OPINION - In South Africa it’s no exaggeration to say that we face a serious threat of fascism.
We live in the aftermath of a failed revolution that has left millions of people in desperate straits. With the exception of important localised initiatives, the left, mostly as a result of its entanglement with the ruling party, has failed to mobilise in support of a vision of economic democracy.
There are a growing number of poor men who are attracted to forms of right-wing politics that offer them the chance to follow a leader, feel important and attack vulnerable minorities.
At the same time, the state is confronting a decline in electoral support and growing popular protest.
Under these circumstances it’s very tempting for the political class to encourage fascist ideas in order to displace popular anger away from politicians and towards vulnerable groups.
Since 2008 it has repeatedly become clear that xenophobic mobs are very often organised by local politicians. They do this, and will continue to do this, because it’s in their personal and class interests to deflect popular anger away from themselves.
However, none of this is new. There have been waves of xenophobic violence since 2008. What is new, and what puts us in a moment of real danger, is that many among the middle classes are now actively supporting authoritarian ideas. The middle classes are facing a threefold crisis.
The first part is economic. They face mass retrenchments and are sinking into debt. The second is political. Years of gross corruption have fundamentally undermined their confidence in democratic forms of politics. Unfortunately, Cyril Ramaphosa’s lack of any kind of charisma and vision has not resolved this problem.
The third is a crisis of security. Middle-class people face horrific rates of crime, including horrific and pervasive forms of gender-based violence.
When the middle classes turn to far right-wing forms of politics, such as demanding the death penalty and a state of emergency, or the mass deportation of migrants, there’s a genuine risk of fascism.
The fact that these kinds of demands have emerged in protests that have the “look and feel” of progressive politics, and in other respects are absolutely urgent and welcome, should not blind us to this risk.
In Brazil it was mass protest against crime and corruption by the middle classes that opened the road to power for Jair Bolsonaro. Many journalists and intellectuals who consider themselves progressive enthusiastically supported these protests at the time.
At the time they had no idea they were helping pave the road to disaster.
However, for fascism to become dominant in South Africa it will need to find a leader and an organisational form that can unite the growing authoritarianism among the middle class with the street mob and a party-
political form that can control the state.
At the moment that has not happened. The new alliance between the EFF and the pro-Zuma forces is one contender for the role, but the EFF, to its credit has not supported the xenophobic mobs on the streets.
Also, both the EFF and the pro-Zuma forces are unlikely to win mass support given their history of brazen and crude corruption. The fact that they are so morally compromised weakens the risk that they could lead a fascist project.
There are people and forces in the ANC that are aligning with street mobs via “dog whistle” politics and actively embracing middle-class demands for Constitutional democracy to be suspended in favour of authoritarianism measures like the death penalty and a state of emergency. However, at the moment these forces don’t appear to be dominant. Yet powerful figures in the ruling party associating themselves with calls for authoritarianism and developments in this regard need to be watched closely.
If things shift towards the right in the ANC, or a new charismatic leader without a history of personal corruption emerges from within the ANC, or from without, there’s a real danger that South Africa could collapse into fascism. In India the fascist project took years and years of organisation to triumph. In Brazil it happened almost overnight. The same thing could happen here. These days, with social media, a charismatic figure can emerge on the national political stage like a flash of lightning.
In this time of genuine crisis, it’s vital that we are not naive about the seriousness of the dangers that we face. If we are to avoid the real risk of a collapse into fascism that confront us, we need to do the following as a matter of maximum urgency:
1 Begin to fix the economy with a focus on the well-being of the majority.
2 Address the gross corruption and inefficiency in the state, including the crisis that has been caused by an utterly dysfunctional and corrupt police force. It’s particularly vital that people start to feel safe in their everyday lives.
3 Oppose street mobs and their backers as firmly and clearly as we can.
4 Find and support credible leaders who can offer a democratic vision for a way forward.
5 Rebuild the left.
Buccus is senior research associate at ASRI, a research fellow in the School of Social Sciences at UKZN and academic director of a university study abroad programme on political transformation. Buccus promotes #ReadingRevolution via Books@Antique at Antique Café in Morningside