We live in a topsy-turvy reality where truth has been perverted beyond recognition. Falsehoods have become normalised; moral and ethical sensibilities hollowed and corrupted; integrity banished from civil interactions; and civic obligation to serve the public faithfully has become dangerously anaemic. Avarice and self-aggrandisement earn one a higher social status. It is surreal.

Values that undergird our constitutional democracy are cavalierly undermined by those who are sworn to uphold them. The present has indeed become a perverted reality that the founding forebears of our constitutional democracy would suffer a second passing if they were resurrected at this moment and confronted by this shameful spectacle.

Some of the most vociferous voices on the other side of the Parliamentary aisle, charged with holding the government accountable, are themselves eagerly awaiting their turn to plunder even more mercilessly. So, their theatrical protestations are hypocritical. Tragically, this perversion of morals and ethics is systemic as it pervades virtually all sectors of contemporary South Africa.

In case it has slipped the mind, it bears remembering that in essence apartheid was the ultimate manifestation of the ideology of white supremacy and that is why it was declared a “crime against humanity” by the international community.

This sordid state of affairs is of course not new. In 1988, six years before democracy was achieved, Miriam Makeba bemoaned the state of the country in a touchingly ethereal song, Sabumoya (with the lyric refrain, lelizwe linomoya, ngisaba umoya; loosely translated as “this country is possessed by an evil spirit, I’m afraid of the spirit”). Only a clairvoyant would have foreseen the transcendental properties of Makeba’s troubled wail. Although I am not enamoured with “otherworldliness”, it is difficult not to appreciate the power of the metaphor. She was, surely, referring to the iniquities of apartheid, that paradoxically – and painfully – still haunt the country, even in its democratic incarnation.

Victory over the pernicious system of racial oppression was commonly understood to mean that a democratically elected government would mount a vigorous and relentless effort to prevent the development of all forms of prejudice and injustice. Former President Nelson Mandela’s “never again” call in his inauguration speech aimed at keeping a recurrence at bay.

In a constitutional democracy, the primary purpose of government is to serve the will of the people and to promote the general welfare of the citizenry. It is a non-transferable government obligation that cannot be assigned or outsourced to another entity.

Moreover, the failure invites opportunistic political actors to seize the moment. The brazen opportunistic seizure of authority creates a perception of the displacement of a duly elected government that has largely neglected its constitutionally mandated responsibility to serve the public interest. Government lethargy in dealing with the Clicks incident, effective service delivery, and numerous other misdeeds, is evidence of abdication and dereliction of constitutionally mandated obligations. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) quickly exploits such lapses and in so doing, effectively usurps the government’s authority.

The EFF simply steps in and garners political kudos by extracting concessions from the delinquents – Clicks, for example. For the many who feel they have not enjoyed the dividends of democracy, the intimidation of journalists and police, and the destruction of property by the EFF is inconsequential. Such acts are seen as decisive action and a restoration of their dignity. That is important among the marginalised.

The EFF claims to be organically connected to the suffering masses, but displays a voracious appetite for conspicuous consumption of the products produced by their purported nemesis, monopoly capital. They regale themselves with militaristic uniforms and employ a vocabulary that is not consistent with their declared proletarian orientation. It is all a façade.

A benign attitude toward the plight of the destitute is therefore dangerous. It creates the impression that the government is not sufficiently committed to purging the ills of the past. Populist formations take advantage of the lapse and seize the moment in spectacular fashion.

Much has been written about the EFF’s worrying proclivity for fascism. While the EFF unflinchingly led a laudable frontal attack on the general corruption that defined the Zuma administration, it has assiduously sought to conceal its own sordid shenanigans through, ironically, its nemesis the media (those it chooses to cuddle). Its authoritarian and fascistic tendencies have been well documented. There are some tendencies, though, that have received less attention that are as dangerous, to which I turn now.

The EFF claims to be organically connected to the suffering masses, but displays a voracious appetite for conspicuous consumption of the products produced by their purported nemesis, monopoly capital. They regale themselves with militaristic uniforms and employ a vocabulary that is not consistent with their declared proletarian orientation. It is all a façade.

A few years ago, when Julius Malema was asked by Chris Barron of the Sunday Times what he was reading at the time, he answered that he was reading ANC documents. This question is often asked to give a sense of the depth and breadth of the interviewee’s knowledge outside whatever position they occupy – in other words, his/her intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness. Restriction to ANC documents for one who aspired to be a future leader of significance and touted by a former president as a rising national leader was astounding.

At another time, when Caster Semenya’s intersex condition became a public issue, the EFF’s commander-in-chief opined that intersex is unreal and doesn’t exist because there is no word for intersex in Pedi, his mother tongue. In other words, if something has no equivalence in Pedi then it is nonexistent. What a revelation!

When the mischievous Malusi Gigaba was grilled by a parliamentary committee for his flagrant misdeeds, the EFF representative on the committee was fixated on Gigaba’s national origins, insinuating that he was a foreigner. This is mind-boggling from a party that purports to be pan-African in outlook. It’s simply bizarre.  

Broadly speaking, these examples reveal the anti-knowledge, anti-science and duplicitous character of the EFF. It is clear that the mere acquisition of an academic qualification, as some of the leadership claim to have achieved, is grossly insufficient. The shallowness of their understanding of the deep meaning of education is evident. These, combined with the ordinary traits of fascist inclinations identified in this and other media, is a troubling feature that does not bode well for a supposedly ascendant political party. The many young and disaffected people attracted by the EFF’s rhetoric are being taken for a ride. An amoral state has abdicated its constitutional obligations, thus enabling the usurpation; it is deeply entangled in a deadly, self-destructive tango.

Exorcism of the evil spirit requires nothing less than the effective prosecution of the delinquents and an unequivocal will to do what is right. Improvement in the material conditions of the vast majority of the citizenry is the single most compelling imperative of our times. DM