By Dr Vusi Shongwe
Generally, we associate speed with positive outcomes. Being "fast“ is perceived as good; being ”slow“ is perceived as bad.
Quiz shows demonstrate the benefits of fast thinking – speedy responses win prizes, while hesitation costs points. In most careers, including academia, speed is valued.
But speed is not everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial to us in many circumstances, especially in politics.
In our age of snap judgements and instant opinions, slowness and deliberate contemplation may be more important than we realise.
On Saturday, I was at Moses Mabhida Stadium when the Sea Robbers exuberantly and triumphantly lifted the MTN cup final.
During half time I had the honour to dabble in politics with Mkhuleko Hlengwa, the chairperson of Scopa in the National Assembly, who is one of the brightest minds in the IFP, and whose profound perceptiveness and insight I have always appreciated at a distance.
He wore a Pirates jersey which led to me to gravitate towards where he was sitting with the intention to tell him how appreciative I feels to see a youngster like him is both assigned and trusted with the responsibility to head an august body like the Scopa in the National Assembly.
Before showering him with praise, I first, in a subtle way, bragged that I share a father to son relationship with his leader, the Prince of KwaPhindangene, His Excellency Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi. I have no doubt that Mr Hlengwa will, given his leadership acumen, be the future president of the IFP.
With profound statements we ended our discourse with Mr Hlengwa. He said to me in politics speed kills. This is a very loaded statement which has a myriad interpretations.
My parting shot to him was that this country is fast approaching a stage where the leadership qualities of a leader, and not his party, will be his or her ticket to be elected by the people.
By that time, the political prominence that political parties currently enjoy would have long been eroded. The cause of erosion would be that to all political parties are the same. They all seem to suffer from a trust-deficit.
Paul Wellstone posits that “politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is (about) the improvement of people’s lives.
This is the point where political parties are found wanting. When people think about politics, they think about arguments, not about service delivery.
Often the debate in politics seems arcane and tough to understand. For example, in recent years, and in the ANC, debate has become so bitter that it does not even feel like those debating are trying to resolve anything other than just venting their spleen at each other.
In his celebrated book, War, Carl von Clausewitz posits that “politics” is a “contest of power over control of governance and resources and not necessarily governance”.
Politics tends to be about who controls power and not about how the political system operates successfully. It is my view that the control of resources and lack of ethical virtue are the root cause of the speed for position of power mentality.
Reinhold Niebuhr, in his piece, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, is of the view that, “politics will to the end of history be an area where conscience and power meet, where the ethical and coercive factors of human life will interpenetrate and work out their tentative and uneasy compromises”.
Unfortunately, the consciences of some of our leaders have been found wanting when it comes to money. Teresa Nesbilt Cosby, in her piece, Picking the Supremes: The Impact of money, politics and influence in judicial elections, posits that “money, politics, and influence are just like water to the river – they belong to each other. Just as no man can control the forces of nature, no statute can control these forces in a purely political system”.
Personally, I am in favour of arguments. After all, there is no single magic solution that can bring all of us together because there is no one set of values.
When we argue, it can help us sharpen our ability to articulate what we want and challenge us to examine our views with a more critical eye and help highlight the choice for the people. In a democracy, the people get to choose.
One hopes and prays that the political landscape will one day be irreversibly altered for the benefit of the people.
If that fails to happen, that will be the beginning of the politics of non-partisanism. When one thinks about what has gone wrong in our society – when I reflect on how our country is straying so far from the values that I believe the majority of South Africans share, I am left with no option but to conclude that there is something wrong with the way we are arguing, especially among leaders of the ruling party.
Lurking behind each of the issues that are at play is not just a difference of opinion or a difference of values. There is something far worse, and it has to do with the “it is our time to eat” mentality. This is the reason that causes “speed” for position of power by any means necessary.
Indeed, in a situation where politicians’ fixation are state resources, instead of improving the lives of the people, the failure of the political party in charge is not far off.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC elective conference that was fuelled by the “speed for position of power” was the 2015 Royal showground elections which led to the ousting from power of Mr Senzo Mchunu.
There were all sorts of accusations of what really transpired at those elections. Voter fraud dominated the discourse. For me, and, in hindsight, the 2015 election brilliantly captured the “speed for position” mentality.
With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps Mr Senzo Mchunu, being an old guard and senior leader should have been challenged by a young and inexperienced leadership. The 2022 elective conference should have been the conference that the leadership that won in 2015 should have contested.
Even defeated, Mr Mchunu was supposed to have finished his term as premier. Anyone who disagrees with me that the outcome of that conference is one of the root causes that has led to what the ANC is in KwaZulu-Natal – a ruling party that is holding on to power by a thread, and with almost all municipalities gone to the opposition party.
It is hard not to be embarrassed by the present-day political scene in South Africa.
Our political scene is so sloppy. Poignantly, the general perception of leaders tends to provoke cursing or rebuke rather than pride; resignation rather than participation.
To put it bluntly, very few people consider the current state of our leadership particularly inspiring. Participation in party politics as well as the ability to express disagreement and protest are crucial to political process.
It seems our society has stalled in its efforts to create a functional democracy. It seems that for the last few years, things have been going nowhere.
The level of public debate about fundamental issues of the day is often pitifully poor. One would be forgiven for thinking that institutions of higher learning closed many years ago, given the intellectual barrenness as exemplified by the conspicuous absence of participation of the academia on critical policy matters.
Our academia is not only weak, but often tries to wiggle out of its social responsibility. In short, our public institutions are poor on vibrant intellectual discourse. It would be appreciated if institutions of higher learning could be given a nudge to wake up and smell the coffee.
The public space cannot and should not be occupied or monopolised by a few, who in most instances mislead the public and thrive on negative narrative and discourse.
In his 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman suggested that the human mind consists of two competing systems.
His central hypothesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: “System 1” is fast, instinctive, and emotional. “System 2” is slower, effortful, more deliberate, conscious, and more logical.
To illustrate the point, in his piece, "In slowness the essence of knowledge?” Eloise Stark says: "Imagine you see an angry face in a crowd – you will instantly focus on that individual because your brain perceives a threat and works quickly to identify it in order to keep you safe.“
This is an example of the “fast” system. Our brains are hardwired to respond quickly to certain cues in the environment, and this helps us to survive.
In the battle of the popular science books, Malcolm Gladwell's 2007 "Blink" exalts the virtue of “thinking without thinking”. His central idea is that spontaneous decisions are often as good as, or superior to, carefully planned and considered ones. Gladwell's, acclamation for snap judgements and first impressions has many parallels with Kahneman's concept of “fast” thinking.
Eloise Stark believes that slowness is vital to many situations and may also provide a hallmark of a healthy brain and mind. One could argue that the speed with which some of leaders are parachuted to leadership positions is the cause of the immense challenges political parties are facing.
A true leader does not rush for positions. He waits with the patience of an angel for his time to come. An “it's our time to eat leader” not only rushes to be elected leader, but he can also fast track his elevation as a leader by any means necessary.
Sadly, the means lead to the Muzi Manyathis of this world to have their lives cut short. It is time we reacquaint ourselves with a few basic moral lessons we all learnt as kids, and to note the limits of those same lessons.
"Good things come to those who wait." In this fast-paced, technocratic culture, this bit of proverbial wisdom is more needed than ever. Delayed gratification seems to have vanished from the political landscape.
Several years ago, the great historian Bernard Lewis made an important observation about the destiny of nations. "When people realise things are going wrong, there are two questions they can ask, he wrote.
“One is, what did we do wrong?” and the other is, “Who did this to us?” The latter question leads to conspiracy theories and paranoia. The question leads to another line of thinking: “How do we put it right.”
There is a time in life at which self-analysis or self-criticism can become neurotic, paralysing and perversely self-satisfied. But it is also true that individuals, communities, and nations that habitually ask “What did we do wrong" instead of "Who did this to us" are also the individuals, communities, and nations that, eventually, succeed.
Given the political vicissitudes that South Africans went through in their fight against apartheid, South Africans, our leaders should be broadly aware by now that reat nations like South Africa, like great institutions, lead by example: by inspiring rather than coercing loyalty, by a decent respect for the opinions of those they; by steadfastness of purpose and evenness of temperament or equanimity, and self-belief, needed in times of adversity.
I still stand by what I wrote regarding our adherence to the principles of democracy.
The president of India put it aptly when he said, “democracy is more than a periodic exercise of choices to elect government. The great tree of liberty requires constant nourishment through the institutions of democracy.
“Disruptions, obstructionism, and un-mindful pursuit of a divisive political agenda by groups and individuals lead to nothing but institutional travesty and Constitutional subversion. Polarising debates only deepen the fault lines in public discourse."
Often, whenever a question is asked whether a leader would like to be elected in December, the leader would always give a wry smile and say, the branches will decide. At the risk of sounding disrespectful, for me the seemingly well-oiled branches are a figment of the imagination.
My take is that the ANC is currently on its knees, if not teetering on the brink of political extinction, largely because of the very same branches, with several of them either in tatters, or moribund. The misplaced faith our leaders have in branches reminds me of a joke.
A group of engneering students always bunking classes built an aeroplane. Then they invited their engineering professor, and a sizable number of academic luminaries for a ride.
Upon realising that the students who built the aeroplane were the ones bunking classes, all the academics except the professor disembarked from the plane. Then the professor was asked whether he was not scared that the plane might crash up in the sky.
Cool as a cucumber, the professor said: "No, the plane would simply not start." Period! As Americans would say. One is tempted to juxtapose the plane joke with the expected roles of the branches in choosing leaders.
The question that people are afraid to ask is: do the leaders nominated by the branches have what it takes? Do they have the pedigree and the gravitas to lead? My take is that leaders of dubious character get elected to critical leadership positions because of weak branches.
The elective conference is expected to elect competent and committed leaders, but it cannot. The question is: where and when did thing go wrong with the mighty ANC?
My view is that things started to go wrong in the ANC when numbers, not competency, or not attributes or traits of leadership, became the determining factors for choosing leadership.
Much as numbers are important for voting a party into power, they are a liability in terms of electing people with proven traits of leadership and a proven record of delivery in whatever form.
Does the recruitment of a multitude add value, or destabilise the ANC? The truth is that ANC needs to revisit the calibre of the cadres it recruits and put into positions of responsibility.
In some respect, the present membership of the ANC leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the membership hardly know the constitution of the ANC, let alone the culture and dynamics of the ANC.
Never in the history of the ANC have members used guns and knives to deal with those they differ with.
My heartfelt condolences go to the family of Muzi Manyathi who was gunned down on November 4, 2022 in uMkhondo (Piet Retief). Muzi Manyathi was the newly elected Regional Deputy Chairperson of the ANC Gert Sibande Region, and a prominent political figure and PR councillor in Mkhondo Municipality.
The killing of ANC members by their own comrades for positions is something new in the ANC, and in the broader political discourse of the democratic South Africa.
Perhaps in the process of recruiting membership the ANC opened its doors to hardened criminals and fraudsters
This calls for the ANC's selection and recruitment policy to be revisited by way of introducing, among other things, political education.
Unapologetically, it is my take that it is the fixation with numbers, and not leadership qualities, which has plunged the oldest and most glorious movement in Africa in a state of paralysis.
The mother body cannot be exonerated from the blame that it contributes indirectly by the promotion of the “speed for position of power” among the relatively young and inexperienced members of the ANC.
The collapse of both the ANCWL and the ANCYL could be blamed to lack of decisive leadership of the ANC in Luthuli House. There are two announcements expected from the mother body regarding the two structures.
First, it will be the confirmation that these structures did not make it in the ICU of political limbo, and that their memorial services would be communicated at an appropriate time.
Second, that the structures are now showing signs of improvement, and that plans are afoot that, once they are discharged from the “hospital of political doldrums”, elections will be held to elect their new leadership.
Speed really kills in politics. It kills when one aspires, by hook or crook, to be a leader. It is also kills when the quest for power makes people forget that “good things come to those who wait”. As the saying goes, “those who live by the sword, die by the sword" – meaning what goes around comes around.
*Dr Vusi Shongwe is the Chief Director Heritage at the KZN Department of Sport, Arts and Culture. He writes in his personal capacity.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE