Lorenzo Davids writes, ‘if you want to contest the elections, address the fears of people and failures of government. There is no way around it. But as you point to the failures and the fears, do not be naïve of the potential for the rise of a dangerous fascism.’ Photographer: Armand Hough. African News Agency (ANA)
The failure of the current ANC government to use its substantial power base to grow the collective well-being and prosperity of South Africa and its people is fuelling a growing apartheid nostalgia.
Reduced to a party of name-changing, ribbon-cutting and corruption, it has failed to harness its 30-year leadership to build a just, inclusive, safe, equitable, respectful and prosperous country for all.
This growing nostalgia for apartheid-style “progress” lays the foundation for a growing and dangerous reactionary populism that mourns the loss of the former world.
Given the underbelly of religious, moral and social conservatism that dominates large parts of South Africa, this secret conservatism has moved increasingly to the right of the political spectrum.
What we need to understand about this secret conservatism is that while it holds anti-liberal political views, it supports pro-liberal economic policies. The rise in right-wing populism across Europe and the US over the last decade has built a “scape-goat culture” by portraying “others” – especially immigrants and those they consider to be elitists leaders – as the reason for the social, economic and other in-country problems they experience.
This reactionary populist ideology justifies racism, xenophobia and modern versions of apartheid.
It begins to group people into new categories of “desirable races, countries or ethnicities” to build a renewed middle class that both preserves and advances the old order and its consequences – a powerful and rich elitist middle class that controls political power and an undesirable sub-class whose lives are made unbearable and whose poverty is intolerable on any global scale and, ultimately, whose voice is made silent.
South Africa is fertile ground for a new dose of reactionary populism that promises the benefits of the apartheid past to its many delusional sympathisers. It uses the old order’s rhetoric in new messages laced with concepts of betrayal, resentment and oppression in the current dispensation.
Those who remember the then DP’s 1999 “Fight Back” election campaign that harvested the fears of especially white and coloured voters of an all-powerful ANC into votes for the DP saw voters, like those in 1948, become initiated into this reactionary populism.
Fear is the dominant trait in reactionary populism. Failure fuels fear. And fear fuels fascism. South Africans have had enough of fear and failure.
Judge Zondo, on the anniversary of the handing over of the State Capture Report to the president, said that nothing has been done since the report to prevent state capture from happening again.
This is the toxic mix: failure and fear that will embrace reactionary populist messages that will breed a fascist leadership.
These messages of fear and failure, many by the ANC's own doing, have bred a growing reactionary populism among South Africa’s secret conservative population. This group is often anti-intellectual and embraces a bleached past.
This group will play a major role in determining the outcome of the 2024 elections. They are religiously conservative, older, under-educated and deeply cultural.
They have an awareness of a past that they influence their children with. Food parcels and kissing babies have reached their sell-by date. Convoys and conferences have lost their attraction.
The 2024 election is election 1999 revisited. The podiums and the pamphlets will be filled with reactionary populist messages.
If you want to contest the elections, address the fears of people and failures of government. There is no way around it. But as you point to the failures and the fears, do not be naïve of the potential for the rise of a dangerous fascism.
Who will rise, not to point us to a romanticised past, but to harness our brilliance, our bravery and our brokenness to build an inclusive, intelligent and prosperous future? This is not a time to fight back. This is a time to build together and fight for a country for all, in the deepest sense of being South African.
* Lorenzo A. Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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