In an article titled Wanted: An Ideal Recovery Plan, penned in the Citizen, Mukoni Ratshitanga laments ‘the depoliticization of society’ which could lead to the mobilisation of all sorts of phenomenon that can position themselves ‘outside the modus operandi of a democratic politics’. Presumably accusing it of the same, mind you an opposition party, is the DA’s appeal to the IMF to place conditions on the use of money set for South Africa, even though neither the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court had yet to hear the case. Fortunately, the high Court upheld the correctness of redress in the disbursement of Covid-19 relief funds. Nonetheless, Ratshitanga places these problems, among a litany of them, on the fact that we, as South Africans, ‘are nowhere near forging a national consensus on the pressing challenges of the day’. As a result, invoking Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa, he suggests, through individual and collective agency, a recovery plan is possible if we all rally behind the National Command team on Covid-19.
As I said then, and I say now, the problem is that we have not resolved the national question, at least to stem some of the excesses of embedded interests. To invoke Nyerere, a man that turned socialism, an epistemic tool, into a matter concerning personhood, is to miss the importance of nationalism beyond the letter of the Constitution. This reminds me of a similar critique I posed to Ratshitanga in his earlier article entitled, Let’s have a reasoned Discourse. In response, I argued that South Africa has too many vested interests in both the public discourse and in the exercise of public power to have a reasoned debate. This is because the issue here is the absence of a thoroughgoing nationalism. Of course, nationalism is not a panacea for our problems, but it appeals to values higher than the Constitution – something which Nyerere sought to fashion. And in the absence of these values, the Constitution becomes a vortex on which vested interests seek to exercise political power.
Of course, this article is not a rejoinder to Rashitanga, rather, I use his articles as illustrative of the embedded interests in South African political life. And then explore the possibility of nationalism(s) to curb some of the excesses of embedded interests.
For example, isn’t interesting that after Tobacco giant, British American Tobacco (BAT), dropped their case against Minister of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana-Dlamini Zuma, South Africa effectively saw what can be considered a ‘white’ (not phenotype, I use this as an episteme) offensive against the South African government’s lockdown measures? Stormtroopers such as Gareth Cliff, and I will begin with him first, and Trevor Manuel, went headfirst against the supposed irrationality of State lockdown measures. Also, just recently a few scientists that form part of the Health Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) launched a frontal attack on the alleged irrationality of the State’s response to the global pandemic. But that’s not all, there is also Acting Judge of the Johannesburg Court, Gillian Benson, who after cursing at the country, accused governments response to Covid-19 as irrational. She’s since ‘voluntarily’ stepped down while refusing to apologise for her disparaging remarks.
We must also not forget the DA’s attempt to be oppositional in all respects. No, this is not a joke. Just recently, they also demanded the end of the ‘lockdown crisis’. Not only is the lockdown made out to be a crisis by itself, but John Steenhuisen, the DA’s interim party leader, uses the already ailing economy as part of the DA’s reasons that the lockdown is doing more harm than good, costing more lives than Covid-19. A false binary in my view. Not surprisingly, though, the scientists he takes advice from have gone on to publicly say, ‘inevitably a few people will die and the majority can’t be held back by a few deaths. No democrat worth their salt would find the reasoning proffered here agreeable. And both the DA and their scientists cite the very matter of irrationality as the basis to end the lockdown. Not surprising there again.
Let us for a moment ignore the criticism of irrationality. The italics will make sense soon enough. For now, I want to correct the misdirection’s of a certain Mr Cliff
In a TV interview, presenter Redi Tlhabi, just over a week ago, while extolling the supposed virtues of free market, Cliff was bold enough to imply that he’s letter to the South African State President was not concerned with framing the discussion on equality. Funny. Adam Smith, considered the father of modern economics, conceived of the free market as free from monopolies and privilege – basically inequality – the very basis of South Africa’s economy and the positionality of Cliff. But there’s a lesson to be learnt here: that not only are we dealing with a right-wing version of market fundamentalism, but that white power in South Africa uses the levers available to it to exercise political direction.
This brings me to my last, but important, point. That while irrationality appears benign and even reasonable, it actually is a culturally contested term. And once you acknowledge this, it becomes conceivable that irrationality is a cover for all sorts of embedded interests. Never mind where these interests emerge from, whether class or whiteness. Well, this distinction in South Africa is sometimes superfluous. But in a context with vast inequality and poverty, isn’t the criticism irrationality a matter of inflated value, especially once the ‘locus of enunciation’, to use Ramon Grosfoguel concept, is apparent. In other words, we know where the critics think from because of where they are located. Of course, for the most part, we are a function of our location. That is, our thinking is a result of our conditioning.
What’s the point of all this concerning the illustration I pointed out earlier? For one, embedded interests will always exist in any society. The point is not to do away with them. The point, as I alluded to earlier, is to do away with their excesses, especially ones that eat away at a country’s ‘nationhood’. Secondly, and finally, a thoroughgoing nationalism certainly helps to connect with the spirit of the Constitution. That when the Constitution, or more precisely the judiciary fails us, we’re able to find one other through a common bond of an inclusive nationalism. Now, before the naysayers remind us about China or Cuba, falsely – yes, there’s a tendency in South Africa to associate socialism or some variant of it with nationalism – Zine Magubane teaches us that nationalism does not exist in singularity, that there are many nationalisms. So, as I conclude here, I plead with the reader to think beyond the common nativist articulation of nationalism.