Talking politics is like trying to nail a pizza to the wall
Peter Vale
“Talking politics is like trying to nail a pizza to the wall”, MBA students, academics and other interested members of the public heard at a recent Rhodes Investec Business School (RIBS) forum in Grahamstown recently. “It is warm and ‘squidgy’”, said Peter Vale, the Nelson Mandela Professor of Politics at Rhodes University, “but is not bad when cold”!
Peter Vale
Vale provoked a great deal of lively discussion and questions when he addressed the topic “South Africa: the ANC succession and the debate on globalisation”.
Introducing him, the director of RIBS, Prof Gavin Staude said that it must be recognised that businesses in our country today cannot operate without taking into account the political environment.
“We don’t yet fully understand the interaction between social and economic politics”, Vale added. “At the end of apartheid, politics began to be seen through the prism of economics – and the passion of politics began to evaporate”.
In part, Vale believes, this is due to the reducing influence of history in our day-to-day lives. “People are more interested in free market economics and regular elections”, he noted: “Voting and shopping matter more than history”, it seems to him. “Free market thinking and capital are the dominant influences”.
“Look at our national flag”, he challenged his audience. “It was designed by an ad agency; not influenced by history. Our constitution, too”, he pointed out, “was crafted by checks and balances – not history.”
Commenting on the Mbeki presidency, Vale reminded his listeners of the early days; “he was considered ‘Mr Delivery’,” he recalled, “and in a tradition of no democracy he made measurable gains. He has been a good administrator and is a technocrat. But there are urgent current issues which now need to be tackled, such as the wealth divide, unemployment and HIV/AIDS”.
On the plus side, Vale records, the ANC has brought us through six contested elections and continues to tolerate widespread free speech in the country. “Where else”, he muses, “would a newspaper get away with describing a cabinet minister as a drunkard and a thief”? It has been difficult at times to manage the conflict between the disciplining world of public policy, on the one hand, and the open world of the ‘public square’ on the other.
That said, Prof Vale opines that Mbeki has failed in the contexts of crime, education, health, Zimbabwe and HIV/AIDS.
Looking ahead, he sees South Africa’s and the world’s affairs being greatly influenced by the American election. He draws attention to “the power of Obama’s rhetoric” and notes with interest that he seems to be appealing to both blacks and whites in the United States.
In South Africa, especially, he predicts a stringent test for our democracy, given the possibility that Jacob Zuma will appear in court. The tests will extend the integrity of the constitutional court and whether or not we can handle massive infringements of the principles of free speech.
