Mcebisi Jonas says the imminent collapse of the ANC could leave SA vulnerable to populism and autocracy. In other news, the former finance minister also believes that heavier-than-air flight might become a reality this century.
Speaking at the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation Forum (which I assume is what you get when you order the Thabo Mbeki Foundation from Temu), Jonas told an audience on Saturday that the “incoherent and divided” state of the ANC was leading the country down a path where, eventually, “authoritarianism and anticonstitutionalism are the prominent ideological brands”.
It’s tempting to snort, but Jonas deserves to be cut an inch of slack. He was, after all, one of the first insiders to confirm that state capture was taking place, revealing in 2016 that the Gupta brothers had offered him the job of finance minister shortly before they found a more compliant stooge in the prostrated form of Des van Rooyen.
Likewise, his recent setbacks as SA’s trade envoy to the gilded court of King Donald are not entirely his fault: his critics might have a point when they suggest that describing Trump as a racist and homophobic narcissist was probably not the ideal calling card, but I would remind you that many of Trump’s colleagues, and no doubt some of his closest friends, have said exactly the same thing.
Where the frustration creeps in, however, is that these warnings about SA sliding towards populism and then authoritarianism are not new. Indeed, five years ago I expressed these very thoughts in this column, warning that we might end up yearning for the old ANC with its policies of broad, nonracial, cross-cultural inclusivity and its adherence to democratic principles (even if it relied on the cash of, and paid lip service to, some of the world’s worst autocracies).
And I’m not even an expert: I probably got there a year or two after the really clever people.
But the point is that if even I could see the populist circus setting up its tent in the crater left by the ANC and see it half a decade ago, people like Jonas will have to forgive us for rolling our eyes when they assemble the press to announce that they’ve just discovered that shooting one’s own foot can lead to lameness.
I suppose they have to say it, in case anyone asks why they didn’t do something sooner. The rest of us, though, don’t have that consolation. Instead, we sit with the knowledge that seeing the approach of populism in SA years ago has done absolutely nothing to slow its arrival.
Then again, perhaps that’s just the general state of the resistance to authoritarian creep: it’s possible that vague, slightly limp flapping motions and distressed wheezing are as good as it gets for the democratic centre and left these days.
Certainly, those of us who grew up believing the myths of popular culture, in which the schemes of moustache-twirling baddies are thwarted by a posse of righteous, freedom-loving folks, have had a rude awakening, and not only because it turns out millions of people can watch a cartoon villain called something like Ollie Garchy plan to turn the local orphanage into a puppy-mincing factory, and think: “That Ollie really tells it like it is, and if it wasn’t for those liberal snowflakes, he’d be the puppy-mince king and everyone would get rich from trickle-down puppy-mince economics.”
No, the real surprise is that there is no posse coming over the hill. Just the flapping and the wheezing.
No wonder the populists are riding so high.
• Eaton is an Arena Holdings columnist.
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