SLOUCHING TO ARMAGEDDON

TRAINSPOTTER ‘If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a lo

“All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act. But maybe not.” – Don DeLillo,

Libra.

How do we sum up a year like 2021? Let’s try this: both Helen Zille and Jacob Zuma published books over the course of the past 12 months. Somewhere within these literary parentheses, we can begin to make sense of 2021, during which two of the planet’s most celebrated democracies suffered Cirque du Soleil-style insurrections, one of which was led by a man in a bear suit.

Now, Helen Zille didn’t cause either the American or South African coups attempts. But her intellectual lodestar – the now-mainstream anti-woke American right-wing shout-o-sphere – was at the centre of Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert a free and fair election, in which he won a mind-bending

74 million

Ramaphosa from the presidency, and grab the levers of political and economic power.

Both insurrections failed, which is to say that they didn’t meet their immediate objectives. But in the United States, the Big Steal narrative is now accepted by nearly half the population, and it is the guise under which election “reform” has brought the swing states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and elsewhere under the direct sway of the Republican Party, which has no intention of pursuing traditional democratic pursuits in the future. Donald Trump holds the GOP in his idiot grip, and he’s not letting go: the 2022 midterms will return to him the House and possibly the Senate, and – given the pandemic economic fallout – it’s difficult to conceive of a Republican candidate losing in 2024. American liberalism, which failed to deliver on its manifold promises, is entering a period of darkness. Its durability is not assured.

Meanwhile, the recent trouble in SA is a textbook case of how failing post-liberation societies come apart at the seams. One thing is certain: the violence was sparked intentionally. It formed the latest salvo in a battle between ruling ANC “elites”, which on the one hand constitute the establishment aligned with mainstream media and the formal economic sector; and on the other hand the illiberal outcasts, aligned with the fringe media and the economic underworld. After Zuma’s incarceration, the latter faction employed the techniques of 21st-century civil warfare, in which individuals are weaponised on social media along ethnic and racial lines. The strategic objective was the shutdown of the country’s two most important provinces, in an attempt to subject the logistics, transport and food industries to rapid capture by shadowy players. This in turn sparked a species of popular uprising – a scream of anguish from the poverty-stricken streets.

As far as enforcement is concerned, such an attack can only be countered by solid intelligence work, backed up by responsive policing. But over the course of his two terms in office, Zuma brilliantly coopted the security cluster, using it as a sort of Republican Guard in order to protect his rule and choke out meaningful opposition to his State Capture project. Many of the stronger operatives have remained loyal to that ongoing operation.

Perhaps that is the lesson that 2021 has inflicted upon us: without will, there will be steady, irreversible

backsliding

The new guys, having failed to re-repurpose the repurposed State Security Agency, have used the intelligence services to keep a lazy eye on their opponents within the ANC – the usual way in which most former liberation movements consider “intelligence”. Worse, in the long run, the security cluster has no operational intelligence for the trouble brewing over South Africa’s numerous borders. The country is now left without sovereignty in the strict sense of the term.

This insurrection, insists President Ramaphosa and his cheerleaders, has failed. But again – has it? Parts of KZN have been destroyed, much of it forever – a pure example of reverse development. Relations between Africans and those of South Asian descent fester like an open wound, promising more violence. Massive army presence in poorer communities is now a normal South African occurrence.

The taxi cartels – mafiosi dressed up as minivan drivers – have in some cases taken over community governance, often in consultation with the governing party. There is a creeping fetishisation in the press and in gov