A Nation in Crisis. Paulus Zulu
moral point of view.”21 According to Kant, principle was primary in making moral decisions, and this did not necessarily render the purpose worthless for the purpose is part of the facts factored into the decision. Only it should be subjected to the bounds of moral permissibility. It was, therefore, the principle rather than the nature of the problem at hand that prevailed, hence the label “deontological morality”. Value pluralism would thus most probably find reconciliation in the consequentialist version of morality, but how different would this be from expediency, realising that what is of value would itself be contested? And what does this say to South Africa’s public morality?
South Africa is not only a plural society; it has a singularly unpleasant history as well, where racial superiority and the attendant prejudices were superimposed on the plural formations. Further, the struggle for political and economic emancipation was predicated on this plurality where antagonisms were constructed along racial lines despite the non-racial conception of the ANC as the leading component in the liberation struggle.
At CODESA this pluralism was recognised in the number and type of organisations that participated in the negotiations. The result was an electoral system that gave recognition and acknowledgement of this plurality, a system loaded in favour of representativeness, the party list system or proportional representation.
Evidence from political science research suggests that though policy decisions within this system reflect preferences of a broad spectrum of voters, it is weak in accountability as voters have no power to remove office bearers whose performance they deem unsatisfactory. Further, the negotiations culminated in a diluted form of a presidential system of government where the electorate has no direct influence on the election of the president of the country. Political science theory postulates that where the president is directly elected by the electorate, the ensuing presidential regime “leans towards accountability because it concentrates executive powers in a single office directly accountable to voters and provides checks and balances through a clear separation of executive and legislative prerogatives.”22 This was not to be the case in South Africa.
Political science theory further posits that where public officials rely less on the electorate for their positions but more on the party, they become less accountable to the electorate and that, because of this, proportional representation encourages political rent extraction by public office bearers. This lack of accountability to the public is demonstrable in South Africa in that corruption among public elites has become common place. South Africa’s corruption perception rating dropped by 20 points from 34th position in the world in the year 2000 to 54th in 2008, according to Transparency International, an international research body on corruption.
Thus a combination of historical, cultural and political variables backed up by a favourable electoral system have conspired to produce ideological and political conditions that have provided the ANC, as the leading actor in government, with an indefinite period to negotiate a new public morality. Official inaction over allegations against public officials are often brushed aside or dismissed either as a continuation of the erstwhile rulers to undermine the integrity of former subordinates, or as pronouncements by reactionary or counter-revolutionary forces. The same rationale is advanced against critics of government performance who are easily labelled as being against transformation where the politics of transformation has created a new moral hegemony where the principals cannot err in the name of the sovereignty of the masses. This immediately puts critics on the defensive since they do not wish be seen as counter-revolutionaries acting against transformation. The result is silence.
The value pluralism has different and disparate sources all drawing influence from the three sets of roots and all operating from different conceptions of entitlement. Within the ruling elite from whom a majority of public officials are drawn through the party deployment process, there is a specific morality of restitution derived from their social standing and past experiences. It is this culture of entitlement that results in contradictory moral poles. We thus have, among the ruling elite, some government ministers buying expensive vehicles on grounds that it is policy, thus bringing into fruition a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite this, the Minister of Finance from the same political stable pursues a line of moderation and opts for a cheaper vehicle almost half the price compared to that of his colleagues.
At the level of ordinary citizens, major fault lines exist with regard to the balance between citizen rights and obligations, with the balance tilted in favour of rights at the expense of responsibilities. This is nowhere more noticeable than in the culture of non-payment of rates and service charges, an indication of the disregard of civic responsibilities by the populace. As if this were not enough, town and city councillors are among the worst culprits, a demonstration of either immaturity or a lack of capacity on the part of political elites to appreciate the responsibilities of leadership and good governance. Ramphele refers to this phenomenon as the inability on the part of the formerly disenfranchised to own the freedom that they have won.23
Simultaneously, while the formerly disenfranchised have not fully owned the freedom they have won, there still exist some significant elements among those formerly enfranchised who have not fully accepted a shared citizenship based on common values. This is expressed through a peculiar residual social Darwinism typified by scepticism, among white people, regarding the ability of black people to function effectively in a complex modern society. Evidence of this is found in corporate, government and academic institutions where the old order uses oblique approaches to issues, creating the impression that norms are being flouted, when, in actual fact, they are sceptical of the ability of the new black leadership to lead effectively.
A demonstration of an oblique attack occurred at the University of KwaZulu-Natal when a section of academics portrayed conflict between the University management and themselves regarding the style of management as an attack on academic freedom. It would seem that this was to attract international attention since the bone of contention had nothing to do with what to teach, research and critique. Had the issue been reflected as it was, it would not have attracted international attention and the anticipated sympathy. Presenting it as an affront to academic freedom, a long-cherished value in the academic fraternity, achieved the intended objective.
Finally, the absence of a shared political vision between the formerly enfranchised and the formerly disenfranchised is evident in political organisation, which is mainly along racial lines.
What sort of public morality are we seeing during transition?
Evidently South Africa is going through a transition where public morality is contested terrain. Sufficient evidence of the emergence of a certain type of morality has steadily been building up and already labels have begun to populate the moral lexicon. Such labels arise from the behaviour of public officials responsible for the allocation and distribution of key state resources to society. Given the rich indigenous heritage in the philosophy of ubuntu, the overwhelming common thread of charity in Christian teaching and conceptions of justice and community in Judaism and in the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi, the founders of the ANC and other liberation movements, what then accounts for the lack of internalisation of these compatible concepts in the South African body politic? In other words, why doesn’t the first set of roots described earlier dominate in South African political morality?
Empirical evidence in the chapters that follow demonstrates the contradictions of a political morality displaying the dominance of the second set of roots where an exercise in political power acts as an avenue to material possessions and monarchical tendencies expressed in riches, profligacy and conspicuous consumption. Paradoxically, evidence depicts a state in which a self-enriching elite presides over a society characterised by alienation arising from a combination of relative deprivation and poverty on one hand while demonstrating electoral support for the very agents of their plight on the other. Yet within the same contradictions arising from gross social inequalities, a strong sense of respect for the institutions of justice and law enforcement prevails in the general public and from the political elite themselves thus demonstrating a strong compliance with the legal system.
It is these paradoxes that encourage the conception of contested registers where apparently competing moral systems exist side by side, with the positive morality of transformation making attempts to create a new value system while simultaneously a critical morality in the Kantian tradition backed by ubuntu, the Judeo-Christian