What is the Meaning of a National Democratic Revolution – Part 2
Identifying an Appropriate Unit of Analysis
To recap from the previous Part, for the past thirty years since South Africa had established a new democratic dispensation, it has been difficult to move beyond the guaranteeing of individual and equal rights towards ensuring that the wealth of the country is shared by the people as a whole, which is at the essence of a national democratic society. The essential reason for this difficulty is that the ANC failed to critically evaluate its weaknesses and strengths, and at the same time identifying succinctly the various threats and opportunities, both as a movement and a country.
The reason for such a failure is largely based on a dearth of an appropriate unit of analysis, which could fittingly assist in assessing successes and difficulties in the entire country, despite the various disparities that are characteristic of most, if not all, post-colonial states generally, and South Africa being a post-apartheid state, in particular, where resources were unevenly distributed along racial lines.
Attempts were made previously to use the provinces as units of analysis, which was rather myopic, given the enormous levels of inequalities that exist among these nine entities. Some have extreme cases of poverty and wealth alongside each other, most are predominantly rural, while one is intensely urbanised, and only two or three have pockets of urbanisation that are c
