The last time I visited Vietnam ten years ago, it was a very poor communist country with loudspeakers on every corner blairing out party political propaganda twice a day. Now – despite still being called a “socialist republic” – it is an exploding capitalist country with a growth rate of between 8-12% annually. New roads, a new bus transport system, new railways and flashy shops and restaurants are to be seen everywhere.
There are so many motorbikes in Hanoi that I fear there will not be enough place to park them at night when the streets go quiet. I even see a motorbike with a wire cage on the back stuffed with about twenty live chickens: a two-wheel chicken minibus taxi. Giggling bare-chested young men pull small carts loaded with anything from pipes to toilet bowls down the street and old woman with the traditional lampshade-like hats balance flat woven baskets filled with fruits and vegetables on sticks over their shoulders while dodging the people and the motorbikes in the crowded alleys.
It is still a tightly controlled society with no democracy and little social and political freedom, no free press and a communist party that ensures “social stability” by supressing any kind of disent. No taxi blockcades or strikes here. No political mobilisation either. There is only one political party and it is firmly in charge.
I meet up with Du, a young fresh-faced graphic designer, who whispers to me that personal freedom is not high on the list of priorities of the government or society in Vietnam. One is free to shop and make money, but not to decide how you want to live your live. Du is gay but still lives with his aunt and will have to get married one day to please his family.
Politics is absolutely not spoken about and it is considered a grave social blunder to mention it. At nine in the evening Du furtively glances at his watch and says he has to go back home as he will be in big trouble with his relatives if he stays out later. “Family, not know I am gay,” he explains before jumping on his motorbike and speeding away from his lonely secret life, back to his obligations and his family.
He leaves me at a street cafe sipping my ice cold beer (which is cheap and very good), pondering why Vietnam has been economically so succesful and South Africa has not.
Of course, South Africa has the vestiges of apartheid to contend with: a highly racialised, highly skewed, economy and – because of the migrant labour system - very weak social control exercised through family ties. We had Bantu education and discrimination which makes economic and social ”transfromation” an ethical as well as a political and practical necessity.
We also have democracy, which means we can moan and criticise the government, ridicule the President with his shower head and dark cloud hovering over his head – for the time being, at least. We can laugh at the absurdity and self-importance of our rulers and can point out how selfish they are. We can even blockade the streets to make a political point and those of us who are not hungry can even vote for an opposition party if we feel like it.
For a second I think that maybe MORE social and political control will not be such a bad idea for South Africa. Then I realise I would not want that control to be imposed on myself – only on others – and that freedom might perhaps be costly, but it is surely a non-negotiable.
How does one measure the benefits for our human dignity and self-respect that came with the arrival of social and political freedom to South Africa in 1994? It is, as the famous advertisement says, “priceless”. Our economy is never going to grow at 12% like Vietnam and maybe that is not so bad. At least we are free. This freedom is precious and as citizens we should guard it and fight for it because politicians do not like freedomvery mucg
As I amble home I remember another thing Du told me. Only last month two state officials were sentenced to life imprisonment after being implicated in a corruption scandal regarding state tenders. There were, he whispered, rumours of torture. The party is ruthless about corruption and as there are no other political parties, membership of the party is not a requirement to do business.
I want to ask Du more questions about this case and about corruption in Vietnam, but he only smiles and bats his eyes flirtatiously before changing the topic. “Do you have special friend at home?” he asks whistfully.
No wonder the Vietnamese economy is booming and the South African economy is not. Corruption will do that to an economy. Luckily we are getting Jacob Zuma for President because at least he does not have the dark cloud of corruption hanging over his head and he, too, will have zero tolerance for this cancer that eats away at the prosperity of a nation and keeps people poor.
“Luckily we are getting Jacob Zuma for President because at least he does not have the dark cloud of corruption hanging over his head and he, too, will have zero tolerance for this cancer that eats away at the prosperity of a nation and keeps people poor.”
Prof: in the minds of ordinary South Africans no matter what the ANC thinks JZ will remain a highly compromised individual.
Why do we always have to conjure up the worst imaginable examples of the lack of democracy in some socialist orientated governments ?
There is no “freedom” in a fascist capitalist state such as Singapore either and then we have “social democracies” such as Sweden, Finland and Norway – all countries with a vibrant democracy, strong labor unions and socialist orientated economic policies.
We are constantly told that the policies of the new “left-leaning” ANC implies a dogmatic Marxist-Leninist soviet style state, yet those policies don’t feature in any SACP/Cosatu policy statements or manifesto’s – they are just talking about more state involvement in planning the economy, free education and free health services. The last two being key features of the array of basic services that you can count on in other “unconstitutional” fascist dictatorship i.e. the UK.
BTW – no matter how much you cherish “freedom” – it means f..all if you are going to die of hunger or some curable or preventable disease brought about by substandard socio-economic conditions anyway.
ozoneblue, on your first point: jeez, so defensive. Lighten up bro. I happen to be in Vietnam at the moment, not in Denmark (and I like Vietnam more than Denmark). I am left leaning myself. But I am weird that way in that I take what politicians say at least a little bit seriously and assume they mean at least some of what they say. With JZ its difficult because one day he says policies wont change we love capitalism and the next day he says the opposite. One day he expresses respect for the judiciary and the nmext day he says we should look at changing the Constitution to take away their power.
On second point: agreed.
Interesting article:
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71639?oid=125134&sn=Detail
Vuyo @ 9:46 am
“Debate around the NPA’s decision has focused mainly on the McCarthy recordings, their meaning and legality. Less attention has been paid to the legal basis underpinning Mpshe’s decision to drop charges. ”
I wouldn’t say that is true. There has been a lot of debate on that issue.
What has been sadly missing from media’s “attention” though is the more worrying and probably much larger issue of why Leonard McCarthy, head of the Scorpions, was still reporting to Bulelani Ngcuka in 2007.
vuyo
yeh Dumisani Mkhize posted it up earler was very interesting, did you read the honk kong judges judgement in that case, now that is very interesting but yes i agree with the article Mpshe appears to have plagiarised
This is just further proof that Mpshe’s mind wasnt applied.
“Luckily we are getting Jacob Zuma for President because at least he does not have the dark cloud of corruption hanging over his head and he, too, will have zero tolerance for this cancer that eats away at the prosperity of a nation and keeps people poor.”
When one cuts to the heart of the matter, after eight years suffering the Zuma cult’s track record, I would say many of us, former ANC supporters or not, are simply scared s***less of what He and those who surround Him are going to do to our beautiful and once promising country.
And I don’t believe for a minute that service and opportunity will improve for anyone. I’m pretty sure a lot of us share this belief, justifiably paranoid though it may be.
sirjay jonson @ 10:52 am
“When one cuts to the heart of the matter, after eight years suffering the Zuma cult’s track record,”
I wonder if you are including Zuma’s success in bringing peace to KwaZulu-Natal and Burundi, a new minister of health and a negotiated settlement in Zimbabwe. Those were of course all the old ANC bashing sticks that have now been discarded almost overnight as if no one ever noticed.
If you want a personal reference I suppose the endorsement of that “cult hero” Nelson Mandela after Polokwane doesn’t count too much either ?
Just remember that you had more social and political control under the old apartheid state–and everyone remembers the disruption and conflict engendered by that social and political control.
Social and political control ultimately create more conflict–unless that control is done with the approval of the people. And how do you tell if that is the case, unless you have democratic systems in place allowing them to express their will?
Benevolent dictatorships are always problematic…..and always become less benevolent over time.
Um, Ozone, I thought the ANC was going to be elected to government, not the SACP and/or Cosatu? Oh wait…that’s right…they don’t stand in the election because they know they’d get hammered…
Democratic socialism is not a bad thing, but for it to work there needs to be intolerance for corruption and nepotism, and a genuine desire on the part of government to improve the lives of ordinary citizens. We do not have that in SA, therefore anything with socialism in it scares me, because it simply means more power to the leaders, to do what they want with our resources.
Pierre, “freedom,” in the form South Africans enjoy it, may be worth the bargain to you, and I , and everyone on your blog.
Bu I am not so sure it was worth the trade-off for the great mass of South Africans for whom the traditional liberal freedoms are of little practical relevance.
In purely material terms, I would rather be at the bottom of the economic ladder in Vietnam than in South Africa.
The great irony is that, if the ANC had taken power in the early 70′s, around the same time that Vietnam was unified, the authoritarian form of capitalism that is often association with neo-Stalinism may have been instituted here. The chattering class may have been consigned to “re-education.” But perhaps the masses would have done better than they have under the crony-capitalism established after 1994 here.