“No rubbernecking,” I was told by an official when I crossed into Zimbabwe from Botswana in the late 1990s. I immediately understood that as a journalist I am allowed entry as long as I don’t “snoop around”.
Zanu-PF’s resistance to being held accountable, also by “outsiders”, had already by that early stage infiltrated the lower levels of the state bureaucracy. It was spurred on by growing democratic demands amid worsening socio-economic conditions, demands apparently unfathomable to the minds of the rulers.
This way of thinking resonates with Minister of State Security Siyabonga Cwele’s recent obfuscating response to questions in Parliament. He refused to comment on what he called the media’s “interpretation or misinterpretation” of his accusation that civil society opponents to the Protection of State Information Bill are “proxies for foreign agents”.
His accusation also resonates because it is intended to sow suspicion about a “rubbernecking” civil society, to use the Zimbabwean official’s ominous phrase.
Cwele seems to be in step with his defence counterpart, Lindiwe Sisulu, who has succeeded in stonewalling Parliament’s attempts to hold her accountable for the operations of her department.
Thus it is no surprise that defence spokesperson Ndivhuwo Mabaya untruthfully denied that a shadow plane followed the presidential plane into the US. He then reportedly declared that the defence ministry does not have to justify itself to anyone, a ridiculous claim to make in a constitutional democracy.
Such denials and name-calling form, along with the secrecy Bill, part of a seemingly intensifying drive by the government’s security departments to place them beyond public scrutiny.
In analysing this thinking, it is useful to consider the suggestion from Dr Ivor Chipkin, author of Do South Africans Exist?, that nationalist elements within the ANC harbour an aversion towards democratic challenge because of the misperception that the party is identical with “the nation”.
If “the party is the nation”, it means non-supporters are to be excluded from “the nation”. Being equivalent to “the nation” also means that “the party is the state”, a mode of thinking that Sisulu shares. She declared last year that the defence department would have been “honoured” to fund her party’s centenary celebrations.
This conflation of party, state and nation creates an insider-outsider dynamic in which name-calling is wielded against opponents and critics, along with other authoritarian moves. In lieu of policy changes and improvement in state service delivery, these moves are about retaining power despite deepening political discontent over socio-economic divisions.
This is the context in which opponents become branded “proxies for foreign spies” or, more frequently, “counter-revolutionaries”.
The term “counter-revolutionaries” as way of stigmatising political opponents did of course not originate with the ANC. It featured almost 100 years ago when the new Bolshevik government in Soviet Russia set up the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, known as “Cheka”. Cheka was set loose on counter-revolutionaries, with deadly results.
I am struck by such similarities in discourses, having just returned from visits to Germany and Hungary, which have both suffered through successive totalitarianisms of the National Socialist and the Soviet varieties.
While it would be a serious error to make easy comparisons with these murderous systems, we should pay heed to their insider-outsider dynamics as both ideological currents feed into South African politics.
French thinker Michel Foucault stated that these systems link in that they both expelled and annihilated “enemies”. For the Nazis the circle of “social undesirables” “infecting the master race” included Jews and even epileptics.
For the Soviets, those threatening the revolution-with-a-capital-R were the “class enemy”, but this was not a fixed category, which is the difference between the two systems. It was adapted depending on shifting power relations outside and inside the ruling party to ultimately target all those considered a political threat.
To illustrate the difference, the Nazis would mark someone interned at a concentration camp such as Sachsenhausen outside Berlin with a sign indicating their offence against “racial purity”: a pink triangle for homosexuals, a yellow Star of David for Jews.
In contrast, many prisoners arriving at the Soviet Special Camp created in the exact premises of Sachsenhausen after World War Two had no idea why they had been rounded up.
The flexibility of the term “class enemy” allowed for the internment of a category of persons known as “unreliable” by Hungary’s Soviet-aligned regime.
The Hungarian Communists’ notion of ““reliability” was not far removed from the position of their National Socialist predecessors in the Arrow-Cross Party. The latter called their branch headquarters in Budapest the “House of Loyalty”.
South Africa is not a political island. Fascist tendencies fed into the National Party, of which some former members still hold positions in both the state and the ANC.
Stalinist tendencies are in evidence among those currently in power, some of whom spent years in exile in the former Soviet states. The terms “comrade” and “counter-revolutionary” delineate insider/outsider status in that ideological tradition.
Like South Africa, Hungary is still battling to consolidate its democracy. In a wry historical twist, Hungarians are again facing the threat of fascism in the form of the populist governing party Fidesz.
Fidesz has gone beyond the mostly rhetorical threats against the courts and media that we have been faced with in South Africa to establishing political control over both institutions.
What is happening in Hungary serves as a timely reminder that we must all painstakingly resist every attempt to collapse back into the authoritarian habits of our various pasts.
This monthly column series is made available by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa to monitor the health of our democracy. This column first appeared in the Independent Group’s daily newspapers.
Leninist tendencies is probably more appropriate than Stalinist. Given the reference. Stalin perfected what Lenin began as far as I know.
The ANC are stalinists. We are all in denial because Madiba managed to convince us otherwise, but in the end the old man lost and the radicals took over again. Basically the African Nationalist are Africanists int eh narrowest sense of the word. They are tribal and racist. Coloured and Indians are not Black according to them. They just don’t have the balls yet to demand that all non Africans leave. Although some ministers have suggested this already.
The real tragedy is that these African Nationalists will end up killing more of their own people than the Nats ever did because when the chips are down, they will not accept defeat at the polls or anywhere else. Minister Sisulu has the full backing of her party – who they hell are the black masses to demand to know what the black elite do? They clearly are not part of “our people” or “our nation”… at least stalin sent opponents to Gulags or Firing Squads, you kinda knew where you stood. With our chaps there is the elephant in the room, but non dare say so, or you too will be on the hit list… When Africans spew forth such drivel it is “cultural”, when whiteys do it it is “fascist”…. OUr ANC idiots are leading us to a point where civil war will come. When one ministers dares to say, Sotho people are not with “us” … idiots
I fear that the pot in which the frogs lie helplessly is starting to simmer. We may be on the short countdown before it boils.
I hope that the ANC sees reason and abandons its constitutionally approved racism before that happens.
This is the danger when you have tribal “opposition” parties that are creations of an apartheid mindset.
The DA dominated by white beneficiaries of apartheid. The apartheid state’s divide-and-rule strategy gave rise to other fringe black tribal parties like the IFP (Zulus), Minority Front (Indians), ID (Coloureds) etc. in an attempt to shore up their twisted notion of “group identity”. This lack of an opposition party that’s a TRUE reflection of our demographics is one the main reasons why our politics continues to be so polarized and we speak past each other.
By calling our Protection of State Information Bill the “Secrecy Bill” you too, like our corporate mainstream media, are guilty of spreading fear and misinformation of a democratically passed bill that is long overdue. In fact, there were more votes in parliament for this bill than the number protesters on the street on “Black Tuesday” organized by Right2Know campaign – bankrolled of course, by our corporate media mafia! Only in South Africa…LOL
Your eurocentric analogies to communism, Nazis, the “evil” Zimbabwe are bizarre and no sense in the SA context. A simpler explanation is a breakdown in communication between the tribal “opposition” parties and the ANC. This together with the media onslaught claiming government “corruption” as the cause of all our problems and the medias total opposition to any media regulatory reform, gives rise to your false analogy of “enemies, enemies everywhere”.
Dear Dave – you are so naive.
Our government has strong Stalinist beliefs as these were not dropped in the USSR after Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1952; Kosygin continued with exactly the same methods and the comrades who went to the USSR where trained along those lines. Sadly they were blind to Soviet attitudes towards “aliens” as they were protected.
So some of our male outstanding thinkers have been marginalised or assassinated – Chris Hani, Steve Biko and Moletse Mbeki come to mind. Most of our female thinkers are hardly noticed by government – which is highly patriarchal and tribal.
Now these alpha males think that they can impose their beliefs on us all whilst stealing money left right and centre. Sorry – you hit the woman you hit the rock! And you have and we will fight for the future of this land and its people because we care and know that where our current government is going is down the road to nowhere because it does not ask those on the ground what they CAN DO for themselves!
Our government is deaf and blind in its arrogance and contempt for the people of SA; it has destroyed our hopes and deceived us
@Dave H: “Your eurocentric analogies to communism… are bizarre…”
You might be right if you mean “analogies” only. Problem is that ANC is copying an outdated form of Euro communism. Are ANC leaders really that backward?
Tribal stuff?? Maybe with some eurocentric thinking or considering the lessons learned, Africa could skip that part of Euro history.
Mr. Harris, the DA is not simply a party with a racist agenda. Although its origins lie in white supremacist parties, its current agenda is predominantly neoliberal, devoted to the transfer of public wealth into private profits. Hence your analysis is flawed.
However, Ms. Van Der Westhuizen’s little Cold War screed speaks volumes about how criticism of the ANC (some of it justified, although always exaggerated) is being appropriated for extreme right-wing purposes. There is a strong stench of white supremacy about this article — although I do think that Ms. Van Der Westhuizen has only a dim understanding of what she is doing, so saturated is her mind with the preconceptions of Western imperialist capitalism.
The grim fact is that South Africa does have enemies everywhere; the most conspicuous one is NATO, but there are plenty of others. And, yes, there are plenty of people working for foreign agents. Ask yourself who funds the Open Society Foundation. Are global hedge-fund speculators really the friends of the poor and downtrodden?
Trip to Secunda recently. I was one of those idiots who tried to form a BEE business with some, ‘rather smart’, or so I thought, black businessmen. I was the car driver for the trip, and as we went our merry way the conversation moved to politics. The topic became the “Gag Bill” and I was shattered to hear all three of them expose the wonders of keeping the public in the dark. How wonderful it would be, they said, if all the departments and goings on of government were kept secret as we would then live in an ideal world where only ‘praise and worship’ would rain on the government as they could do no wrong and we would no longer have to tolerate the press spreading their hatred and lies!!! “If the public do not know that politicians were corrupt then South Africa would be the Rainbow Nation that Mandela nearly dies for!!”. Ignorance is bliss and how right they are.
@Dave Harris – shows what rubbish you spew. As a paid up ANC denialist you should know that it is no longer the ‘Secrecy Bill’ but the ‘Protection of ANC Criminals’ Bill.
You should broaden your so called information net. Pity you always have to belittle the good work of opposition parties to try and validate the bile you vomit. Does not give you much credibility.
Dave Harris, the IFT was formed by Buthelezi at the ANC’s request, Tambo said this on tv, as they were worried that their representation in the rural areas was poor.
The Protection of State Info act is worse than anything the Nats produced against the media and their bad legislation efforts generated worldwide condemnation, so why not condemn the current Govt? It has nothing to do with Eurocentric tendancies but bad Govt.
Brent
@The Creator
Thanks for correcting that flaw in my analysis and helping us understand that the DA is in fact more similar to the evil apartheid regime and more destructive to our country than we realize.
@Maggie
Sorry that you think I’m a “paid up ANC denialist” – whatever that means. I wish someone would pay me in some way but your comments are worth its weight in gold.
@Brent
Are you denying that Buthelezi was an apartheid collaborator? Are you denying that the “Third Force” were fomenting gruesome black on black violence at the height of the negotiations for our liberation?
@The Creator: You can find help for that paranoia with a trip to a licensed psychotherapist.
“The grim fact is that South Africa does have enemies everywhere; the most conspicuous one is NATO, but there are plenty of others.”
I’d love to hear who the others are. As for NATO being an enemy — it’s certainly an unusual tactic to give your enemy money in order to help ameliorate social ills. Trying to keep the HIV-infected alive and lower transmission rates? Definitely an unusual tactic — one doesn’t generally try to improve the standard of living and the sheer number of living among your enemies. They must be awfully clever, those Norwegians.
And George Soros? The many right-wing, imperialist Americans who view him as a danger to American hegemony and all things good and properly American will surely be surprised to learn that Soros is your enemy as well. The “enemy of my enemy” and all that, after all.
What I love about Dave Harris is his unrelenting obliviousness.
Christi van der Westhuizen wrote: “This conflation of party, state and nation creates an insider-outsider dynamic in which name-calling is wielded against opponents and critics”.
Dave Harris comments: “tribal ‘opposition’ parties that are creations of an apartheid mindset… white beneficiaries of apartheid… fringe black [sic] tribal parties like the IFP (Zulus), Minority Front (Indians), ID (Coloureds)… corporate mainstream media… our corporate media mafia… eurocentric…”
Sadly, I suspect this too shall sail right over poor old Dave’s head.
Presumably, those who are excluded from the nation will still be required to pay tax, or will tax be appropriately renamed “tribute” because the payers have no right to expect anything for their contributions?
Davey H: The One and True Great INSIDER. You lot out there whining and groaning ang gnashing your teeth about corruption and the protex bill – you’re all outsiders. Get over your morally tarnished apartheid selves all riddled with residual nazism. Join the great and true Pure INSIDE Party! You’re spoiling it for everyone. You are the morally unwashed. No?