Broadly speaking, the creation of a society that is the antithesis of our apartheid past constitutes the bare minimum of what we need to achieve as a country.

The greater goal is the creation of a society that is qualitatively better than the antithesis of apartheid. The question is whether South Africa will be a better place after the National General Council (NGC) of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Realistically, it would be naïve in the extreme to expect that the resolutions of the NGC will, on their own, deliver a better life for all South Africans. A lot will depend on the state of both the ANC and the State. Currently, there is a mismatch between the strategic goals of the ruling party and its capacity to provide guidance and direction for those of its members who must direct the State towards the achievement of these strategic goals. It also does not help that, with regard to our national strategic goals, the ANC is able to provide neither the thought leadership nor the technical capacity required to govern a modern State and economy. This means that the ANC is unable to position itself as a leader of society. At a time when the economy is in crisis and is, therefore, a blunt instrument in the fight against poverty, unemployment and inequality, too many in the ANC seem capable only of maximising narrow political and economic interests.

This, unfortunately, sets the tone for society as a whole. Short-term goals define what we do in our economic, political and social spaces as if there is no tomorrow. Making things even worse is the fact that our past has now become more unpredictable than at any other time since 1994. This, in turn, means that the manner in which we engage with aspects of our past has very little or nothing to do with a better future for all, but much more to do with a present of self-aggrandisement. What we cannot run away from is the fact that the dominant party is paralysed by factionalism, lack of leadership and strong instincts for looting State and national resources within and outside the borders of South Africa.

Am I being too bearish and hysterical in my pessimism? Bearish or not, my sentiments are more or less in line with a discussion document that was written for deliberation and debate at the NGC. The authors argue: “The polity and the State do enjoy popular legitimacy, and there is broad consensus (at least in public statements) on the need for decisive action to deal with poverty and inequality, shown in support for the National Development Plan. “But, apart from developments that have the effect of undermining our efforts to build a developmental State, the very legitimacy of the state seems to be fraying. In part, the persistence of poverty and inequality accounts for this. But it is more a reflection of a weakening sense of hope and optimism”. Further, “. . . the ANC is losing the moral high ground”.

In my estimation, what will continue to limit the capacity of the ANC to lead society towards positive change in the foreseeable future is the fact that the crisis of internal decline it has been experiencing over the past decade is likely to be with the party for some time. In fact, what has become a disturbing element of the internal ANC crisis is the deeper crisis of an organisation that no longer has a centre for strategic reflection and doing.

The question is whether our salvation lies in a deeper crisis inside and outside the ANC – the kind of crisis Brazilian society is going through at the moment. To the extent that there are still people who think that South Africa cannot be fixed unless we fix the ANC, there is a need for a collective change in mindset, and this must happen in two ways. First, our primary focus must be on fixing the country, since, in order to do this, we may have to relieve the ANC of all functions related to placing South Africa on a strategically and qualitatively different growth and developmental path. In other words, if the ANC fails to achieve internal realignment with regard to a proper alignment between strategy, moral content and the quality of its leaders, the rest of us must start reimagining our future. This exercise in reimagining our future entails the adoption of a more positive mindset. Our emphasis must be more on what we stand for instead of what we are opposed to. For instance, we must stop marching against things and march FOR something, and that something must be a civilised society. Our immediate task is to define what constitutes a civilised state in the economy, our politics and society as a whole.