Hi, welcome to my Poliseries: an exploration of the vision each parliamentary party has for South Africa’s future. In this report, I discuss The Cape Independence Party (CIP) which, unlike its contemporary advocacy group, is an actual political party that seeks not only to free the Western Cape from its union with South Africa (which it considers a form of subjugation), but to also govern it as its first political leaders. Consider this report a continuation of that of the CIAG since these two political organizations are, effectively, two branches of the same tree – that of self-determination.
Whereas the CIAG’s argument for Cape secession rests mainly on the lack of correlation between the powers that ultimately govern the Cape and the number of residents who voted for them, the CIP’s argument in that same vein is more economically focused. Grounded on the foundation that is the CIAG’s political imprisonment argument, the CIP goes further in stating that it is this parasitic relationship that enables what it regards as the violation of the Western Cape economically, implying that had this relationship been equally beneficial, getting to keep only R45 billion of the R185 billion the provincial economy produces would be, not acceptable, but more palatable.
The desire for secession makes sense; the point of a national government is to service all provinces by rewarding them their fair share of our country’s prosperity. However, corruption within the governing party’s administration leeches off of the provinces’ share to perpetuate an ever-growing inequality. Whether secession is the answer to this problem is what the CIAG’s proposed referendum is yet to determine – at least as seen by the CIAG. I think that referendum is the question: ‘are you convinced that secession is the answer to this problem?’. A question that measures the group’s success in winning over the Western Cape’s residents to the vision of The Cape of Good Hope. Secession is not the answer to corruption for, as I stated in the CIAG’s report, bureaucracy causes corruption due to limitations imposed by Dunbar’s number – that coupled with that lingering historical trauma makes the infection of a future government for the newly independent state all the more probable.
This brings us to the kind of state the CIP endeavours to build – I see a red flag. The CIP sounds a lot like several of the opposition parties covered thus far; with an attitude to affirmative action legislation and public housing policy that outright ignores this trauma. It intends to end all affirmative action laws to ensure all the various ‘racial’ stakeholders (‘racial’ because I believe that variance in exposure to historical trauma corresponds to race) amongst its residents have ‘equal’ access to opportunities despite some starting at lower levels of education, health, financial comfort etc. than others. It doesn’t make sense to then provide housing on a first-come-first-serve basis when the need is not equally distributed.
On the other hand, and in contrast to its self-proclaimed commitment to equal opportunity, the CIP commits to protecting and promoting only the Afrikaans language. Although currently predominantly Afrikaans, the Western Cape has residents living there that come from all over the country, who will then be forced to adapt to an environment that legislates which language they should learn. Talk about abolishing all affirmative action laws.
Touting direct democracy as its central mechanism of service delivery, the party identifies four of its checks and balances meant to ensure the sustainability of its governance structure, namely:
1. Referendum
2. Initiative
3. Nullification
4. Recall
The commonality between these being the decentralization of power to interest groups or civil society who then become that state’s parliament. These checks and balances are all manners in which civil society may raise its voice to alter legislation in its favour. This is better than the current more centralized governance system, but it is less so than different. Civil society organisations can be formed in a myriad of ways that do not conform to nature’s laws. OneSA’s approach is closer to target because it localises their formation to communities in physical geographic locations wherein members are connected by their personal relationships. The very existence of civil society organisations isn’t enough for most of them, e.g., workers’ unions are formed based on less meaningful professional relationships.
A governance system regulated mainly by civil society founded on professional/business-like relationships is still similar, if not the same, as the current capitalist setup we have in our country. For what is such a civil society organisation if not a business? This is what currently plagues political parties whom, I would argue ideally, are meant to be civil society organisations. The decentralisation of power has to go far enough – to a personal level, where the use of power takes place through personal relationships as its medium. Otherwise, you get a governance system that separates power utilisation from personal responsibility thereby alienating those with power from those they’re meant to serve – fertile ground for corruption. Speaking to the sustainability of the CIP’s intended governance structure, these checks and balances may be interpreted as a step forward in between representative and direct democracy but do not exonerate their structure to free it from its fated execution.
Having more money to invest in your economy is indeed useful but money as a tool used in this way has its limits. Let’s face it: the only reason the Cape secession movement has a problem with South Africa’s projected future is corruption. Well, corruption isn’t a money/economic problem nor is it a technological oversight problem since technology can go only so far as a deterrent; it is also not a legislative problem so throwing more laws at it can only do so much. No, corruption is fundamentally a relationship problem because relationships both form and are formed by systems thus cultures as ways of living. For The Cape of Good Hope to secure for itself a prosperous future opposite to the one South Africa currently has, it will have to use its residents’ personal relationships as a point of departure in reinventing its socio-economic and political order; create an entirely different econo-political governance structure more true to the term ‘direct democracy’.
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