JONATHAN JANSEN | Here’s another awkward one: is life better in a DA-led province?

Uncomfortable political questions Round 2. Is life better in a DA-led province than an ANC-led one?

I have lived under both since the end of apartheid, more recently in Bloemfontein and Cape Town but before that in Johannesburg, Durban and Pretoria. We now have 30 years of democracy for purposes of comparison. Take the raw politics and heated emotions out of the question, and I think it is quite easy to reach a conclusion.

But first let me put my political cards on the table. I do not like either party. The ANC is hopelessly too arrogant and corrupt to care about the plight of the people who put it in power; it has abandoned its vision of non-racialism and acts with the kind of impunity that comes with 30 years of incumbency. The DA, on the other hand, has no deep sense of our history of dispossession or the unquenched thirst for social justice. It has yet to address the race issue in an intellectually coherent manner and its political opportunism around Afrikaans, whenever there is a public twis (spat) around the language, is shameless. Neither party represents my sense of economic justice, social values or democratic politics.

I am therefore left with an anaemic view of politics, where the only thing that matters is whether things around me work or not. In other words, do I live in a province where at the very least my life is made easier around the basic routines of life and living? Let me explain.

In an 18-hour workday committed to the transformation of other people’s lives in schools and universities, I no longer have much time for abstract ideological debates.

Every Thursday morning at about 8.30am I can hear the garbage truck coming down my road to pick up a week’s accumulation of waste. Not once have they missed their timeslot. When I have a problem with the City of Cape Town about my electricity bill, I call the local number and somebody picks up within a minute or two. A competent person on the other side of the line listens to my concerns, gives me a practical solution and asks that on the way out of the call I evaluate her service. Without fail. You will not wait long at the traffic department near my home to complete a new licence application for your car. Within a few days the courier service delivers to your door. Service is superb, and I certainly do not live in a wealthy suburb with high walls.

This week two famous journalists (both accomplished black women, for those who think these are the rantings of white privilege) shared emotional posts on Twitter about life under ANC governance in Johannesburg. One said: “I feel personally defeated at the state of Johannesburg. The city of gold is so dear to me and to see her staggering, like a wounded creature is painful. Trash on fire on street corners. Crumbling roads. Uncertain water & electricity supply. Another followed: “It’s different this time. Our city just looks unkempt…Road signs down, bins broken and overflowing, traffic lights out, road markings faded, uneven road surfaces, and the grass! It’s a forest everywhere I have driven so far. I don’t want this happening to our city! [crying emoji].”

Meanwhile, the same city appoints a young man as mayor (nominated by the ANC) who has become the laughing-stock of the media for his evident ignorance about Africa’s wealthiest city, while a former jailbird is appointed to the provincial cabinet as the political head of transport. In other words, with the city falling apart in an ANC-led province, a bunch of inexperienced and inept leaders will run the show. Small wonder the semigration of citizens continues to arguably the only functional province in the country, under DA control.

In an 18-hour workday committed to the transformation of other people’s lives in schools and universities, I no longer have much time for abstract ideological debates. I just want things around me to work so I can deliver knowledge and resources to those I am privileged to serve.

It is clear to me you are wasting your time if you think the national government gives a damn about your health and welfare, your safety and security, your education and development. Change, I am discovering, will come neither from the top nor from below; it will come from the middle and that requires the kind of leadership of a Chris Pappas and Sandile Mnikathi in Umngeni or Gesie van Deventer and Jeremy Fasser in Stellenbosch. These South Africans, ideology apart, are working the streets, rebuilding after three decades of damage to small towns and large cities, and giving people a sense of what can be achieved if we truly put people first.

Like many of my generation, my heart is still with the party of the great Oliver Tambo, but right now, I just want things around me to work.