A change of plan in a time of change. This week I intended to write about the great South African poet Antjie Krog. But, with the approval of my long-suffering editor, I’m going to discuss instead recent and forthcoming elections in the UK, South Africa, France and the United States.
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In all but one case we can see a drift towards a right-wing political agenda, at its most extreme embracing racism and neo-Fascism. This is terrifying, as when a ship goes out of control and drifts into dangerous waters, perhaps even towards a whirpool into which it is sucked down. Hence the title of my report. Three of the four elections I’m discussing are in Western countries (or countries in the global North), but what happens there impacts on Africa, so here goes.
The only one of the four countries under discussion that has not drifted to the right is the UK. On July 4th, after 14 years in power, the Tories (the Conservatives) lost an election, with a landslide win for Labour. My own home town (actually three towns that run into each other) returns four MPs and for the first time in history Labour won three of these.
Now, as I have made clear throughout my career, I am a left-wing socialist, and so the huge victory for Labour gave me more relief (goodbye to the Tories, at least for the time being) than it did pleasure. Labour describes itself as a socialist party, but under its current leadership its socialist principles have been watered down to the point it can best be described as centrist. For some time a satirical song has been going the rounds, based on the fact that Labour’s campaign colour is red and the Tories’ colour is blue. The song goes: “Roses are red, / violets are blue, / so are the Tories, / but Labour is, too.”
Sorry, but I can’t resist a personal anecdote here. Last year I drifted into one of my favourite watering-holes in my home town wearing my Che Guevara tee-shirt. This has the name Che printed on it and a famous photo of Guevara, who was Fidel Castro’s second-in-command during and following the Cuban revolution of 1959. An elderly man (yes, folks, even older than me) stood up and pointed at the shirt and addressed me in a way that wasn’t rude, but teasingly satirical:
(Old geezer): That tee-shirt’s a bit 1960s retro, isn’t it?
(Me): Lenin teaches us that the revolution is permanent.
(Old geezer): Not in this town it isn’t, mate.
Reverting to a more serious register (I can hear my long-suffering editor groan “about time, too”) I turn to the recent South African election. That the ANC did so badly in this is largely due to their own failings as, over the last 10 years, they have been seriously remiss.
Their failures include: (i) a drift into corruption, most obviously under the Presidency of the ghastly Jacob Zuma but also thereafter; (ii) an accommodation of capitalist interests to the extent of failing to widen opportunities for legitimate access to wealth; (iii) a failure to expand the Welfare State, most obviously in the crucial area of healthcare; (iv) allowing the collapse of basic amenities, notably power supply and the postal service; (v) a failure to curb rising xenophobia, an evil that of course impacts on Basotho migrant workers.
As we know, Cyril Ramaphosa has been forced to cobble together a coalition government. One is relieved that Zuma’s mob are not included in this (it beggars belief that Zuma is still permitted to play any role in politics at all; on the subject of Zuma, by the way, I do recommend to my readers a book of satirical essays by Fred Khumalo titled Zuptas Must Fall — the title referring to Zuma’s corrupt dealings with the Gupta brothers).
Likewise not included in the coalition is Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Front. If that party really did, as it claims, follow Marxist principles I’d cheer them on, but it’s clearly driven by personal greed and reverse racism. That leaves the Democratic Alliance, which came second in the election. Cooperation between that party and the ANC might well be a healthy thing for the soul of the nation — let them stand shoulder to shoulder, and maybe even share a bottle of fine South African wine (I recommend Alto Rouge).
It’s just that in practical terms — in terms of policy formulation — I just don’t see an ANC / DA partnership as being practicable. They are so wide apart on so many issues; for example, as we’ve already seen in recent interchanges, on the approach to adequately funded universal healthcare. I pray to the good Lord that I’m wrong.
To be continued
Chris Dunton is a former Professor of English and Dean of Humanities at the National University of Lesotho.
