(Note: in 2011 the ANC Youth extolled Venezuela as one of the model states SA should aspire to.Should we copy it ? )
Africa's Venezuela? Populism in South Africa
By Gavin Lewis
It was the former Minister of Public Enterprises, Barbara Hogan, who in late 2010 verbalised the fears of some regarding rising populist rhetoric within the ANC. Without moral leadership the alliance, Hogan said, faced a real danger from authoritarian populism and that this was something that we should be very worried about.
Indeed, the ANC Youth League has earmarked the leading advocate of populism in the modern world, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, as one of its role models for the future of this country. And there is much in the rhetoric around the will of the people and about nationalisation uttered by media-hungry Julius Malema to remind listeners of the key elements of populist ideology. Because Malema is usually a mouthpiece for other factions within the ANC, such fears have some merit.
Populism differs in detail from country to country, but has at its core certain common emphases. First, it calls for a radical redistribution of resources to "the people". It is the politics of the crowd, mobilised with emotive rhetoric to intimidate adversaries. Second, it champions a charismatic leader who epitomises the "will of the people" and leads the movement. Third, it venerates the state as omniscient, omnipotent and always benevolent. Fourth, it needs a hated "other" to thrive – whether George Bush, US imperialism or globalisation, and it often calls on a mythical glorious history to obscure its contradictions (Bolivar).
This heroic narrative enables the populist leader and his followers to hide or even justify the long term pain that the short term gain of this political philosophy inflects on the very people it was supposed to benefit. It is aggressively working class in tone and contemptuous of the market and orthodox fiscal and monetary disciplines. It also assumes a single national identity and a single will of the people, embodied in the leadership. Therefore any criticism of and opposition to the Leader is regarded as morally depraved and all means to eradicate it are justified as rooting out treason ( similar to North Korea).
Latin American has the longest and most instructive history of populism in power. Most famously, populism received its fullest expression in the Argentina of the Peronist era, with Evita Peron as its emblematic figurehead. It lives on in Bolivia, in vestigial form in Argentina, and of course in Venezuela, and affects politics in the entire sub-continent.
As for populist economics, they impoverish the very people they are said to serve, and the only real beneficiaries are the new elites . Venezuela is instructive in this regard. Despite being a petro-state in an era of high energy prices, Chavez's interventions have not led to higher levels of economic growth – although they have succeeded in lifting many urban people out of absolute poverty through increased social grants. Populism thrives on dependency.
But there is a cost. Venezuela now has an inflation rate of 30% and rising, its oil production under state control has declined by a third, foreign investment has gone, the Venezuelan currency has devalued considerably and the economy has contracted nearly 6% over the last two years. These are direct consequences of simplistic, reckless economic policies. As Prof Francisco Rodriguez, a former ally of Chavez wryly points out, Chavez has achieved the almost impossible in economic terms of running a budget deficit (bloated by heavy military spending) at a time of an oil price highs.
In real terms wages are now are lower than before Chavez's rise to power, crime rates are at record highs (internationally benchmarked), the new elites are as corrupt as the old, the judiciary has been thoroughly co-opted using political appointees, and free press is under heavy assault. The president has not infrequently resorted to bypassing multiparty democratic institutions through rule by decree.
Populism may seem democratic in rhetoric but it is profoundly undemocratic in effect and the concept of a single people's will or uncritical national consensus is profoundly illiberal, in the true sense of the world. Hence international commentator Fareed Zakaria's description of real existing populism as "illiberal" democracy. It comes in both left and right wing forms and it emerges from a common set of events, some of which can be discerned in recent South African politics:
• Prolonged economic recession and unemployment on a substantial scale
• A demand for a state-led stimulus that plays down the inflationary dangers of deficit financing
• High inequalities within society
• Political parties and civil societies that are weak, or have weak leaders
• Pressure for a rapid redistribution of wealth
• A preference for nationalisation
• A dependent, politicised civil service
• High levels of popular anger at corruption.
While all of these tendencies can be found in our contemporary debate, South Africa is not Venezuela. Nor does it have the usual populist state apparatus of a strong politicised army – unlike Zimbabwe, for instance. As yet, the existence of a justiciable, supreme written constitution and of the institutions that support it remains for a bulwark against Chavezian style populism in South Africa.
But the troubling rhetoric of populism is loud enough for Barbara Hogan to hear, and elements of it are seductive to new elite who would gain from direct personal self enrichment (dressed up as the will of the people via charismatic interlocutors). While populist tendencies, however inchoate, were suppressed during the Mbeki era, they have emerged vociferously after the Polokwane dethroning, alongside the better known nationalist and socialist wings of the party, but with a much greater emphasis on the materialist aspect of things – reflected in the behaviour of the bling elites in our cities. To put it coarsely, it's about money and who gets it.
The language of populism is antithetic to multiparty democracy and a rights-based culture, and it is uniformly economically catastrophic in outcome. Thus allegations that populism is on the rise in South Africa should be taken seriously as a real threat to our young democracy and its constitution and a warning that we need to fiercely defend our hard won democracy.
The constitution is our fortification against dictatorship and economic collapse.
And we must not be naïve about the state. It is not some inherently benevolent free-floating entity that exists in its own right. Instead it exists as the manifestation of, and the servant of, the freely expressed will of its citizens, expressed through a free and fair vote, monitored by a free press, and buttressed through institutions independent of the state.
Hogan was right to sound the alarm bells. They toll for all of us
(Note: This article first appeared in the Mail & Guardian, 11 June 2011)
No comments:
Post a Comment