By: Dr Allan A. Boesak
The abomination called the Government of National Unity has not yet got off the ground and it has already done the nation a great service. It has caused real, and fierce, public debate, and that is an infinitely good thing. It has helped to break down the walls of apathy behind which too many of us have been hiding for too long. It is, it seems, not a debate exclusively dominated by academics, the colonialist media, politicians, or the elite-accredited pundits and “thought leaders” from think tanks and Foundations with hidden, pro-apartheid agendas. The people are talking.
Since 1994, it seems we have been waking up in one foggy morning after the other: first the euphoria of just being able to vote – albeit for a government we thought was of and for the people – then the delusions of rainbow-nationism, followed by the “shock” of the discovery of a thing called State Capture. But instead of going back to 1910, all attention was focused on Jacob Zuma, and instead of finding ways to uncover, combat and overcome corruption, we were told to look at Judge Raymond Zondo, who tried to convince us that slightly lifting the veil from selected corners is in fact uncovering corruption. So we woke up in the foggy dawn of Cyril Ramaphosa, and not even the gun flashes at Marikana and the slashes in the mattresses could pierce that denseness. All of the finger-pointing, accusations, and triumphalist crowing around the Zondo Commission, loud, and damaging as they were to some (and not others), were no more than a distraction from the real issues facing this nation: the deepening cycles of impoverishment, the growing misery of unemployment, the shocking socio-economic inequalities, the widening gaps between rich and poor, and the tragic, and utterly dangerous, lack of social cohesion – all related to the disastrous desire to be the foremost African handmaid of fading, self-destructive, Western, neo-liberal, capitalist, imperial ambitions.
But as the unsettledness of the GNU is settling upon the nation, can it be that the fog is beginning to lift? Within the ANC, real debate is verboten. From what we hear, there the going slogan seems to be the choice between, “Shut up and get rich!” or “Shut up or perish!” But outside the ANC, where it is supposed to be so cold, here is the warmth of truth dawning: this Government of National Unity is in fact the Government of the Return of White Minority Rule. No amount of propaganda can change this truth.
The open tensions right now are mere signs of times to come, and they will be more serious than just the jokes around Mr Fikile Mabalula’s ability to understand what he is reading, or to know what he is signing on to. But that might, or might not be fatal. They might, or might not, find a way around meanings and interpretations, and my bet is they will, because the DA wants it so. Its hunger for power is too great. How long it will actually last, is another matter altogether. I have long argued though, that should a DA/ANC coalition arrive, because of the weakness of the ANC leadership in general and that of Mr Ramaphosa in particular, it will be the DA that will be the dominant political determinant of the arrangement. That much is already revealed in Ms Helen Zille’s complete and authoritative owning of the space and the arguments right now. And poor, blackmailed Cyril Ramaphosa – apart from that mealy-mouthed speech in which he pronounced those “principles” which he himself has flouted ever since his first oath of office – has since not said a single intelligible word in defence of the ANC, in self-defence, or in contradiction. The DA, because it has the power, does not need numbers to dominate. So how will that go in Cabinet?
Thanks to the debate around the GNU, we now know that it is true that this coalition plan has been in the works at least since 2019. Some, and I tend to believe them, say much longer. That is not so because the ANC has indeed just lost these elections, as Helen Zille so precisely predicted. It is mainly because for such a long time there has been so little substantial difference between the ANC and the DA, briefly (almost) interrupted by the Zuma era, but finally eroded under Cyril Ramaphosa, who in the way irony, or karma works, has been too clever by half. The argument that the GNU will collapse because the ANC and the DA are “too far apart” does not hold, in my view. Thirty years of pretence has just played itself out. Our economic policies alone make the point. Black empowerment will henceforth be besmirched by “cadre employment.” Our foreign policies are not far behind. Watch for the plans with the International Court of Justice, whatever hopes we have for meaningful Pan Africanism, and especially BRICS. With it goes our solidarity with Palestine, plus our turn towards a different geopolitical order with the rest of the Global South, which is exactly the point. The Zionists, with Western imperial support and direction, just as the DA requested and planned, will be in charge.
In practice, the ANC’s social policies, like the social grants, serve neoliberal capitalism perfectly, and despite Helen Zille’s public posture, she knows better. Those grants avoid seeking real solutions for our staggeringly high unemployment, they hamstrung what is left of the effectiveness of our trade unions, they deepen that crippling dependency on government, and with ineffective government control they remain open to abuse and corruption. They continue to create a growing, permanently under-unemployed, precariously employed, and unemployed underclass, trapped in ever-tightening cycles of indignity, poverty, docility, and despair. They entrench, and heighten, the socio-economic disparities that are already South Africa’s most threatening plague. That is perfect for neoliberal capitalism. Such conditions, history teaches us, ultimately lead to only two outcomes: violent revolution, (and) or growing authoritarianism. With the ANC and the DA, so close and in bed, both servants to white controlled capital, I’m afraid they will choose the latter to better repel the first. For both, too much is now at stake. How will the ANC explain their “National Democratic Revolution” now?
What the GNU thus far has also revealed is that those lofty principles their thinly-disguised neo-apartheid declaration proclaims are as false and flimsy a foundation as the old apartheid’s Christian intentions ever were. For years now, from morning till night, ostensibly fighting for honesty, integrity, and good government, the DA has screamed corruption, impeachment and imprisonment. Now, with power in their grasp, the selectivity is galling, and breathtakingly hypocritical. All this time, it was all Cyril and Phala Phala. Now they openly promise protection from impeachment for the president because he is their tool. Now it is investigations and charges and imprisonment for Paul Mashitile and Gwede Mantashe, while the president utters veiled threats against unnamed dissidents in the “Top Seven” and the NEC. It’s not about corruption. Never mind that as we are watching this sickening political charade, other corrupt deals are sure to be allowed to continue, because not disturbing the present imbalance of power, they are ignored. Watch for deals that genuinely empower Black people, which because they threaten white capital’s complete domination, will be “exposed” and cancelled. Mr. Steenhuisen fancies himself a knight on a white horse, charging into town, making bold, pious statements in front of courthouses. In light of the glaring hypocrisy though, the image is more of a court jester, hobbling in on a crippled donkey. What the DA is rescuing is not South Africa, but Conrad Koch’s “post-1994 apartheid without the guilt”.
We now also know that the GNU is not about “unity”. Certainly not unity of South Africa’s people. It’s about white supremacy. From the ANC’s prolonged, but easy capitulation to Helen Zille’s hardly-concealed Baasskap in everything she does now; from Douglas Gibson’s condescending mockery to Renaldo Gouws’ blatant racist rants. It’s about “the markets”, and the manipulation of the Rand, and upgrading and downgrading of the country’s economic place and fortunes in the capitalist world, all of it under white control. It’s about what remains in whose hands: from our land to our minerals to our oceans and what is under them; from the Reserve Bank and the mines to the minds of our children. White-controlled Orania, given space at Codesa without a peep, was merely a practice run for a white-controlled Western Cape, soon to be the shining symbol of white-controlled South Africa, now, once again, out in the open. If, as the Church has argued, white supremacy is an idol, a perverse parody of the Jesus Child, then the ANC is a perverse parody of the Magi. But the gifts they are offering are the nobility of our struggle, the sacrifices of our people, and the future of our children.
But the people are thinking. The people are talking. The fog is lifting.
