It is an interesting addition :

Would amnesty create another Zimbabwe as suggested?

Would for example it give the ANC impression that if they are given leeway here they can, like Mugabe and Zanu-PF, keep on abusing the country’s patience?

I have done an article for tommorow which disagrees but that doesn’t make your point less valid.

There is a big difference between Zim and SA. No bush war can work here – because we are developed. As Mbeki himself said – we have no bush!

We are entirely agreed on your point that democracy is a culture, not a ‘method’; and that is why no one can say how long it will take to evolve here (if it does). As you say, the ANC is just one factor that, by the nature of things, cannot help delaying it.

In the circumstances, all one can sensibly observe is that it took centuries to evolve in Europe and that would suggest that it will also take a very long time in Africa.

However, a couple of important qualifications are necessary.

First, today’s world is smaller than ever before in history and the speed at which ideas are exchanged – and, more significant, the pressure to share them – are much greater than ever before. These two factors might accelerate the coming of democracy by ‘hot-housing’ the growth of cultural change.

By way of illustration only – not to make political points – these are major factors in the downfall of Mugabe: he is in a real sense out of step with the times, past his sell-by date in a world which, with many exceptions of course, does not see him as part of the new community of nations that is increasingly obliged to live with one another. In a similar way, Mbeki’s ideas on Aids could not win in the medium term. One does not want to exaggerate this, but it is there.

Second, one cannot fail to see, through the papers, radio, TV, by looking at the new emerging black classes, how rapidly change is taking place in the new SA’s more open society. The young generation that is at the centre of these changes is fitting in with a ‘global culture’ that is not the culture of the former Africa or, let us be clear about this, the culture of the former imperial and racist west either. The world continues to argue and fight, and pockets of resistance will always be around, but it also moves more together today – if not in step – than was possible in the past. We learn from each other and change each other. That is what it has always been about.

It makes answers complicated but it is fascinating to follow – and, in my view, best to follow with a realistic eye rather than an uncritical optimism on the one hand or what might turn out to be an equally misled pessimism on the other.

That doesn’t make either of us right or wrong.

They are just our views.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=2773

I believe, however, that it will only come about when SA is culturally really to imbibe such ideas. At the moment, it is a foreign concept to The ANC political elite.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=95387&sn=Marketingweb%20detail

Your comments please.

You put the most important question of our times. Here’s the briefest of answers.

History is not a ‘story’ with a happy ending. There is no guarantee that SA will evolve into a multi-party democracy. Zim – among many other examples – has not. All that can be said is that it will have to start again from here.

Equally, though, since history is not a story, there is nothing to say SA cannot transform into a multi-party democracy (or bi-party democracy, or whatever), even though a majority may presently equate ‘democracy’ with the ANC ruling forever.

Whether SA transforms depends on changes in society and in people’s experience and loyalties, needs and demands; on leadership; on outside influences and on events – which are always largely beyond anyone’s anticipation or control; in short on the outcome of a vast process over time, involving countless unpredictable factors.

On this stormy and uncertain trip, the only rough guide people have is to begin to know what they think ‘democracy’ means – not what their govt. tells them about it. An absolutely key element in this – not of course the only one – is the need for a set of institutions they can use as voters not only to elect their representatives and government but to dismiss them if they choose to.

For all practical purposes, voters cannot do that today. SA is a monocracy at this stage.

No one knows where we go from here. But that is the central political danger all of us face here.