Of superheroes and the perils of the politics of difference

Ihave always loved the many ways in which modern superhero films and their 20th century comic-book source materials are deeply steeped in political and social commentary. This stands to reason, of course: superheroes are individuals possessed of enhanced powers and abilities, which members of the public lack.

An apt representation for political power.

There is no better example of the conscious injection of political discourse into comic-book writing than the oeuvre of the great Stan Lee, whose most prolific comic-book publishing years were in the 1960s.

At a time when African-Americans were engaged in daily acts of protest, civil disobedience and non-violent resistance to the evils of racial segregation, violent suppression by white supremacists and deprivation of their civil and political rights, Lee was penning 1963’s The X-Men. A treatise against discrimination and intolerance, The X-Men followed the stories of a group of mutant superheroes possessed of a litany of superpowers and whose genetic mutations could be traced to their parents’ exposure to radiation.

As their denigration by humanity intensifies into government and institutional attempts to capture and curtail their powers, two factions of mutant superheroes take shape. The pacifists are led by professor Charles Francis Xavier, a powerful telepath and the founder of the mutants’ School for Gifted Youngsters. He envisages a world of mutanthuman co-operation, in which mutants might convince mankind they do not pose a threat to its existence. Equally heroic, but less optimistic about the virtues of humankind, are the antagonists, led by Max “Magnus” Eisenhardt, also known as Magneto. A Holocaust survivor who escaped from the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp, Magneto’s philosophical outlook has been shaped by the horrors he witnessed in World War 2.

Lee often said the story of the X-Men was an extended metaphor for the civil rights movement in the US, with Xavier and Magneto representing the divergent philosophies and personae of Dr Martin Luther King jnr and Malcolm X, respectively, even as both leaders were driven by the same objective: freedom and emancipation for their people.

I have been thinking a great deal about the politics of difference and the fear and loathing which they can elicit through cynical leadership, as the intimidation campaigns led by the Alexandra Dudula Movement and “Operation Dudula” have intensified across the city of Johannesburg.

These so-called operations — in which crude markers of language, accent and skin tone are used to single out individuals who are believed to be foreign nationals doing business in either community — deploy the very same tools of repression employed by the apartheid regime.

“Suspected foreigners” are compelled to produce documentary evidence of their legal migrant status, failing which their homes or business premises are trashed or burned to the ground. They are replaced by members of the community who have been deemed South African, and are entitled to live and trade in the community.

The operations bear a chilling resemblance to the pass laws of apartheid, in which black men had to carry the hated dompas with them at all times.

The spectre of “legality” through the enforcement of immigration law is deployed to confer respectability and the veneer of officialdom on a patently despicable and unlawful practice. The self-proclaimed enforcers are of course not representatives of the state; they are vigilantes, salving their hatred and suspicion of those who are visibly different to them.

The reasons that this anti-black xenophobia and its accompanying intimidation tactics have been able to take root in our communities are plentiful and well known. They are the same reasons that SA’s political parties have become increasingly permissive of and tolerant towards anti-black xenophobia in their policies and their ranks: declining economic prospects driven by poor governance, corruption and maladministration.

Rather than holding political leadership accountable and working hard to foster an environment of economic growth and prosperity through good governance, it is easier for political leaders to participate in scapegoating the Imagined Other, positioning foreign nationals as an existential threat to the country and a hindrance to its people’s prosperity.

What political leaders and proliferators of antiblack xenophobia in SA fail to realise, however, is that ethnic nationalism is like a series of concentric circles, growing smaller with every reduction in the number of available socioeconomic opportunities. With every reduction in available jobs, a smaller and smaller group of randomly assigned individuals will be deemed the only ones who have the “right” to exist within our country’s borders.

Today they came for those deemed foreigners, tomorrow the enemy will be ethnic minorities who are “not like us ”— none of whom will be saved by protesting “but I am South African too”.