Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Bring Back The UDF.

I read “The Russian Analogy” in Commentary South Africa and pondered a little more.

Because I’ve been pondering for some time on the National Intelligence Service, fake e-mails, Selebi’s friends, and the obscure dance of the ANC leadership battle. And it occurs to me that what we need in this country is some transparent democracy. Good, old fashioned, street-committee, United Democratic Front democracy. As opposed to the stealthy, Stalinist, power wielding techniques that the ANC learnt in exile.

It was the UDF, to a large extent, that freed South Africa, and what we need now is UDF type leaders who report directly to their communities, not to The Party, and get punished if they steal.

The tragedy, the shadow, of Mandela is that he led us, unwittingly, to believe that his organization was as transparent as he was. It is not healthy to have too many people in power who grew up in exile.

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