Elect EFF or face anarchy
CALLING someone a fascist is one of the easiest ways of discrediting a political opponent, or someone you consider disagreeable.
As such, the term is thrown about with alacrity, to the point that it may be losing its meaning.
What is deeply concerning is when political leaders and parties mimic and clone the worst of history’s fascists – and get away with it, simply because party loyalists and the most gullible among us are unwilling or unable to see the dangers.
There has yet to be a loyalist critique of student activist Mcebo Dlamini’s praise of Adolf Hitler.
Anyway, since the demise of the archetypes, Benito Mussolini and Hitler, very few politicians have acknowledged that they are, indeed, fascists.
The bad guys always play the victim and always present themselves as benevolent – until they are in office.
If we accept the postulate that when apartheid, as government policy, formally ended in the 1990s the racists did not disappear, it is fair, and historically correct to say that when fascism formally ended, by the end of World War 2, actual fascists did not disappear.
It is plausible and there is some historical evidence to suggest that in Italy they simply went to ground, they renamed themselves, and participated in the post-war polity.
It is only in the recent rise of fascism and ethno-nationalism that politicians in Italy, or Hungary for that matter, openly declared their loyalties and tendencies.
As much as we South Africans want to believe in notions of exceptionalism, we are insufficiently protected from being affected by large-scale social and historical forces.
So, it is on the global wave of the rise of fascism, ethno-nationalism and the search for racial or ethnic purity, that the EFF, and especially Julius Malema, ride into town as the saviours of South Africa.
While it is dangerous to discuss these things publicly, given the EFF’s intolerance, ad hominem attacks, and threats of violence and intimidation of academics and public intellectuals, it is worth highlighting some comparisons and allowing the public to reach their own conclusions.
Over the past weekend Malema continued his anti-Indian threats and added coloured people to his growing list of undesirables.
Malema was reported to have said: “Why is Treasury always represented by an Indian, when there is 80% African staff?”
His list of undesirables now includes whites, Indians, coloureds and people who do not “speak like Africans”.
Recall that he accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of blaming his (Ramaphosa’s) parents for being black and mocked the president’s accent.
In this way, by removing whites, coloureds, Indian and black people who do not “speak like Africans”, Malema’s ideal rests on crude nativism – on conceptions of a “pure” people untainted by foreign influences or undesirables.
This is reminiscent of Mussolini’s identification of Jews as disproportionately powerful in Europe during the inter-war period and his claim that global finance was “in the hands of the Jews”.
At different times, Mussolini and Hitler both blamed the “pernicious influence of foreigners” for the woes of their people.
At the same time, it seems like Malema is engaging in a low-intensity war to undermine the state.
He also presents himself as a victim and his movement as the saviours of society.
A pattern has emerged, since 2015, of disruptions and violence – from the EFF’s conduct in parliament to streets across the country and what Malema alluded to as encroaching “anarchy”.
To stop this “anarchy” Malema presented the EFF as the solution. The die is being cast. Elect the EFF or face anarchy.
While I dare not suggest that Malema and the EFF are behind these disruptions, his approach is reminiscent of Mussolini’s tactics.
While it was on a different scale, it is worth remembering, also, that the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 was used by Hitler for promotion of himself as the great saviour of his people and he subsequently secured approval for an emergency decree.
Earlier this year, Malema claimed he had received a death threat.
This, too, is reminiscent of Mussolini, who presented himself as a victim, drew in patriotic intellectual sentiments, and his people as “virtuous victims” of undesirables at home and abroad.
All told, it really does not matter what evidence is laid before the public. There is every possibility that the EFF will increase its representation in parliament next year.
We should not discount the possibility that the EFF will exploit the current wave of violence.
We should probably also not discount the fact that the EFF will contest the outcome of next year’s election – if it doesn’t increase its numbers.
Whether or not people believe the tactical conduct of the EFF is fascistic is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Malema has presented us with a choice: elect the EFF or face anarchy.