This article first appeared on Creamer Media’s website: polity.org.za

The publication of this article is part of a personal and intellectual journey rethinking my political understandings. I am particularly concerned with ethics, how, why and whether we do what we believe is right. That has led me to consider the salience of human emotions, that which moves us to act or not to act. That component of our decisions is not purely a question of analysis. When Nelson Mandela said he was prepared to die, he had carefully considered his choice, but not purely at the level of rationality. His commitment to the cause of freedom went beyond logic. It went beyond personal ego. It was also an emotional question, being willing to give up his life.

In a practical sense I have been preoccupied with notions of betrayal and understanding what these mean, and how one writes about them without being or sounding sanctimonious. I have come to realise, mainly through reading works on feminist theology and ethics, that the dichotomy between rationality and emotion is at the root of a tendency to intellectualise political questions and see reason and emotions as binary opposites. This derives from ancient Greek philosophers, but was also absorbed into church doctrine. The distinction has always been gendered, with rationality, considered superior and the prerogative of the male and emotion being the lesser quality, attributed to females.

I mention this indebtedness to religious sources in order to encourage others, who are grappling with issues, to be open to what they can learn from whatever doctrine or political or religious home.

The words we use in emancipatory politics

Those concerned with liberation, or located on the left, or attached to socialism, emancipation or a range of other ideas or doctrines, are guided by a series of concepts.

This article relates to a broad notion of emancipation that has its roots not only on the left but on concepts of freedom, stemming from a variety of vantage points and sources. I argue that we should move beyond purely detached and objective, cold analysis, deriving from conventional political discourses.

The article examines the place of social and political activities that involve feelings, passion and pain. In line with feminist ethics, I reject any “dualism” that pits reason against emotions.

On the assumption that the quest for emancipation is centred on achieving the wholeness of human beings, self-realisation in every respect is necessary. Plato, Aristotle and the dominant Hellenistic philosophical tradition, followed by many religious doctrines, especially possibly still major Christian teachings, elevated the quality of reason, attributed to men, against emotions. Emotions were depicted as the preserve of women and an inferior way of manifesting one’s being.

An emancipatory vision must advance every aspect of human personhood, and encourage the full spectrum of human feelings. This is an integral aspect of realising the whole person at the centre of most humanistic writings.

Emotions, as feminist theologists argue, are an integral part of what it means to be embodied. Human emotions fuel all our relationships; and need therefore to be nurtured and not controlled or suppressed.

In this perspective, the key question probed is whether there is a commitment together with others towards a common cause. Linked with this is whether there is a betrayal of the people joined in a shared objective.

Commitment entails choosing an association with others either as empathy, solidarity or other involvement in a common project. It is a willingness to bind oneself to a cause, potentially resulting in more or less severe repression. This is an objective relationship but also concerns the “self” as a subjective being. The focus on the “self” is not legalistic, as in “self-determination”. It involves ethical choices that individuals and collectivities make, leading to specific types of relationships.

Many are moved by factors beyond logic and the validity of doctrines when they engage in or commit themselves to emancipatory politics. Their emotions may also drive them. They may feel anger, compassion, empathy and emotional solidarity over what others experience. They may decide to embody their sense of injustice in practices that manifest a commitment to a cause.

This involves intellectual evaluation, that is, analysis, but also emotions in deciding whether or not to link up actively with specific causes. People may react to various conditions, for example, seeing or awareness of the cruelty that many experienced under apartheid.

Today, they may respond with empathy or feeling in relation to xenophobic discourses and practices in this country, Europe and the United States of America manifested in attacks on some of the most vulnerable people on earth.

Is our vocabulary adequate?

Is the vocabulary of contemporary political thinking adequate to cover this form of engagement, which is not purely cerebral? The vocabulary of emancipation cannot be restricted to the evaluation of objective conditions but involves a range of emotions. This is not a question of the adequacy of analytical tools like modes of production, Othering, liminality, scapegoating, race and class, and similar words. The problem is whether these categories are sufficient to address ways of relating to injustice and its remedies.

At the centre are feelings evoked in relation to some practices. They move beyond outrage and may lead some to assume moral obligations, together with others, to act. It entails logic, but also more.

The vocabulary of political debate tends to be impoverished because it does not encompass these subjective (or “affective”) components of political action and especially commitment. This makes that language inadequate for covering the range of ways we act, as individuals and together with others, exercising agency, concerning injustice and emancipation. The vocabulary needs to be augmented and refashioned.

The vocabulary of emancipatory politics is never finalised

Progressive politics tend to use limited concepts, often treated as adequate and settled ways of delineating the scope of enquiry. No one says there is nothing more to consider, but some issues remain unexamined, although crucial in understanding how and why people act.

Words that may be needed for unpacking the meanings of freedom require continuous re-imagining. The scope may be infinite, encompassing what we do imagine but also what we cannot visualise now, just as we cannot contemplate all problems of the future.

We have to elaborate ways of relating to problems of oppression and questions of freedom involving concepts that are not merely intellectual.

In the 1980s there were fierce debates, and all sides on the “left” treated the terms used in discussion as settled, even if they disagreed. That might not have been explicit, but it was a tacit assumption. No one disputed the words applicable to the freedom envisaged in the future. People disagreed on their application and meanings. The categories used in the UDF and Cosatu in alliance with the ANC and SACP were class, race, national. In discussing “the subjective” as in various forms of consciousness, these again generally related to class, national, and also tribal, ethnic, and trade union identities. The Black Consciousness Movement used most of these words. This reference to identities embraced a very limited investigation of consciousness.

Feminism and feminist consciousness made inroads from the mid-1980s, (though there is an earlier history of South African feminist thinking and actions). Consequently, patriarchy or patriarchal practices, traditions, customs and cultures were (re-)emerging as categories, partly relating to existing understandings of the “National Democratic Revolution”.

Within the ANC-led alliance, that feminist intervention was limited. Feminists argued for women’s oppression to be included in understanding the prevailing categories of oppression. This primarily concerned male/female relationships, mediated by racial oppression and class exploitation, described as “triple oppression”.

This was important in foregrounding the oppression of women and gender inequality. But many concepts found in contemporary feminist ethics and theology were not incorporated. These include “care”, “connectedness”, “relationality”, “mutuality”, “friendship”, “responsibility”, “experience”, “love”, “respect”, “embodiment”, all used ethically. There is a limited reference to such ideas in more recent times in feminist journals such as Agenda. Some of these concepts will be examined in future contributions.

Much current discourse relates to debate of objective categories like production, the working class, employers, populism, fascism, Africans and other black people, whites, and men and women.

That is not to suggest that words like care and others mentioned cannot be given an objective meaning. In most or all cases, they are understood as both objective and subjective, referring to individual choices but also forms of conduct and relationships, subject to objective scrutiny.

These mainly feminist ethical concepts cover sentiments and practices not encapsulated by the existing vocabulary, used in South African emancipatory discourse. That is not to say they exist only in feminist ethics and theology. Some are used in progressive psychological and social work writings and debates, among other contexts.

Enriching the subjective

Insofar as the subjective has been referenced in political debates, it usually referred to a specific type of consciousness that was examined in a detached, objective manner. National consciousness was seen as subjective in the limited sense of the location of nationally oppressed people, to consider whether or not they saw themselves bearing a consciousness that corresponded to their national or class position or location.

In other words, a person who identified as an African might or could be expected to have a national consciousness, as African, subject to national oppression. Some class reductionists would argue, however, that it ought to be displaced by a class consciousness as a worker if that person was also a worker. The person’s primary consciousness could also be “tribal” or ethnic, as in their self-identification being primarily as Zulu or Sotho or Venda etc., rather than a broader African consciousness that might be seen by some as their primary consciousness.

The status of national oppression was disputed. Some argued that it was merely an offshoot of class exploitation. Eradicating capitalism would simultaneously remove national oppression. This approach saw capitalism dividing workers through racism, with “race” depicted as an “artificial” category.

The notion of the subjective as in feelings, passion, compassion, empathy, responsibility and respect, which are also objective terms were not part of this discussion.

People did express passion, emotions and often, rage. These related to actions of the apartheid regime or those who betrayed the struggle (a notion that was seldom unpacked in all its complexity). When people were massacred, those who survived or heard of it were angry and outraged. Or when someone helped “the system” by breaking ranks and collaborating, that “betrayal” often shocked and angered those who had trusted that person. But these passions and emotions were not encapsulated into the broader categories of analysis drawn on and debated in arriving at positions.

Commitment and betrayal

Betrayal remains an important concept in the past and present. Any attempt to understand the period of struggle, entailing capture, torture, trials and key features of post-apartheid South Africa, requires some form of analysis of this word.

Betrayal relates to how one understands trust, commitment, connectivity and related words. In speaking of betrayal, one assumes a relationship of trust, binding people to one another in closer or broader senses. It may be through interpersonal romantic love. Here, we are concerned with membership of an organisation or deriving from agreement to act together concerning tasks to which people dedicated themselves.

One can argue over the character of the 1994 transition within existing categories. The general concerns might relate to whether the terms of transition adequately safeguarded the interests of the working class and the poor, as a basis for assessing whether there was a betrayal.

It could be construed as a betrayal of trust within an agreed commitment to socialism and similar categories. Concepts like “neoliberalism” or “elite pacts”, are used to signify betrayal at a relatively objective level. That betrayal on policy could also be subjective insofar as someone had undertaken to act in one or other way. But by taking certain decisions, that person helped to influence the course of developments towards a “sellout”.

That could be construed as a betrayal of trust, though it is not usually a decision made in extreme conditions, as when experiencing torture or facing long term imprisonment. There is an analogy insofar as betrayal may relate to offers of positions or remuneration that entail doing, in exchange, that which runs contrary to undertakings towards or the trust of those whose cause one has embraced.

Betrayal at a doctrinal level, by choosing to follow a particular course of development is, however, of a different type from that of a person giving state evidence during the struggle against apartheid. Those who were engaged – illegally – were often subjected to torture and revealed some information that they would not have done voluntarily. The most committed cadres did their best to hold out and avoid disclosing vital information.

To become a state witness was very different from being forced into revealing information under torture, regrettable as that may have been. It was accepted that people could not be expected to endure interminable torture and would sometimes divulge what ought to have remained secret.

But to become a state witness meant going to court as a witness for the apartheid state. This was not an abstract textbook state but that of the oppressor which revelled in one comrade turning on others and giving evidence, contributing to sending others to jail. In exchange, the state witness was generally accorded immunity from prosecution, provided the state found the testimony satisfactory. (Not every case of evidence for the state could be characterised in this way. One thinks of the Breyten Breytenbach case where he without adequate preparation, implicated others in activities that led to their being detained, his being on trial and many of these young people being called as state witnesses.)

Betrayal today

Can that concept of betrayal be legitimately applied to contemporary conditions? Funds intended for poverty relief were diverted to fund Nkandla. That was robbing the poor to benefit President Jacob Zuma. When the ANC and its allies and the National Assembly endorsed this, it was betrayal. For some months the ANC and SACP leadership and members of the National Assembly refused to find anything wrong with diversion of funds to build a palatial home for Zuma. Some very articulate members used their oratory in defence of Zuma deriving this benefit. The Constitutional Court later found the actions of the President and National Assembly to be in breach of their oath of office.

This was betrayal, insofar as the ANC had won the trust of many oppressed people. For decades the organisation had been in the forefront of liberation from apartheid and earned the confidence of oppressed people. That was because the organisation had taken as its own, embodied in its existence, the burden of oppression experienced by black South Africans. The ANC and the oppressed were, in a sense, bound to one another in a common cause, often expressed in familial terms (“we are ANC”)‚ before and after the defeat of apartheid.

When Nkandla was built, it entailed appropriating what was intended for the poor – to benefit Zuma – under the ANC’s aegis. It ruptured the connection between the oppressed and the ANC.

The severing of the link did not happen purely through Zuma deriving benefit but also through the statements endorsing and defending the legitimacy of the Nkandla project, by some who remain ANC leaders and members of the National Assembly.

The commitment to the struggle for liberation entailed a connection between individuals and the oppressed people of South Africa. Some were born with elements of this connection, having emerged from the oppressed. Many cadres recorded, witnessing their parents being humiliated by apartheid police.

That sometimes led them to take up the struggle and manifest that link in a more developed sense, through involvement in practices and advancing discourses of liberation. This constituted a commitment, through acting out the connection in an organised form, with or on behalf of the oppressed.

There were and are people from communities who were not oppressed who identified with and were pained by the oppression experienced by black people. They formed a bond, and decided to embrace this oppression as their own and acted along with black freedom fighters against apartheid.

To betray the struggle, whether by “selling out” to the enemy under apartheid or by practising or endorsing the corruption of Zuma, was not simply flawed judgment, but a breach of the relationship that each individual may have formed with the oppressed and their cause.

This cannot be explained by notions like “neoliberalism”. Concepts that we may define as patronage and corruption are relevant, but the specific quality of betrayal is not merely an act of participating in or condoning of corruption, however obviously immoral that may be. In breaking ties with the oppressed, there was the severing of an association that had been formed, repudiating an obligation undertaken to serve and act with empathy and embodying their pain as one’s own.

When trying to understand betrayal, as in the conduct of some trusted people during the Zuma era, we cannot do so simply through Marxist analysis or understanding neoliberalism or similar concepts. The trajectory of capitalism in the world and South Africa does not adequately explain this, as some have attempted.

We need first to understand what is betrayed.Betrayal is not simply to side with “capitalist bosses”. We are speaking of indifference, an absence of fellow feeling, towards what happens to the poor and marginalised, in the context of an existing relationship of trust.

Status of the vocabulary that is advanced

Every word in a vocabulary of emancipation has a present existence, past and future. It is also subject to contestation and cannot be static or essentialised. This contribution is an introduction, intended to advance debate. DM

Raymond Suttner is a visiting professor in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg (until end of April 2020), a senior research associate at the Centre for Change and emeritus professor at UNISA. He served lengthy periods in prison and house arrest for underground and public anti-apartheid activities. His writings cover contemporary politics, history, and social questions, especially issues relating to identities, gender and sexualities. He blogs at raymondsuttner.com and his Twitter handle is @raymondsuttner