: The idea of acountability seems to be poorly understood from first principles: there is a perception that it involves little more than explanation. In other words, many assume that simply by explaining what when wrong, one has accounted for it. In fact, it must be accompanied by consequence and the possibility that wrongdoing be met by the requisite action. In the piece below I look at this relationship. For anyone interested in further thoughts on the idea, see this video interview with Lindiwe Mazibuko, about accountability and its nature.

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22 March 2012

On the ANC, refugees and offence


FEATURE: Helen Zille’s tweet about Eastern Cape refugees has caused much outcry, least of all from the ANC, which, as per usual, has used the opportunity not to talk about the problem at hand but the word itself. Ironically, given the ANC’s sudden worry about “negative feelings”, a look at its own track record reveals a party that routinely throws around deeply offensive ideas all the time. In the piece below I set some of them out and make the case: if the ANC is worried about offence, a good place to start would be by taking a look in the mirror.

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20 March 2012

Excellence as an antidote


ARTICLE: In the piece below Wilmot James makes a fairly profound point: that excellence and its pursuit can be a mechanism through which reconciliation can be achieved. That is, to my mind, an entirely original approach. And quite true too: for a country that suffers low self esteem and over which victimhood has such a strong hold, what can be a better anecdote than setting high standards and then achieving them? Something to think about.

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20 March 2012

In conversation about ubuntu


SERIES: Two heads are better than one, or so the saying goes. Jacques Rousseau is a lecturer in critical thinking and ethics, as well as a columnist for the Daily Maverick and, in discussion with him, the series In Conversation will look to explore a key concept or development in a few email exchanges. We start with the idea of ubuntu – a notion that has quickly been elevated to the level of philosophy, although what it actually means remains the subject of much debate. Perhaps more to the point, is ubuntu a liberal idea? Or, at the very, least can it be reconciled with liberalism?

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20 March 2012

On humanism


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Today, a look at humanism and the idea that human achievement and potential is often downplayed in the favour of some supernatural explanation for accomplishment. This might seem beneficial – for one it allows one to abdicate responsibility when it comes to destructive behaviour – but that comes at a cost, including an inability to celebrate the great things of which humans alone are capable.

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19 March 2012

Inside Ideas: Lindiwe Mazibuko on accountability


VIDEO SERIES: Too often we use ideas without thinking about their actual component part, how they relate to other ideas and, importantly, whether or not other people undersatnd them the same way. Inside Ideas is a video series designed to explore key political concepts and what they mean. We start with a conversation with DA Parliamentary Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko MP about the idea of accountability, what it means and why it is important.

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15 March 2012

What constitutes good argument?


ARTICLE: What are the structural characteristics of a good argument? Many of the key ingredients are well known: evidence, reason, logic, language, but how do they all relate? Also, what combination results in a powerful argument and what combination results in a weak argument? I have tried to answer some of these questions in the short piece that follows below.

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13 March 2012

On callousness


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Pain and suffering is as much a part of life as joy and pleasure but the lessons they hold are often counterintuative and thus, not well learnt; for one’s inclination is to ignore or dismiss pain simply because it is onerous indeed to try and relate to it. But that attitude comes at a cost.

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13 March 2012

UCT Admissions: The DASO alternative


DOCUMENT: The University of Cape Town has for sometime now been the centre of much attention as a result of its race-based admissions policy. In a response to that debate, the UCT council recently established a Commission into UCT Students Admissions on the Admissions Policy and called for public submissions. What follows below is the submission from the Democratic Alliance Student Organisation at UCT, in which the case is made, rather than race-based selection, a basket of socio-economic indicators be used – an alternative approach to redress, based on equality of opportunity.

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8 March 2012

The other election


SERIES: The instantaneous and dramatic nature of current affairs lends itself to a kind of historical amnesia, one where the captivating nature of those things unfolding today, causes one to forget the bigger picture. From the Archives aims to put forward the odd reminder that, more often than not, history is merely repeating itself. In all likelihood, somewhere, someone has already experienced and commented on those all-consuming issues that appear to have materialised only yesterday. This time, a retrospective on the other important election involving Jacob Zuma: at the ANC’s 1997 general conference Zuma was elected Deputy President and his formal relationship with Thabo Mbeki was first established. How he got elected, and what he had to say about Mbeki, makes for interesting reading.

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7 March 2012

Learning the hard way


FEATURE: When Jackie Selebi was appointed police commissioner in 1999, and despite much evidence suggesting his appointment would be problematic – least of all that he was first an foremost an Mbeki loyalist, not an expert – the decison was widely welcomed by the mainstream press. Today, Selebi’s successor, Bheki Cele, is also disgraced and so it worth asking: what did the press say about his 2009 appointment? Did they praise it? Or where they critical? Because the problem with the appointment was essentially the same. Have a read and find out.

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6 March 2012

Tolls back then and why this time it’s different; or is it?


FEATURE: History, they say, repeats itself. The current and widespread discontent concering the introduction of eTolling in Gauteng might seem without precedent in the new South Africa but cast your gaze a little further back into the past and you will see the issue has raised its head before. Things then, as now, were much the same: a nationalist government, failing infrastructure and an incapable state. The plan failed back then but we can surely learn a lesson or two from it. Or can we? Charles van Onselen relates the story and asks the questions we should be thinking about today.

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6 March 2012

On loss


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Loss is as much a part of democratic life as victory but a far harder outcome to accept. And many resist it, long after it is no longer negotiable. Not accepting it is, of course, one thing but to try change the rules in order to negate it, far more problematic behaviour.

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5 March 2012

The language of meritocracy


FEATURE: To what degree is South Africa a country that embraces and embodies excellence? That is, to what degree are those things fundamental to a meritocracy inherent to South African public discourse and its political culture? In the piece below the DA’s Federal Chair, Wilmot James, looks at this question and tries to understand both where we stand as country in this regard and what the Democratic Alliance has to do, in order to better embrace excellence and its benefits.

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2 March 2012

The Imaginarium of Marius Fransman


FEATURE: ANC Western Cape Provincial Chairperson Marius Fransman has written an article that, well, it’s quite something. I was going to say hilarious, and I did laugh heartedly at much of it but then, on reflection, decided that ‘hilarious’ did not do adequate justice to some of the remarkable gobbledygook contained within it. Mixed metaphors, mangled grammar, poor language, bad spelling – it reads like the wildly-impassioned speech a maniacal super villain spits forth, mad with an over-the-top power lust, just before he inevitably duffs his whole grand plan and is captured, all red in the face and puffing, like someone who has been locked in a sauna for a day and a half. Anyway, you should read it first, before reading this. You can find it here. Oh, and also make a note of it. This is going to be one of those humdingers you are going to want to recall from the archives come 2014.

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2 March 2012

187 votes: How Julius Malema was elected


FEATURE: So Julius Malema has been expelled from the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and while South Africa reflects on what this all means, it is worth taking a trip back in time, to April 2008, when Malema was first elected President of the league. Why? Well, his election had all the tell-tale signs of what was to follow. And, with the benefit of hindsight, it makes for interesting reading. In the end there were just 187 votes in it but what an important 187 votes those proved to be. Here, then, is a brief re-cap of the ANCYL’s 2008 elective conference, as told by South Africa’s media.

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29 February 2012

A cesspool of negativity


SERIES: A good quote can hold within it a thousand separate insights, just as surely as some poorly constructed thought can reveal someone as a fool. Quotable Quotes looks at what is said, what was said and, on occasion, how the two compare. Today, the ANC regularly accuses the DA of ‘opposing for the sake of opposing’ but what of its record in opposition, in the Western Cape legislature? Does it practice what it preaches or, like so much the ANC says and does, is that criticism little more than hypocritical posturing?

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28 February 2012

A desolate shack no more


SERIES: The instantaneous and dramatic nature of current affairs lends itself to a kind of historical amnesia, one where the captivating nature of those things unfolding today, causes one to forget the bigger picture. From the Archives aims to put forward the odd reminder that, more often than not, history is merely repeating itself. In all likelihood, somewhere, someone has already experienced and commented on those all-consuming issues that appear to have materialised only yesterday.

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28 February 2012

The liberal individual, group identity and human solidarity


FEATURE: The case is often made that liberalism, by its nature, is a cold, selfish ideology. Former President Thabo Mbeki, for example, went out of his way to paint the DA in this light. Ryan Coetzee responds to this criticism in the piece below and draws a distinction between ‘identity politics’ and the liberal individual, arguing it is in fact the former, rather than the latter, that entrenches alienation.

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28 February 2012

On offence


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective.  In this column, a look at the idea of offence – something so often evoked by the insecure and hyper-sensitive to try and suppress those views and opinions with which they disagree; usually, ironically, in the name of tolerance.

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21 February 2012

On the Couch: Tim Harris


VIDEO SERIES: Every now and then Inside Politics will get a key political roleplayer ‘on the couch’, to talk about the politics behind politics – essentially, a conversation about the mechanics of current affairs and the kind of developments and issues that don’t always make it into the mainstream media. In this edition, we talk to DA Shadow Minister for Finance, Tim Harris MP, about the ideological confusion that currently defines the ANC’s approach to the economy.

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20 February 2012

A known unknown?


SERIES: Hundreds of thousands of words are printed in South Africa’s mainstream media everyday, so many that the occassional perculiarity often passes by unnoticed. Take a moment to think about it though and the perculiar can be quite revealing. Between the Lines highlights the odd and incidental in the news. We ask the questions, you provide the answers.

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20 February 2012

The straw man fallacy


SERIES: South African public discourse is awash with bad logic and poor reasoning. So much so that much of it is not even identified, let alone criticised. Illogical Logic is a series designed to look at the different kinds of crooked thinking out there, to identify and understand each in turn and, hopefully, to help promote better argument. In this edition we look at the Straw Man.

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20 February 2012

On sophistry


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Today, sophistry – the kind of crooked thinking that uses logical fallacy and deception to make an argument seem stronger – what is its nature, and how best does one indentify it?

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20 February 2012

On the Couch: Mmusi Maimane


VIDEO SERIES: Every now and then Inside Politics will get a key political roleplayer ‘on the couch’, to talk about the politics behind politics – essentially, a conversation about the mechanics of current affairs and the kind of developments and issues that don’t always make it into the mainstream media. We start with a discussion with DA National Spokesperson Mmusi Maimane about the state of South Africa’s media.

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19 February 2012

Church and state?


SERIES: Hundreds of thousands of words are printed in South Africa’s mainstream media everyday, so many that the occassional perculiarity often passes by unnoticed. Take a moment to think about it though and the perculiar can be quite revealing. Between the Lines highlights the odd and incidental in the news. We ask the questions, you provide the answers.

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13 February 2012

On status


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. The column below looks at the idea of status and asks, does the fact that someone qualifies for a title mean they have in effect achieved some status in the eyes of others? Or is status, like respect, earned? Very often status-seekers simply assume the former, never pausing to question the possibility that the latter might, in fact, hold true.

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12 February 2012

Vigilance and McCarthyism


SERIES: The instantaneous and dramatic nature of current affairs lends itself to a kind of historical amnesia, one where the captivating nature of those things unfolding today, causes one to forget the bigger picture. From the Archives aims to put forward the odd reminder that, more often than not, history is merely repeating itself. In all likelihood, somewhere, someone has already experienced and commented on those all-consuming issues that appear to have materialised only yesterday.

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10 February 2012

‘Proper accountability’


SERIES: Weasel Words: “Words of convenient ambiguity, or a statement from which the meaning has been sucked or retracted,” [Brewer’s Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable]. A great deal of what is said – particularly those contentious statements made in response to sensitive issues – obscure meaning with vagueness and ambiguity. And Weasel words – empty clichés and jargon – often the mechanisms by which this is achieved. Weasel Word Watch is series dedicated to highlighting this kind of misdirection, with a view to cutting through the obfuscation.

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9 February 2012

The ad hominem attack


SERIES: South African public discourse is awash with bad logic and poor reasoning. So much so that much of it is not even identified, let alone criticised. Illogical Logic is a series designed to look at the different kinds of crooked thinking out there, to identify and understand each in turn and, hopefully, to help promote better argument. We start with the ad hominem attack, possibly the crudist kind of sophistry.

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6 February 2012

On prejudice


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Today, a look at prejudice. Prejudice appears in many forms, but it is at its most insidious when it denies its own existence. One has a duty to identify that kind of prejudice for what it is, but it also constitutes a danger to rational criticism – because, unless properly done, almost anyone can then be accused of prejudice.

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4 February 2012

[In]famous ANC promises 1: free media


SERIES: A good quote can hold within it a thousand separate insights, just as surely as some poorly constructed thought can reveal someone as a fool. Quotable Quotes looks at what is said, what was said and, on occasion, how the two compare. In this edition: Believe it or not, the ANC has not always advocated for state regulation. Indeed, there was a time when it spoke out against the very idea.

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2 February 2012

Zuma on Jesus and democracy


SERIES: A good quote can hold within it a thousand separate insights, just as surely as some poorly constructed thought can reveal someone as a fool. Quotable Quotes looks at what is said, what was said and, on occasion, how the two compare. In this edition a look at Jacob Zuma’s ANC centenary speech and how it contradicts some of his earlier ideas on Jesus and the power of the voters.

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30 January 2012

On generalisation


SERIES: The Thing About is a weekly Business Day column designed to discuss democratic ideas, ideals, values and principles from a liberal perspective. Today we look at generalisation. Is there any value to generalising? What is its relationship to the particular? When is generalisation helpful and when is it a hinderance? And what happens when that relationship is not well understood?

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26 January 2012

On critics and criticism


ARTICLE: Related to (and in many places overlapping with) this article, the piece below appeared in Rapport this past Sunday. Again, it is on criticism and critics, but it does have something aditional to say about pessimism and how it relates to critical comment. From those interested in the Afrikaans version, it can be found here.

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26 January 2012

Who critiques the critics?


FEATURE: This is a piece appeared on Politicsweb a few days ago. It focuses on the work of Pierre de Vos, a regular critic of the DA’s style and tone, and asks the question: What of his style and tone? Does his own tone measure up to the standard he sets for others?

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Analysis of and commentary on South African politics.

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