Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Weekly Newsletter to the Nation
My dear friends and fellow South Africans,
On Wednesday, the Inkatha Freedom Party hosted a launch of our Policies and Values at the venerable Durban City Hall.
First a word about Winnie Ntshaba’s of Generations role as narrator in telling the IFP story. Ms Ntshaba was narrating as an actress. The media who distorted her role, particularly the Sowetan, should bow their heads in shame. I am distressed how one of the lines that Ms Ntshaba extemporised has been blown out of all proportion.
I find it remarkable that the very same commentators who caricature the IFP as being old fashioned, then turn on a young and talented actress for making her professional skills available to us to help communicate our story. I am quite sure it would not have happened if she had done it for the ANC.
The launch was great: fast paced, high tech, inspiring and well-received by the audience. The press conference which followed was dismal. I’ve have had more fun in the transit lounge at Oliver Tambo International on a rainy day.
Nearly every journalist asked if our launch was in response to Mr Jacob Zuma’s victory in Polokwane last month (preparations began in 2006).
For the umpteenth time, I don’t care a fig that Mr Zuma is a Zulu! It has about much relevancy as Tony Blair being English and Gordon Brown being a Scot. They are both Labour.
In terms of the political contest which is gearing up, Mr Zuma is ANC through and through to the core like the colourful swirl that runs through a stick of candy rock. If a politician is good, mediocre or bad has nothing to do with that person’s ethnic identity. One also detects a little, at best, patronising, and, at worse, racism, here. The logical conclusion of those who say that Mr Zuma will mop up Zulu support like a souped up vacuum cleaner is that millions of Zulus vote as one monolithic block. They don’t. Zulus have as diverse needs and aspirations as any other constituent group in the diverse wonder that we call South Africa.
I will not dissemble. I think South Africa can do better than what Mr Zuma and the ANC offers. Politicians, we know, rarely create waves, but some are lucky enough to surf them. Mr Zuma, for sure, has uncanny political antenna and has read the restive mood of the country for change. But like Hilary Clinton enquiring about her leading opponent last week, "where is the beef?" I happen to believe there is quite a lot of beef in the American contest, but rather less in ours.
The focus of our launch on Wednesday, however, was not the shortcomings of the ANC and the other opposition parties. Rather we began to answer the question of what is the IFP for in 2008. We had long come to the realisation that it is not good enough for us to use other parties’ performance as the benchmark by which we judge our own.
The reassertion of our values, like solidarity and unity, serve as remainders that the IFP stands for more than the prioritisation of the needs of the free market. The causes of social recession, inequality and rootless-ness, are as important challenges as economic competence for a modern party like the IFP.
In 2004, I said that I believe that the political force that emerges as an alternative and counterweight to the ANC will be the one with the golden policy core with cogent proposals to address HIV/Aids, crime, unemployment and poverty. Since then the IFP has been taking strides to reform our organisation internally in order to address the external challenges presented by twenty-first century South Africa.
We knew that the transformation of the IFP’s public policy profile requires more than a cosmetic makeover by management consultants. We have to transcend short term-ism by resisting the temptation of cappuccino headlines, and, instead, tap deep into the veins of the country’s DNA.
The IFP, which happens to be the largest predominantly black opposition party, announced an extensive policy review on Wednesday, which as our Secretary- General Musa Zondi said, will be informed by the full range of South African voices led by nine teams: ‘the fisherman in Soldana Bay, the domestic worker in Phoenix and the board manager in Sandton, the jobseekers and students, too’.
To complement this public exercise, we will undertake qualitative and quantitative research, internal constituency/municipal polling, focus groups, departmental evaluations and legislative cross-referencing to ensure our policy drafting process is both rigorous and relevant.
Students of politics everywhere are taught to tick off the qualities that award the status of democracy to a polity. Are there free and fair elections? Can the voters turn a government out of office? Are there supporting institutions such as an open parliament, security of public assembly, elected local government, a free media, the rule of law? No one of these is either sufficient or necessary for democracy, which is rather a sliding scale of choices, to which constitutions and governments ascribe varying degrees of priority.
Politics, in the end, is the language of priorities. It is boorish and fatalistic to say that the political debate, and the ruling party itself, cannot be shifted. Both can. In SA, The kaleidoscope has been shaken and everything is in flux. There is everything to play for in convincing South Africans that there is another, better, way.
Yours sincerely,
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP
