The EFF's riotous behaviour in South Africa's parliament - again.

 

If we've come to think of President Zuma as a 'tyrant' breaking the law and undermining the constitution, we need to see that actually he is not - not, that is, until the law brings him to book.

President Zuma has simply been using every legal loophole to duck out of (among a number of other scandals) the scandal of Nkandla, a private residence the Public Protector found had been enhanced beyond any legitimate security purpose at the expense of SA's taxpayers. The law in the form of the Constitutional Court finally caught up with the president. But it has taken a very great deal of time and trouble when democracy has a more direct way: in the end, the only way.

 

We must distinguish between the law and politics. We should remember Nkandla is the sort of abuse many African leaders, including the president of SA's next door neighbour, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, have been accused of for years. And we should remember the Commander-in-Chief of the EFF Julius Malema has long vaunted President Mugabe as the African leader to follow. 

 

The problem of parliament being disrupted, therefore, seems unlikely to be solved by Mr Malema and his fellow rowdies acting on democratic principle. Democratic principle, one can safely say, has been lacking on all sides in the Nkandla affair. Nor need we trust Mr Malema when he or his publicity machine suggests he is single-handedly putting everything to rights for us all. Distracted by the repetitive antics, we have lost sight of the fact that President Zuma never responded to the EFF breaking the rules. He has been snared by the rules being followed.

There is, then, the legitimate political alternative to consider. The solution to an evasive president and an opposition that makes a show of its contempt for the rules is for the people of SA to exercise their individual and collective authority. This involves each pondering how the parties governing, or presuming to govern, are really performing, not as they say they are. Are they dealing with practical problems and being honest with the voters? Is there a better way, even if it is only a change in who runs the show? Isn't it time to think very seriously about which party to vote for? Elections are round the corner.

 

The people of South Africa may of course choose to vote for the ANC as usual, or for the EFF in larger numbers than last time: that is democracy. But everyone should remember the ANC that elected Jacob Zuma also finds itself bound by legal authority now. By rules.

The only rules the EFF appear to be willing to follow are their own.

 

 

Red overalls, Nazis, the EFF and fascism

People forget that the German Nazi Party were also 'socialist': they were national socialist. As such, they claimed to speak for 'the people', 'the people' of Germany - or, as they put it, the volk.

South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters are not made 'left wing' because they wear red overalls and . .more claim to speak for 'the people', 'the people' of Africa - or, as they put it, 'the poor'. All parties claim to speak for 'the people', and none would say it is not on the side of the poor, least of all in autocracies.

The questions for South Africans of all colours are: what is the EFF's programme? Is it practical? Could the aim of economic freedom be attempted, let alone carried out, without coercion - without the loss of civil and political freedoms? If it cannot, can the EFF be said to be democratic?

If the EFF are not left wing and not democratic, are they fascist?

Fascism takes many forms: it differed in Spain and Italy, in eastern Europe and South America; it differs today in parts of the Arab world and Africa. Nazism remains only the most notorious version.

But all versions are more or less an irrational cult, appealing to the emotions, often the most basic like envy or revenge, not to logic or the pragmatic. Hitler's favourite word was 'fanatical'.

Fascism is intolerant . .more of all views differing from its own and ready to resort to violence, on which it thrives; it is especially hostile to the ideals of the left, equality and a common  humanity, and embraces racism as and when necessary. Fascism, most notably, centres around and promotes a messianic leader, whose authority is absolute and beyond challenge. The Leader is not, needless to say, elected or subject to any democratic process. He is above all that.

Very many factors give rise to fascism and they depend on time and place. In the case of Germany after WWI, the Treaty of Versailles could be exploited by the nationalist right and Hitler in a way that obviously could never be repeated elsewhere . .mor. The humiliation of defeat got the party that became the Nazi Party off the ground: it was a particular situation. Even then, no one condition was enough: the Great Depression had to come into the mix, a decade later. And the presence of Adolf Hitler from start to finish was decisive.

In the most general terms, what prepares the ground for the rise of fascism is widespread discontent (commentators of the right and left like to boil it down finally to 'economic causes'). But central to the discontent is always the all-knowing Leader, who appears to have and to be the Answer. It is human nature to look for a messiah.

Nor should we overlook human ambition and ruthlessness. There is a built-in desire, it appears, to dominate others while claiming it is for their benefit - the very opposite of anything that might be called a democratic or humane tradition. Not that fascist leaders are all thugs; fascist leaders employ thugs.

Not slowly but very surely, the EFF emerge as less a genuine party, more a revolutionary band dedicated to the overthrow of what perhaps many of their members, and certainly some of their leaders, deem 'bourgeois', counter-revolutionary institutions. The EFF participate in these institutions more to disrupt than to debate and decide, seeking to discredit them while exploiting them for publicity.

If the red overalls are not the band's uniform in this project, it is impossible to say what they are. The EFF do not exclusively represent 'the poor' and, from a showy life style and dress pursued outside SA's legislatures, appear to a large majority not to represent them at all.

It is for you to decide whether that is socialist, democratic, or fascist.


Also:

http://paulwhelanwriting.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-what-julius-malema-means.html