Boesak’s not Coping
THE Rev Dr Allan Boesak’s resignation from Cope is probably a good thing. Cope (for alien readers Cope is a breakaway party from South Africa’s ruling African National Congress. It still isn’t clear why they broke away but it is clear that they are made up now largely of the losers in the last ANC leadership battle) relied too heavily for its formation on the ‘capture’ of big names from the ANC and Boesak, who has his own complicated history, was one of them.
But Cope, now a year old, didn’t make double figures in last April’s election and it has struggled to make much of an impact in Parliament. It isn’t organised, does no research, and if it weren’t for Phillip Dexter, the party workaholic, we would probably never hear from them.
The only way to fix this is for Cope to do the right thing and that is to elect its leadership. At the moment it is lead by arrangement, with two leaders and a host of kingmakers in the background. It is a recipe for slow death.
But if Cope didn’t exist someone would have to invent something like it. There is still not a black political party with national appeal (sigh, as I write that I can almost hear the thud of IFP ‘corrections’ landing on my desk) in the country other than the ANC. Even my umkhaya Bantu Holomisa is struggling to break out of his province.
It is a sign of our times that no matter how corrupt, no matter how inefficient and no matter how hypocritical the ANC is people will still vote for it in droves. It has legitimacy, the magic ingredient everyone else seems to lack.
But, for a while there, in the singing and excited faces of young black African Cope supporters last year and earlier this year, there were signs of that legitimacy.Now, while Cope struggles to hold on to its largely useless celebrities, that legitimacy and goodwill is leaking away into the political sands.
Only a genuine party election will change that. Let members have a say and you’ll see the enthusiasm return. Perhaps all of the current crop of Cope leaders — Lekota, Shilowa, Dandala — should walk away from leadership and try to help create a truly youthful party.
They won’t, of course. In South Africa, in the Congress tradition, access to political power means access to money and wealth. Cope could change that, but it seems unlikely with its current crop of leaders.
The only glimmer of hope on the horizon for opposition politics seems to me to be some sort of understanding between the Democratic Alliance and Cope. One has the organisation, the other has the blacks — the legitimacy. As so much about SA politics revolves around the same ideological pole, political differences are not going to be what keep these two natural partners apart. It’ll be political interests and the personal interests of leaders.
So, while it may make sense for Cope to stick with the DA in Western Cape, they may do better with Holomisa’s UDM in Eastern Cape. That sort of thing.
Cope and the DA are a little like like lovers who never quite get together, but probably, eventually, should. The DA is far and away the best-organised political party in the country, if not the hemisphere, but because of its white background it ain’t going nowhere on it’s own in this country.
It is all very well to suggest, as many people do, that it can access government at various levels through coalitions but if you end up with one partner here and another there you’re sort of sleeping around. You’re not taking us anywhere special.
Once Cope has a legitimate leadership it can talk to the DA. And it should. I’m not suggesting a merger — that would be too complicated. But a compact to build common policy and political platforms (and issue joint statements) on the many issues that bedevil us, would do both parties the world of good.
Cheers
Popularity: 20% [?]
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I think that Boesak should have gone long ago. He wanted his visa to visit the USA so he grovelled appropriately before the prez. Then he joins the ANC’s exile brigade al la COPE – with a person from the UDF here and there. Then he finds their so-called CULTURE is not his – and now he’s gone claiming disarray. The oke bonked his secretary before elna and after his wife, his ethics are shoddy and he’s a jailbird. I don’t think he should be in the political arena at all. Goo bye …
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
On Boesak I am left only to ruminate about our unforgiving nature. Pardoned by the State and forgiven by his church, the poor man is to remain unforgiven by the rest of us who live in glass houses.
On more general matters, it isn’t for me only the colour of the party only that creates legitimacy, but what it stands for. The DA unfortunately, will now always be left to face its, how shall we say this, its racist tendencies. Let me hasten to clear that up: the party may not stand for racism, but it certanly has offered a comfortable home to a few who have those tendencies. Wellorganised, I agree, but their organisation has been directed to espouse a platform that I find troubling and polarising – nation building it is not!
The ANC and its partners are such a broad church that, as Nic Borain pointds out, it is difficult to find any group from the centre-left (even marginally from the right) that is not represented in some form. One does not quite know what it stands for sometimes.
As you point out, regionally and faith-based minorities make up the balance, none of which draw enough to make up a troublesome grouping.
We are left with a Government that is too many things to too many people; a tainted opposition; and a generally irrelevant rest.
Now if a party were to stand up and say: we are for capitalism that respects and upholds good corporate citizenship, including plans to include in the mainstream of our economic life those who were delibaerately excluded under apartheid; we have in our manifesto a 10-year plan to build critical skills including a science and technology development programme and a 20-year programme of capital expenditure that will take us to the cusp of global leadership; we stand for individual rights including the rights to freedom of expression and religion; and we stand for a non-racist, non-sexist population. Our social programmes will include free schooling, and free tertiary education up to Masters-level; and community support mechanisms such as rural business and training nodes and the use of technology in schools wherever possible, and wherever not, to make it possible, I might be inclined to vote for them.
In short, someone who spoke positively, who spelt out a dream and vision, who put Government resources to make a human-based transformation programme possible, who was flexible enough to enjoy a true partnership with business and allow business and NGO’s to participate in areas they are best at, I might be persuaded to vote for them.
Right now, as a “Coloured” with my own personal persuasions, neither the polygamous DA, nor the unfaithful ANC offer a home. COPE looks unable to navigate anywhere and the rest are not vehicles of any influence and are emaciated politically, I have no political home.
In a country as innovative, as vibrant, and with our potential, I should not be politically sidelined, but I am. Sadly.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I generally agree with Mark, and would like to add 2 things on affirmative action and DA policies. As long as any new party (black ,white, green, polka dot) cannot articulate black aspirations/fears better than the ANC, they are doomed to failure. When COPE seemed to be gaining ground on the ANC at the beginning of the year, the ANC very effectively played the ‘wit gevaar’ card, to wit ‘If you vote for COPE or you don’t vote, you are effectively voting for the DA, who will come and kick you out of you middle class job, stop paying you the child grant, stop the development in your village, kick you out of your suburban home and reduce your old age pension so that you earn less than the whites, like you used to’. A new party has to recognise that these are concerns that need addressing even if, philosphically, they do not agree with them. Criticising the ANC for non-delivery and/or corruption is old hat. It may demoralise some black voters, but it does not earn another party new votes; the ANC is like a wayward child, to be guided not abandoned.
The DA’s policies are fine for another era and another county without our jhistory. Saying that you will run a clean and efficient government along the principles of open opportunity is all well and good. But, in South Africa, that sounds a lot like code for ‘The whites will get all the good opportunities because they are better educated and have better access to the necessary knowledge resources.’
November 4th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
All well & good, but in the end the majority of the electorate is just not ready for any other party. As for the DA being so organized, the ANC are no slouches when the chips are down. The best way to keep the “ANC and its partners ..[in] such a broad church’ focussed is to continuously present them with a common enemy, and with incidents such as the “Reitz four” that ’s very easy.