PALI LEHOHLA | Fallout ensues from ‘Mangope a sellout or provider of developmental blueprint?’ article

Many of the so-called black middle class do not subscribe to paid newspapers. As a consequence, a summary and headline are all we are exposed to. We are a seriously deformed middle class. This is the danger of the future in that tweets constitute the summary of the world we live in. In part what Ntate Mathata Tshedu referred to as my “New York jamboree”, where I was invited to discuss the 30 years of the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, deals with the dangers confronting economic, social and political governance and the role of statistics. I invited several platforms to this “jamboree” as it was online.

On February 25 Sunday Times published an article I penned titled “Was Kgosi Mangope a sellout or a provider of a blueprint for a developmental state?”. I got a few direct messages from several individuals. Social media users engaged the article very robustly. I am providing a rejoinder to these robust debates.

But to set the scene and address the issues in the context of today, I have found Vladimir Lenin’s address of October 17 1921, titled The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments — Report to The Second All-Russia Congress of Political Education Departments, quite informative.

In his report Lenin talks of matters still relevant today: “At one time we needed declarations, statements, manifestos and decrees. We have had enough of them. At one time we needed them to show the people how and what we wanted to build, what new and hitherto unseen things for which we were striving. But can we go on showing the people what we want to build? No. Even an ordinary labourer will begin to sneer at us and say: what use is it to keep on showing us what you want to build? Show us that you can build. If you cannot build, we’re not with you, and you can go to hell! And he will be right. Gone is the time when it was necessary to draw political pictures of great tasks; today these tasks must be carried out in practice.

Ntate Lehohla must clarify and state if he made a mistake ... we must not be too impatient and reject good people.

—  Stranger Kgamphe, commenter

“Today we are confronted with cultural tasks, those of assimilating that political experience, which can and must be put into practice. Either we lay an economic foundation for the political gains of the Soviet state or we shall lose them all. This foundation has not yet been laid — that is what we must get down to.”

This is where we are as a country today. Suffice to mention that the energy, rail, education and many other institutions we found working have now been fallowed.

Lenin identifies three key enemies to the revolution of the Bolsheviks — and the robust deliberations might benefit from the discussions. These he says are communist conceit, illiteracy and bribery.

In my assessment, our contestations on the provocation I made centred on what would fit the category of communist conceit. The other two issues of illiteracy and bribery are not what the esteemed protagonists on the platform would be accused of, though in the political edifice these two evils are relevant.

Lenin explains communist conceit: “A member of the Communist Party, who has not yet been combed out, and who imagines he can solve all his problems by issuing communist decrees, is guilty of communist conceit. Because he is still a member of the ruling party and is employed in some government office, he imagines this entitles him to talk about the results of political education. Nothing of the sort! That is only communist conceit. The point is to learn to impart political knowledge; but that we have not yet learnt. We have not yet learnt how to approach the subject properly.”

Ntate Lamola was the first to fire his salvo: “I have tolerated Ntate Lehohla’s musings in this group for too long, but this boasting of being a servant of a brutal and oppressive handmaid of the Pretoria regime is just too much to stomach. Pali Lehohla must be ashamed for having helped to prop up a lie of a self-governing Bantustans we were working to undermine and frustrate as a core strategy of the liberation struggle. We were in Mmabatho at the same time. He will remember Rev Lamola and Joe Seremane.”

Not to be beaten, Ntate Mathata Tshedu was even more virulent in his displeasure: “I am, like many who have been commenting here, appalled, disturbed and angered by Ntate Lehohla's latest posting. I can feel the seething anger of people, going back to their interaction with this puppet, trying to show how baffled they are that such a man as Ntate Lehohla cannot only think like that but put it down and then post it on THIS platform. And now he invites us to his New York jamboree, as if nothing has happened. When he is confronted about his affront, he digresses to what he has been reading. I am too cultured to make the proposal I should be making about him. But I hope le nkwele, no mpfa, ni ngi zwile.” 

As we approach crucifixion period, Ntate Stranger Kgamphe acted like Pontius Pilate and wrote: “Ntate Lehohla must clarify and state if he made a mistake ... We must not be too impatient and reject good people.”

Ntate Oupa Ngwenya, in response to Ntate Kgamphe, opened a rather different path, writing: “Pali Lehohla has reminisced about his professional journey, starting with Bophuthatswana culminating in becoming head of Stats SA. The unedited version he posted and is there to be read. Based on reading the article it is a part of journey he travelled to which he denies no part of having traversed. Contained in Lehohla’s reminiscing is a polemic of a discredited figure, Lucas Mangope, who had a development blueprint that Lehohla put into good use in a post-1994 setting. 

“Does this submission condone a hated system that Mangope is an active leader of? Point is what good Lehohla is today has undeniable relationship with where he started — a hated homeland system. A justifiable and undeniable view about Lehohla’s professional journey is inseparable from the homeland factor where the journey of his career is both fact and historical.”

Further commentary on the issue followed. Mme Mmagauta contributed thus: “While the Bantustan system was a horrible product of the apartheid regime, and some of us were fighting for its downfall, many other people ran to Bophuthatswana where they held top jobs. These experiences enabled them to be selected in top positions post-1994. Especially the judges ... Most of our top judges are products of that system. He doesn't hide his history. I was amazed by the top people who went to Mangope’s funeral and sang praises.”

Mme Maud Motanyane wrote: “Indeed Mmagauta, many pursued cushy lives in Bop. Bop TV, Radio Bop, UniBo, Sun City — hands up those who were beneficiaries.

1. Bop TV was a television station owned by the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation, which operated from 1983 to 2003. Initially a part of the black homeland of Bophuthatswana, after the end of Apartheid it was integrated to the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
2. Radio BOP was first launched under the Bophuthatswana Bantustan regime as an Urban Contemporary radio station that offered educational, entertainment and music content to its audience.
3. The University of Bophuthatswana (UniBo) was founded in 1978 and the first students were enrolled in 1980. The University started in converted private dwellings but has grown into some magnificent buildings, of which the main lecture block is the largest.
4. Sun City was developed by the hotel magnate Sol Kerzner as part of his Sun International group of properties. It was officially opened on December 7 1979, then located in the Bantustan of Bophuthatswana.”

A cultural problem cannot be solved as quickly as political and military problems. It must be understood that conditions for further progress are no longer what they were.

—  Lenin

I wrote a rejoinder to Ntate Mathata: “The remarks by Ntate Oupa Ngwenya actually provide me the possibility of addressing your linked point refrain that says I ignored your concerns and I posted instead my UN Statistical Commission [UNSC] session instead of heeding your concerns.

“Let me point to why the UNSC was important. It is because an existential risk is on the offing in the context of the ubiquitous information technology. This has major implications of Africans as entering a new slavery cohort. The United Nations Statistical Commission is at the forefront of confronting this existential risk. I am sure this august body has responsibility to garner deeper understanding of this challenge. Here is its true impact — Africa by 2050 will be home to a third of the world population and every second young person will be African. The technology of artificial intelligence will enslave this group as consumers and the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics plays a critical role in adjudicating this challenge and Africa and South Africa having a representation in these discussions.”

Ntate Khulu threw in a word: “Sometimes consensus is not reached because of this point. There is a lot one can say in the manner that we engage with our past and contemporary history that is very disturbing, but let me confine myself to the issue at hand. Thanks to Prof Pali Lehohla for remaining sane and himself against the unwarranted attacks directed at him for just telling a narrative of his academic journey, that actually has nothing to do with praising the Bantustan system as such or its founders. Sometimes I think we like defending at all costs what in our eyes we see or saw as fitting our own conception of what was the right thing to do to fight the apartheid system, forgetting that the struggle itself was complex and inexhaustible.

“Even Bantustans are a late product of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The people and the struggle against oppression existed long before there were these machinations of self-rule. I may dare say, even if the Bantustan leaders were stooges, there are some positive things that were built in that era that belonged not only the people of Bophuthatswana but to South Africa as a whole. Some have already been mentioned. Just because we fought against the Bantustan system or were victims of that rule does not make everyone who was working within the system an enemy of freedom and democracy.”

“Yes, Bophuthatswana shouldn't have happened, but what it managed to do out of that system was allowed to trump the loyal black South Africans and no-one had sympathy for those who stayed and had nothing to offer. That Bophuthatswana gave us a chief justice too, that no-one thought would make it in even in the high courts. Politics aside, why were all these instances allowed? These people had more unhindered and supported practice than the people that have always been at home. Think of the infrastructures Mangope went out to create. Ai man, let's learn to separate the forest from the trees. We should not be angry with Ntate Pali; we should learn from what the supposed sell-outs brought back with them from Bophuthatswana. Can you blame Ntate Pali for being grateful of the Bantustan to have saved and propelled his career, more importantly saving his life? I must say, it's the only Bantustan one can think of that created structures to learn from that we continue to demolish.”

Perhaps as I conclude I should again refer to Lenin’s address of October 17 1921, where he said: “A cultural problem cannot be solved as quickly as political and military problems. It must be understood that conditions for further progress are no longer what they were. In a period of acute crisis, it is possible to achieve a political victory within a few weeks. It is possible to obtain victory in war in a few months. But it is impossible to achieve a cultural victory in such a short time. By its very nature, it requires a longer period — and we must adapt ourselves to this longer period, plan our work accordingly, and display the maximum of perseverance, persistence and method.

“Without these qualities, it is impossible even to start on the work of political education. And the only criterion of the results of political education is the improvement achieved in industry and agriculture. We must not only abolish illiteracy and the bribery which persists on the soil of illiteracy, but we must get the people really to accept our propaganda, our guidance and our pamphlets, so that the result may be an improvement in the national economy. Those are the functions of the political education departments in connection with the new economic policy, and I hope this congress will help us to achieve greater success in this field.”

An extension of the rejoinder next week takes on what Ntate Vusi Pikoli wrote possibly on the vexed history and what the future holds for our region. His approach to the debate is fascinating.‭

• Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa.