A political party founded in 2011, by a fractional break-off of the IFP led by Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi. This is the first party to openly acknowledge too much power-centralisation as the underlying cause of government inefficiency and service delivery failures. Other parties previously discussed have also pointed it out but for other reasons, e.g. to secure their own constituents’ self-determination or as a deterrent to self-serving and corrupt behaviour. The NFP characterizes this high-density centralization of power as, effectively, the ANC government attempting to govern the country without input from the governed – i.e. to rule instead of govern.
As such, it argues that the populace resultantly has no buy-in to the future the governing party is trying to build – it is a future imposed on us. So, following the high-level principle of the Ubuntu philosophy: that one is a custodian of his brother’s experience of reality, the NFP seeks to decentralize power by giving it back to citizens so they can regain their participatory role in our country’s governance thereby tasking each one of us the responsibility to hold one another accountable. My understanding here is that this party seeks to promote a mentality-change in the citizenry whereby, in embracing our core responsibility, we operationalize our democratic power by organizing ourselves into community-specific civil society organizations to engage its government in furthering our interests. Via consultations with us in this way, the NFP aims to develop or support our development and implementation of social programmes tailored to our local circumstances and problems.
We thus, effectively, govern ourselves as players with the NFP government as our referee. So far, so good – or is it? You see, the NFP states its intent to uphold and protect the constitution; a position with which, in and of itself, I have no problem but speaking on the question of land reform, sounds to me like a familiarly negative tone on its most controversial issue: expropriation. To my point, aside from touching on a few of their issues, the party does not adequately map its position on any of the land reform program’s pillars (restitution, redistribution and security of tenure). Its restitution efforts end at extending the 1913 cut-off date so all who previously did not make it get a second chance; well, that and recognizing the Khoisan as the 1st indigenous people of S.A. thus having their leaders acknowledged as traditional leaders and somehow strengthening their restitution claim more-so than all the other cultures historically dispossessed of their land; a recognition for which I struggle to find a use, to be honest.
Its redistributive efforts focus on rural area and township infrastructure development to fast-track their economic evolution. For the former, like with other parties, emphasizing agricultural development in partnership with the private sector. Lastly, its security of tenure effort entails officially bridging the divide between the traditional system of ruling and the constitutional system of governance by fully integrating traditional leaders into all three spheres of government. At the same time, ensuring security of tenure for all citizens including those living on communal land. As I’ve said in previous reports: decentralizing power in communal areas disempowers traditional leaders by weakening their leverage over those they rule, offering them official power is an option to counter that loss, but it may not be enough. This, because it comes at a price: being integrated into government takes from them their autonomy as they would, effectively, be surrendering the traditional values, which are the foundation of their power, to the constitution. This will essentially demote the traditional leadership position from one whose significance is based on generations of socio-cultural and spiritual history dense with meaning to that of which is based on a young hence immature constitution not founded on a deep history of positive relationships.
Government integration of traditional leaders may involve a democratic process by which they are elected which is to be determined by the NFP government together with the public. Clear evidence of that government’s intent to strip these leaders of their power: discussing their fate with their ‘subjects’ in their absence and the fact that having them have to be elected to occupy public office amounts to nullifying their integration. This, again, because their traditional pole position is of cultural and spiritual significance thus integrating them would have to be based on that locus of power; meaning they would have to receive public office for that same reason. Requiring that they be elected is effectively questioning their traditional, cultural and spiritual credibility as validation for their leadership roles and reducing these somewhat ‘divine’ bloodlines to a level shared by the rest of us ‘normal’ people.
Quite the scam this party proposes to traditional leaders, and to the rest of us as well: a nation managed via direct democracy by its people but based on a foundation too weak – based on a lie. That, through our empowerment when it, as it promises, decentralizes political power back into our hands; and through its meaningful service delivery in supporting the development and implementation of local solutions, those currently underprivileged will achieve economic emancipation while those already privileged will further prosper – as long as we, together, package the injustice that characterizes our national history as simply racism and correct it only by imposing stricter sentences on all racist activity. South Africa’s historical injustice must not be surmounted to the term ‘racism’ for it narrows one’s understanding of that injustice as a system.
You see, racism, in-and-of-itself, simply refers to the regard of those of a different race in contempt. White people not liking black people is not the problem here – so what that they don’t like us? No, racism is a cog in the machine, a tool and mechanism used as a check box to discriminate against others. It is thus part of a system hence its purpose isn’t simply to express contempt but, even more, to materialize it as oppression, nowadays often referred to as inequality. In short, our historical injustice can all be reduced to a system of governance that sought to oppress a targeted interest group utilizing various mechanisms as justifications. Reducing this system to one of its mechanisms is a con to appease the oppressed for its continuance. This is the lie.
Choosing to uphold the constitution is choosing to uphold this system; any future built atop this system will crumble for it is sustained by oppression. The NFP is short-sighted and seduced by the short-term gains offered by appeasing the downtrodden with material gains but governance, on any level, secures sustainable prosperity only through long-term solutions. Material gains will blind the underprivileged to their oppression for a short time before they see the truth again thus any social contract based on them is near-worthless. Long-term solutions are based on truth and require genuine trust between their collaborators. This means that, amongst all our country’s stakeholders, our past injustice be thoroughly dealt with – meaning equalized through land reforms mechanisms. I mean, what is the Land reform programme if not a system of reverse oppression (not revenge oppression) to right what is wrong today by giving back what was taken in the past upon which it is based?
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