Sometimes people will say during particularly dramatic events that “we are living through history”, and, yes, sometimes something like the fall of the Berlin Wall does indeed become a pivotal moment which moves history.
Sometimes there are great dramatic speeches given by strong personalities, sometimes there are murders or battles which determine the course of history.
However, good historians will not just write about these, but also think about the broader underlying social trends, the effects of new technology and even the climatic conditions. (Truly great historians can weave the towering people of history and those moments of chance and decisiveness into a tapestry that also considers the more subtle and impersonal social and geographic forces.)
Such definitive analysis often only becomes available decades after the events it describes. As events happen to us, we tend to focus on the more obvious and the more personal.
This is often the case with political pundit analysis of South Africa.
You can tell a story of South Africa and the ANC, based on its big events and individual decisions. The GEAR policy of Thabo Mbeki, and his AIDS denialism. The election of Jacob Zuma and all the attached corruption. The drama of Fees Must Fall, and Zuma’s resignation after losing control of the ANC. The false dawn of the ‘Ramaphoric’ era and the disaster of the ANC’s 2024 campaign. These would be the next stops bringing us to the current day.
This story would be true, but I think when the history books are written, they will leave out some more subtle but important changes that have shaped events.
The analysis of the state of the country by the IRR and CRA has, since long before I joined the Institute in 2019, shown that especially post-Zuma, ANC support tended towards older, less educated and more rural South Africans.
Would likely decline
Therefore, while South Africa was seeing improved education and urbanisation, it was foreseen that ANC support would likely decline, until the party eventually lost its majority. In 2024 that prediction was finally proven correct.
But I think there are more under-examined changes that have driven the ANC’s decline, mostly to do with technology.
Technology is one of the great shifters of political and social dynamics: dynamics which people like me who are into the business of ideas sometimes overlook. While feudalism was undone by the development of capitalism and ideas about the rights of man and nationalism, it was also undone by the invention of the firearm.
As important as the feminist movement was to changing gender roles and expanding what women could do in the workplace, it was the contraceptive pill and the car that probably had more of an impact.
So, let’s think back to South Africa in the 1990s and 2000s, the golden age of ANC dominance, which culminated in the party’s incredible election performance in 2004 when the ANC won just under 70% of the vote.
Our media space in the 1990s and 2000s was dominated by radio, SABC TV news, and a relatively small number of newspapers.
Thrived
The ANC thrived in this environment. Its leadership was much younger, and included many people who were experienced activists and communicators. They had learned their skills in the 80s and 90s, and helped the party to emerge as the dominant force in SA.
My father, a journalist during this period, remarked that the ANC was very media-savvy, and often when there was violence between the IFP and ANC in the 90s, the ANC had local cadres on the ground who spoke English and were ready to give their version of the story, while the IFP had no such contacts, and so quickly lost the PR battle.
The relatively concentrated nature of the media environment also suited the ANC’s preferred centralized management and collectivist style. The party could meet and decide on its approach in a top-down sort of way.
Additionally, the more concentrated control over discussion spaces within and outside the party prevented factions from having space to develop without clandestine in-person meetings.
Press statements from Luthuli House had great power to shape public debate and set the national agenda.
Fast-forward to 2025, where social media and the internet have entirely changed communications.
Cause trouble
The WhatsApp group allows factions to scheme effortlessly around the country. Social media allows every single ANC member to have a voice and cause trouble for the party. Radio and the SABC do remain important, but the vast ocean of social media content, forwarded WhatsApp messages, community groups, podcasts, YouTube videos and smaller media sites have created a diverse and sprawling media environment.
The ANC, which is still dominated by people from the late 80s and 90s generation, is completely at sea in this new world of communication.
While the party no doubt has people on the payroll and in leadership structures (think Panyaza Lesufi) who do understand the social media age better, the ANC’s internal culture is still one firmly stuck in the 20th century.
A quick scroll through the main ANC Twitter feed rewards one not with meme graphics, short videos filmed on site, and slick little adverts, but rather screenshots of long press releases, and endless photos of conferences and congresses with content so boring and unengaging that they merge into a sea of yellow branding.
I don’t believe this is something that can be fixed with a few hiring decisions and a little shake-up in leadership. Without a systematic overhaul of both the party’s leadership and the internal organisational culture of the ANC, I do not think the ANC can evolve to survive the 21st century.
Charles Darwin wrote, “It is not the strongest of species that survives, but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” This is the case also for political parties.
The ANC is a party still suffering from its success between the late 1980s and 2009. Since 2017, the party has had enormous pressure to evolve, and despite all ANC leaders agreeing that the party needed to change something, it seems stubbornly to continue doing the same thing, over and over again.
Relentless march
The wheel of history turns ever onward, and South Africa today is radically different in many ways from the South Africa of the 1990s and even the 2000s. The relentless march of technology is changing our society, just as in other societies across the world.
While we are in the change, it can be difficult to see precisely where we will end up. All we should be sure of is that the ANC as currently constituted will not be around to see that future.
[Image: Yolanda Coervers from Pixabay]
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend