Are we living in a BANI country?

Janet Jobson is a “merchant of hope”. She has to be because she heads up the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. She has brought the concept of “BANI” into the national discourse, and not a moment too soon either.

Google reveals the meaning of the acronym “BANI” with the following brief explanation.

“BANI is a framework, coined by futurist Jamais Cascio, that describes the characteristics of a turbulent world as Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, and Incomprehensible, offering a lens to understand and navigate the complexities of our current environment. 

Here’s a more detailed breakdown: 

• Brittle:

This refers to the vulnerability and fragility of systems, where small disruptions can lead to large-scale failures.

• Anxious:

The BANI framework acknowledges the pervasive anxiety and uncertainty that individuals and organizations face in a rapidly changing world.

• Non-linear:

This highlights the unpredictable nature of events, where cause and effect relationships are not always straightforward and small changes can have disproportionate impacts.

• Incomprehensible:

The BANI framework recognizes that the complexity and speed of change can make it difficult to fully understand and predict events, leading to a sense of overwhelm and difficulty in making informed decisions.”

So, the question is, can SA be described as a BANI country in a BANI world?

Based on the UN World Happiness Report, the twenty happiest countries in the world in 2025 are, with their Gini Indices:

The Gini-coefficient is a rough but robust measure of inequality. It is also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio and is a statistical measure that quantifies the degree of inequality in the distribution of income or wealth within a population, ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality). An index score of 1 implies that 1 person has all the wealth in the population so measured, while a score of 0 implies that the wealth of the population is shared equally. In other words, a lower score reveals a higher degree of equality. Interestingly, the US does not make the top twenty and has a Gini-coefficient of 0.42.

As at March 2025, if one compares 130 selected regions by their Gini index , South Africa is leading the ranking as the most unequal country in the world (0.63 points) and is followed by Namibia with 0.58 points. At the other end of the spectrum are Slovenia and Slovakia with 0.23 points, indicating a huge difference of 0.4 points to South Africa. 

The top twenty countries named and listed above in the happiness index have current Gini coefficients that have been estimated within a fairly narrow band with outliers in North America, where the Gini index for the USA is 0.39. The USA did not make the top twenty on the happiness index; instead it fell to 24^th, its lowest ever ranking. No country in Africa features in the top twenty of the happiness index.

Generally speaking

It would appear that, generally speaking, a top position on the happiness index correlates with a low Gini coefficient. Exacerbated inequality, as has occurred in SA over the last thirty years, is not a recipe for happiness.

The Founding Provisions in Chapter One of the South African Constitution list human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms at the top of the list of national values. Getting to realise these values involves “regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.” All citizens are equally entitled to the rights, privileges and benefits of citizenship.

Sadly, South Africa in now more unequal than it was when apartheid ended and the current constitutional dispensation was negotiated. While citizens long for peace that is secure, progress that is sustainable and prosperity that is equitably shared, this has not been their lot since liberation dawned in 1994. Thirty years of ANC governance ended in May 2024 when the dominance of the ANC was ended and a coalition of ten political parties represented in parliament was formed under the somewhat misleading name Government of National Unity or GNU.

The Bill of Rights, Chapter Two of the Constitution, lays down that the state must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in it. Equality is foremost among these rights. Many of the rights have socio-economic impact and are deliverable “within available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights” to quote Section 27(2) of the Constitution. That “progressive realisation” has been slow and slight. Kleptocracy, state capture, cadre deployment and a lack of state effectiveness and efficiency due to inexpert governance saw to that.

Early years

It was thought in the early years of democracy in South Africa that a system of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) would be an appropriate means of redressing the lot of the disadvantaged who had suffered unfair discrimination in the past. The BEE system has indeed enriched a small number of politically well-connected people, but the masses, the rural poor and women have not been given the opportunity to participate in the economy in a way that would have reduced, rather than expanded, inequality in South Africa.

The ANC has never properly embraced constitutionalism under the rule of law. The war cry of the ANC was, and still is, “Amandla Awethu” which means “power is ours”. The way in which the ANC has gone about securing power (rather than good governance) has involved what Anthea Jeffrey of the IRR has called “The People’s War” which was waged to eliminate black opposition parties in the run up to liberation.

The ANC still keeps faith with its attachment to the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), an invention of the soviets in the days of the struggle. The strategy and tactics of the NDR involve measuring the balance of forces in the land and working on securing “hegemonic control of all the levers of power in society” for the ANC. Nothing about equality in that. The goal of the revolution is to usher in the national democratic society in the form of a socialistic state in which equality becomes a reality.

After thirty years of trying, equality is further away than it was when the ANC won the 1994 elections with an impressive majority. That majority has been whittled and wasted away due to the misguidedness of the leadership of the ANC.

In 2024 only 16% of the electorate voted for the ANC, giving it a mere 40% of the seats in parliament. The turnout at the polls was so poor that the ANC is still the largest party in parliament. Despite this, it has been unable to produce a fiscal framework on which cabinet can agree. The GNU has split on the issue with the DA and FF+ voting with the opposition parties against the adoption of the fiscal framework which was eventually put in place without prior cabinet consensus but with the help of smaller parties in the opposition who voted with the ANC to avoid what they perceived as a catastrophe.

Respected

Had the ANC respected the need for cabinet to act collectively in a responsible and accountable manner, as is legally required, the entire debacle would have be obviated.

Unfortunately the tenets of the NDR rendered this impossible. The ANC, ever faithful to the NDR, operates on the basis of what it calls “democratic centralism” where all decision making cascades down from the top. The highest echelons of the ANC debate issues and decide by majority vote what actions and policies will follow. The minority then falls in behind the majority and its view prevails.

In the constitutional system in place, with its collective accountability and responsibility of cabinet, it is illegal to use democratic centralism. Overall consensus in cabinet, which must act collectively, is required and was not secured in respect of the fiscal framework. Hence the divisive debate in which the DA and FF+ cabinet members voted against the motion proposed by the minister of finance.

If the ANC wants to run matters of government along the revolutionary lines of the NDR it is going to have to seek partners in Parliament who are willing to go along with democratic centralism and the other tenets of the NDR. The fascists in the EFF and the traditionalists in MK (they want to have a house of traditional leaders and to revert to parliamentary sovereignty) have already rejected the ANC as a coalition partner. They seem keen to take the country back to the polls as they smell blood in the water around the ANC.

It is of course possible that the ANC will choose to abandon the NDR. It was encouraged to do so by Professor Kader Asmal who argued that the revolution was won when the Constitution was adopted and that there was no need to persist, as the majority party in Parliament, with a revolutionary struggle against an oppressor who had been vanquished in the voting and in the settlement that gave rise to the National Accord that preceded the first election in 1994.

Struggled to adapt

In Africa, liberation movements like the ANC have struggled to adapt to constitutional democracy. It is all about power, not good governance; the “it’s our turn to eat” syndrome strikes hard and phenomena such as grand corruption and state capture poison the fruits of liberation. Economic stagnation, grey listing by FAFT, and even failure as a state (as has happened in neighbouring Zimbabwe) are the outcomes of failure to adapt to constitutionalism and give up the “democratic centralism” of the revolutionary struggle. Those African countries that have overcome the syndrome are the most successful today; others continue to wallow in kleptocracy.

There is still hope in SA despite the brittle aspects of our current reality. We are not out of the woods, the GNU is being severely tested but it is still possible, through fealty to constitutional principles, to rescue the budget and the GNU. Even if the NDR is persisted in, it can be adapted to show greater alignment with constitutional principles. A hardline in favour of the NDR will end the GNU, but could lead to early elections in which the voters may show up in greater numbers to punish the politicians for their poor leadership of the country.

These are certainly anxious times not only politically but also economically, as tariff wars on a global scale loom.  Security at home is ever more precarious with GBV, taxi-gangs, extortionists, kidnappers, and common criminals on the loose in large numbers in the country.

The non-linear progress in SA is reflected in the state of the economy, the joblessness due to poor leadership and the spectre that 28 million of the population of around 65 million draw SASSA grants each month. We are the most unequal country out of 130 in which measurements are taken, and this is nothing to be proud of given our hopeful “rainbow nation” start in the magical Madiba era. It is incomprehensible that, in such a short time since then, we have sunk to the point at which we have to note our Chair of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts’ warning during the GNU’s first budget debate that SA : “has debt service costs (interest the country pays) of R442-billion per year, or R8.5-billion per week.” In a properly-run country this amount should be considerably lower, if not nil.

Yes, we are a BANI country and no, we do not feature in the top countries on the happiness index, in fact we are 95^th, down from 83^rd in 2024. In mitigation, there are 147 countries in the survey.

The ANC says it must renew or perish. It is right. Renewal must involve a serious review of the efficacy of the NDR and the abandonment of its tenets in the interests of constitutional democracy under the rule of law. That is the right way to get to the promotion of equality and into the top ten on the happiness index, where our beautiful country rightfully belongs.

The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.

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Photo by Angie J on Unsplash