While focusing on the EFF, we ignore the ANC at our peril

The ANC, the liberation movement or political party — whatever it wishes to call itself these days — has been gaining any number of propaganda windfalls over the past couple of years.

Thanks, mainly, to the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), there is a sense that all is well with “the people who liberated South Africa” with “the party of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu”, and the only and biggest problem is Julius Malema with his thugee and their performance politics.

It’s worth remembering that the ANC and its allies are still with us — many of those who have questions to answer are hiding in plain sight.

The EFF, AfriForum, Steve Hofmeyr, systemic lawlessness, brutal gender-based violence and a general breakdown of relations between black and white people, between English and Afrikaans-speaking people, (oh, and Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and the corpse of Robert Mugabe) have turned the spotlight away from the ANC.

This “refocus” is helped, in no small measure, by the leadership of Cyril Ramaphosa who is, relatively, closer to a Mandela than to whatever it was that presented itself as “leadership” of the past decade or so. We can debate that some other time.

In short, and an apology is necessary for the cliché (it’s probably uncool to quote Kevin Spacey, even as Keyser Söze/Verbal Kint), but the great French thinker Charles Baudelaire once wrote: “Never forget, when you hear the progress of wisdom vaunted, that the cleverest ruse of the Devil is to persuade you he does not exist!”

Here were are, then. Forget the talk of “progress” of “wisdom” — we sure do know a lot more about the lack of progress the country has made over the past decade — the people, the party, the ANC, who brought us to where we are, are still with us. Concerned citizens should not be lulled into some kind of utopian wonderland, with attendant imaginaries that “we have now diagnosed the problem” so let’s get on with things. That is just wrongheaded — and dangerous, mind you.

The same ANC that mismanaged the country, virtually destroyed the public broadcaster, reduced the energy generator to no more than the occasional electrical spark and left the body of the national rail, health and education systems in a state of marasmus.

It’s not always appropriate to use Spencerian analyses (Herbert Spencer believed society was like a living organism) to explain social phenomena, but I can’t find a better word than marasmus: a state of extreme malnutrition, infection and teetering on the edge of collapse.

Look at state institutions and agencies. Look at the state of education (and the students who graduate), and consider the fact that South Africa has one of the worst education systems in the world. And here is the kicker. Very many of the people who run state agencies and who are responsible for health and education — most notably the trade unions — continue to benefit from their alliance with the ruling ANC.

To understand the scale of ignorance of the fainéant fools employed by the ANC, and who have given the word “structures” a very bad name (I should apologise in advance for revealing this), one of the people who served on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, (Ahmad Kathrada) was once (a couple of years before he died) denied access to ANC headquarters because nobody could identify him, and he did not have an appointment. They asked around, and nobody had heard of Kathrada.

There is reason to be optimistic about the likelihood of arrests, but optimism can swiftly turn to despair. Let’s do a speculative exercise and state up front, that these people are all innocent until proven otherwise. Some of them are misunderstood and really quite decent people. Starting at the top. Remember, this is the ANC — the people who “liberated South Africa” and who would insist there is a sliding scale of justice and freedom where “those who fought for freedom have a greater claim to freedom”.