HALF ART Governing party has perfected the art of contradiction
This column would not be possible — because art would not be possible — without ambiguity. The idea that an image, a piece of theatre, a song or a literary text cannot have a single fixed meaning is as central to the act of artistic creation as it is to a work’s reception.
An artist may have a clear vision or message to convey, but the work itself floats free of these constraints; it is given significance by viewer or listener or reader by the context in which it is consumed.
Moreover, artists can be (perhaps even should be) duplicitous. Part of the pleasure of art is deception: playfulness, irony, subtext, paradox, even the old bait-and-switch – these are the tricks through which artists teach and delight us.
The challenge is to keep multiple possibilities sustained in our minds as a work unfolds, or as we revisit it after our first encounter. We have the freedom of adding further ambiguity: our own what-ifs, our own muddying of the waters. When it comes to interpretation, there is even value in a kind of deliberate misunderstanding.
The wilful sowing of confusion has its place in the arts, a domain in which misapprehension can be as constructive as clarity. Sadly, it is also a tactic of the politician – in whose hands it is at best a tool for self-preservation but, at worst, a deadly weapon.
Over the past fortnight, South Africans have been reminded of how fork-tongued our politicians are and how readily citizens participate in their dangerous games.
We allow the ANC, the DA and the EFF to flip-flop on policy, to issue irreconcilable statements, to allow untruths to fester and to adjust their rhetoric as occasion allows. “That’s politics,” we say. Fair enough.
But the events of the past week have brought home that the DA and the EFF — because they are minority parties, not because they have the moral high ground — are far less egregious in their contradictions than the ANC and President Jacob Zuma’s cronies.
Julius Malema has the licence to gainsay his younger self. And even Western Cape premier Helen Zille’s sorry-notsorry stance on colonialism has become a sideshow.
It would have been better for the DA if Zille hadn’t chosen to elaborate on her colonial views. She could have mounted the “Twitter format facilitates misunderstanding” defence. Or perhaps even the, “We all make mistakes on Twitter” defence.
And we do. In the hours following Zuma’s catastrophic Cabinet reshuffle, I caught myself musing over what options his opponents in the ANC must have been weighing up. If all possible legal and procedural avenues had been exhausted, and the man had effectively become a dictator, what would you do? Hire a hitman? If you did, would this be morally justifiable?
The answers, I foolishly thought, could be offered in a series of tweets: such a move would be (possibly irreparably) destabilising; it would set a dangerous precedent; in the short and long-term citizens’ interests would be even further compromised than they have been by the Zuptas’ dirty tricks.
I had only gone as far as issuing a disclaimer to David Mahlobo and his surveillance team that I wasn’t trying to incite treason when a prominent Zuma toady replied, aghast, asking if I was calling for the assassination of the president. I was not, of course; he knew that already.
Still, it was the wrong time to be asking philosophical questions. Given that the ANC has an ugly track record of internal political hits, it was insensitive. And at that stage, when it appeared that Zuma’s latest gambit was a classic case of arrogant overreaching — the beginning of his downfall — I immediately regretted my clumsy hypothesising.
Zuma’s opponents within the ANC, it seemed, were (belatedly) finding their voices. They’d get rid of him following due process … somehow.
When Gwede Mantashe mumbled his statement following the governing party’s national working committee meeting, however, I realised how desperately I’d been clinging to the “anti-Zuma faction within the ANC” narrative. Mantashe, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and the internal opposition they might lead simply rolled over. Whether they are playing dead or not hardly matters.
South Africans have been duped. Deceived. Dumped.
For years our political commentariat has decried the moral bankruptcy of the governing party while critiquing the shortcomings of the opposition parties.
Then, lured by an ambiguous siren song that promised us a renewed ANC post-Zuma, we dared to hope that there were enough uncorrupted leaders left in the party to remove Number One. .
We know better now.