The revelations around corruption in relation to Covid-19 in South Africa has understandably angered the majority of South Africans. This anger is unsurprisingly though, being exploited by politicians who see this as an opportunity to oversee their own brand of corruption, through seizing power even, as some have threatened, unconstitutionally through technical coups. 

One of the many sad components of corruption and the anger that it engenders is that it facilitates the rise of power mongers who, if they do take power, may serve their own narrow interests over societal needs.

Right-wing populists have emerged as heads of governments in many parts of the world, through campaigning on anti-corruption platforms. Once in power, the anti-corruption platform that allowed them to seize power or win elections falls away and invariably becomes worse as they, in the pursuit of dominance, shut down or degrade key institutions established to fight corruption. Space for public dissent including the media, which in some situations helped their ascendency, become closed. Violent suppression of demonstrations and media is often a feature of populist right-wing governance. 

Campaigning on an anti-corruption platform is easy and misleading when people are angry. Anti-corruption, however, is not in the realm of ideation, nor is it visionary. Political parties and factions of political parties that have “anti-corruption” as their key platform are generally bereft of ideas and vision to transform society or are unwilling to do so. This is what is so damaging about corruption. Its impact is so pervasive that people and parties with no ideas to create new, more equal societies can jostle for power based on often false promises of being less corrupt than their political opponents. People who campaign on the basis of hate for others can get votes based on selling their alleged anti-corruption credentials.

There is significant danger in this as the Covid-19 pandemic and the prospects of building a new society require leaders and political movements that can bring to the fore ideas and strategies that serve to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and improve the well-being of people and the planet. Of course, these leaders and movement/s must be ethical and honest. 

Not being corrupt should be a default disposition of any person or party that seeks to exercise public power and authority. Being anti-corruption should just be the right thing to do. There should be no extra kudos for being decent and not a thief. Doing the right thing in terms of good governance, because it’s the right thing to do, should be the norm. 

The failure of government and political parties to deal effectively with those against whom there is evidence of corruption or those aiding and abetting corruption has given rise to this perverse situation. The situation becomes more desperate when the public perceives that those who are patently corrupt continue to thrive while those who are unable to turn a blind eye are victimised.  Systemic corruption and even the perception of such levels of corruption incubates an “anybody but X” syndrome which charlatans tend to exploit. This invariably leads to a race to the bottom in terms of visionary governance led by people engaged in the informed and scholarly activism that is needed for a post-Covid world.  

Something different is needed

What South Africa and indeed the globe requires are political parties and movements that are serious about eliminating poverty, reducing inequality, protecting and promoting the human rights of all people with no distinction. In South Africa, this includes a polity committed to dismantling the racial habitus bequeathed to us by the past, committed to dismantling patriarchy and the violence of heteronormativity and that is serious about protecting the earth that sustains all life.  

The current political contestation in South Africa is not about ideas but is a bunfight about who is best placed to maintain the current economic and social status quo.  

We deserve scholarly activism on issues related to poverty, inequality, environmental justice and governance, aimed at improving the well-being of all South Africans.  

Let’s take the issue of poverty. Poverty is not accidental. Poverty and inequality are known outcomes of the daily, routinised and accepted operations of a global toxic economy with national governments and global corporations as co-conspirators.  

We need political parties and leaders for whom safeguarding the public purse and being intolerant of corruption is their default position. A lack of integrity should disqualify them in the first instance. We deserve the kind of politics where we can debate substantively on policies that would contribute to changing the world in order to stave off an existentialist crisis caused by the current forms of accumulation and consumption. We should be able to choose a government from among those who provide solutions to the survival and well-being of current and future generations. 

The normal operation of these toxic economies leads to permanent damage to the environment and therein plunging the world into a veritable existentialist crisis. The current Covid-19 pandemic cannot be delinked from the global toxic economies and their leading actors which are in fact engaged in crimes against current and future generations and who continue to operate with impunity.

We cannot allow politicians and political parties who campaign against public sector corruption, but campaign for more of the same if not worse in relation to supporting injustices against current and future generations to get away with a free pass. We cannot allow politicians who publicly state that they would discriminate and oppress people because of the part of Africa that they were born in a free pass because they are, after all, “against corruption”. We cannot allow our anger against corruption to allow a free pass to politicians who promise to breach constitutional safeguards against torture and inhuman forms of punishment. 

We need political parties and leaders for whom safeguarding the public purse and being intolerant of corruption is their default position. A lack of integrity should disqualify them in the first instance. We deserve the kind of politics where we can debate substantively on policies that would contribute to changing the world in order to stave off an existentialist crisis caused by the current forms of accumulation and consumption. We should be able to choose a government from among those who provide solutions to the survival and well-being of current and future generations. 

Similarly, scholarly activism should also fundamentally question, in order to dismantle the norms that allow societies and governments to control the bodies and behaviours of other humans. These norms are centred on controlling women’s bodies and others deemed to be non-conforming to what is described as “moral” and “normal”. This is the prevailing ideology that gives rise to rampant levels of gender-based violence.

Eco-feminist activists and movements have linked the control and destruction of women’s lives to the control and destruction of nature, the environment and people’s livelihoods. There is therefore an intersecting set of ideas between eco-feminists and the eco-socialists against the intersecting forms of patriarchal oppression and toxic economies that harm people and nature. The eco-feminist/eco-socialists suggest that ongoing and continuing consent is necessary for protecting the rights of human bodily integrity and protecting the rights of communities and nature against the harms of non-consensual extraction of resources from Africa by businesses and governments. These are the ideas that should frame any new politics. 

Thus far, in the drum beats of the anti-corruption warriors, we have not yet heard the voices of the eco-feminists/eco-socialists. Yet, their ideas are required if we are to build a new politics that can improve the well-being of all people on a healthier planet. The reluctance of these voices to engage in politics outside of NGOs and academia is regrettable as it allows the status quo to remain unchallenged and, worse, in a political landscape bereft of ideas, fascists may emerge through the anti-corruption Trojan horse. DM