Spiritual poverty can make the fist an attractive proposition
The manner in which the EFF singles out foes is a prelude to violence
● If the rhetoric of the EFF against journalists, judges and intellectuals does not frighten you, then you clearly have not lived under the spectre of violence. I am not talking about just colonial and apartheid violence, but the carnage that tore the Black community apart in the 1980s. I lost many comrades in that decade.
The killings did not erupt out of nowhere. They started with epithets. They first had to dehumanise the Other — like we demonise foreign nationals as amakwere-kwere as a prelude to attacking and killing them.
As I have often pointed out, I will not forget the day ANC supporters gathered in front of Steve Biko’s house chanting: “u-Steve Biko, i- CIA.” Members of the Azanian Student Movement were called “amaZim-Zim”. I don’t know the origins of the term, but it gave their attackers the licence to kill. For their part, “amaZim-Zim” called the other side “amaVarara”, which also seemed to give the same licence to kill. It would later emerge that both movements had been infiltrated by the apartheid government’s security forces. Only the other day I learnt that Harry Gwala’s second-incommand in KwaZulu-Natal had been planted into the ANC to foment the violence. This is why I am always wary of those who tend to be the most militant in any group.
With the hostility that the EFF leadership is showing towards journalists, judges and intellectuals, I shudder to imagine what life might be like under its government.
The great editor of the Sowetan, Aggrey Klaaste, wrote eloquently about the legacy of the 1980s, and its costs to the black community: “Blacks lost many things. Worst of all we lost the innocence of our children. We also lost their respect for us.” We are now reaping the whirlwind.
The children of the 1980s passed their violent culture to their children, and on and on the cycle goes, as in WB Yeats’s “widening gyre”.
Julius Malema’s lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi has tried to spin the EFF leader’s threats against journalists by saying his words cannot be taken literally. Let me make sure I’ve got this right: either Malema is not to be taken seriously or his followers are post-structuralist deconstructionists capable of reading into the hidden meanings of his words. The legal sophistry is unlikely to convince anyone about either proposition. Malema’s followers, many of them without the benefit of an education, hear what they hear. They will also act on it.
Because of the focus on youth unemployment and other ills that affect our young people, we forget the psychological dimension of the apartheid legacy. But as Biko put it: “Material poverty is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty, it kills.” Literally.
It is that spiritual poverty that produces the selfhate that makes it so easy for black people to see each other as easy prey.
Just as worrying is the anti-Indian rhetoric against Pravin Gordhan. Here again I do not know the specifics of the issues involved. But I know a dog-whistle when I hear one — and I can hear it from a distance. Biko drummed it in our heads that despite the differentiation in how we were treated by the apartheid government, we were all Black people. One of his greatest legacies is that the constitution adopted his definition of Blackness as including Africans, Coloureds and Indians. Quite frankly, I don’t know where I would be if it were not for Saths Cooper and Strini Moodley. In Strini’s memory I say “no” to the jingoism.
The EFF leadership’s rhetoric is reminiscent of some of the most dangerous episodes in world history. When the Italian founder of fascism, Benito Mussolini, was asked to provide his group’s programme, he replied: “The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our programme. It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better.” He added: “The fist is the synthesis of our theory.”
As if breaking bones and throwing fists was not enough, EFF chairperson and lawyer Dali Mpofu threatened that if a court decision did not go his way there would be a “bloodbath to our democracy”. Talk about throwing out the toys. Were there no less violent metaphors left on the shelf, bro? As someone who witnessed the real bloodbaths of the 1980s, should you not be the moderating voice? And as if taking succour from his lawyers, Malema has threatened violence if the judges do not bend to his party’s will. The last time I checked, we were a constitutional democracy, not a fascist backwater.
I understand why it is important for the nation to address the economic challenges facing our youth. But this one-dimensional focus has blinded us to the deterioration in the political culture. To reiterate Biko’s warning, material poverty coupled with spiritual poverty kills.
It is not difficult to see how spiritual poverty can make the fist such an attractive proposition. Adolf Hitler understood too well the psychological appeal of violence for the downtrodden. He used the power of propaganda to “turn the little man into part of a great dragon”.
To be sure, the violence of the 1980s does not constitute all of our history, which also means it does not have to be all of our heritage, including the EFF. Interestingly, this is what Americans are beginning to say to themselves. Worn out by Donald Trump’s demagoguery, they are beginning to say “enough is enough”. The silent majority of Black South Africans who are cowering in the face of the violent braggadocio of their children need to stiffen their spines and also say: “Enough is enough — this is not who we are.”
Mangcu is director of African studies and professor of sociology at George Washington University. He is also visiting professor at the Centre for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University