The DA’s
Ideological Schizophrenia
South
Africa’s official opposition – the Democratic Alliance – has no clear ideology
to speak of, and like Donald Trump, this has worked to its advantage. Instead
of a clear and coherent political messaging, its politics has revolved around
leveraging the widespread discontent with the lack of leadership, performance
and delivery of the ruling party, the African National Congress.
In many
instances its strategy has simply been to appropriate ANC policy, political
vision and sentiment. Indeed, the DA’s new black leader (the first black leader
in its history) has argued that the DA is now the party that is “carrying
forward the vision and values of Mandela” in South Africa. His bold narrative
asserts that while the ANC has fractured and collapsed from within due to
infighting, corruption and lack of competent leadership (this is indeed true!)
and has retreated into divisive race-based politics; the DA has steadily built
itself up into a vehicle that not only resembled the “rainbow nation” but
sought – above all – to safeguard a vision of unity and diversity between all
South Africans.
The DA –
the South African public are being led to believe – is now a party that
espouses social democratic values and could easily step into the shoes of the
ANC and lead the country towards greater equality, prosperity and dignity. Voters are left with the impression that the DA seeks to provide a
viable alternative to the ANC; one that will deliver on the promises of the
national democratic transition (the ANC calls it the national democratic
revolution).
Indeed,
the DA mirrors the ANC’s rhetoric of the 1990s and early 2000s very closely.
The question is if it is sincere, or just an attempt to capture the votes of
discontented ANC supporters. A closer look at the DA reveals a number of
internal contradictions that when taken together reveal a startling lack of
coherence in its politics.
The first
of these contradictions is underpinned by the mixture of older white
conservatives and liberals the DA became a home for after the collapse of the
Apartheid era National Party[1],
and its absorption into the ANC. With only the minority, right leaning Freedom
Front to turn to for conservative representation, many former white supporters
of the National Party threw their lot in with the DA. The DA was their only
viable alternative in terms of sizable parliamentary and local government
representation; the Freedom Front simply did not come close, and is still
largely viewed as a white Afrikaans minority party.
Many of
the old conservatives that vote DA today, are products of the Thatcher-Reagan
conservative era, and identify closely with the values, beliefs and norms of
that era. Indeed, it is – in a very real sense – their golden era; one where
the world made sense to them; a world where Western capitalism and Christianity
combined with great intensity in their political realm. There is a patent
nostalgia for that era by the ageing products of the 20th Century in
the new millennium. Society – whether global or local – has simply changed too
fast for them, and they feel marginalised and voiceless.
The kind
of capitalism they believed in has all but turned inward upon them and
cannibalised them, even though they haven’t quite understood it clearly yet.
Moreover, the world where Western Christian norms dominated the public and
political sphere, and where being white itself held tremendous value, appears
to be receding and joining with the past. The new world – a world of liberal
values, human rights, identity politics, alternative lifestyles and living,
rapid technological change, social media and social networking, and asymmetric threats such as terrorism and
climate change – is threatening and foreign to them. Hence, the DA has
selectively embraced issues that are convenient for them; for example, the DA
has a strong push towards green and sustainable development, but is largely
viewed as lacking in terms of its sensitivity towards the poor and marginal in
South African society.
In contrast,
the white liberals within the DA fold saw themselves as progressives both
before and during the transition to democracy. They credit themselves with
stabilising the fear that white South Africa faced when confronted with the
proposition of transition to democratic rule. While essentially socially
progressive, in that they aspired towards multicultural societies that are
founded on tolerance of diversity, their economic orientation remains largely
neoliberal in orientation. Neoliberalism remains an unquestionable framework in
their understanding of how societies, economies and politics should function
and coexist. They are hence easily swayed by fiscal conservatism and
conservative economics, which in many ways overlaps strongly with neoliberalism
as an economic project; which is itself a direct product of the Thatcher-Reagan
era.
The DA
hence suffers from an internal ideological schizophrenia that isn’t easily
recognised for what it is. At first glance it appears as a direct descendent of
the liberal political establishment that challenged the Apartheid government
from within and gradually won over white public support for change. Luminaries
such as Helen Suzman are often invoked as the forebears of today’s DA, but its
current political reality is heavily influenced by those it has assimilated in
order to grow as rapidly as it has in the new democratic dispensation. Its
major challenge in the new democracy continues, that is, it’s inability to make
significant inroads into the black voter base that has traditionally remained
loyal to the ANC. Even with a black leader, and an increasingly black top
leadership, the DA remains a party that is viewed – by black South Africans –
as heavily invested in serving white interests.
And in
reality, it has had to pander to white interests and white fears in order to
retain its core following. The fact that there are scarce viable alternatives
for them in the South African political spectrum guarantees their support.
However, those within the DA who understand the realities of the DA’s main
voter base continue to woo their constituency by voicing their fears and
supporting hard-line conservative views.
For
example, the ex-leader of the DA – the Western Cape Premier Helen Zille – has a
brash take-no-prisoners approach towards her twitter account, which she wields
as effectively as Donald Trump. A natural hard-headed populist, she isn’t
afraid to be the voice of the DA’s would-be Tea Party equivalents. The matter
of Helen Zille’s twitter account has become an issue that greatly vexes many of
the more politically moderate and progressive politicians within the DA, and
there have been numerous suggestions and hints that she would do well to
abandon the account entirely.
Like
Trump, she engages followers and critics on twitter with little pause for
thought, often with embarrassing results for the current leadership of the
party. Nobody within the party has the strength to take her on head-on, so
instead of denouncing her often ill-advised and ill-timed incursions into the
political fray via twitter and its inevitable media amplification, they DA seem
to have settled into a pattern of ignoring her comments, choosing instead to
emphasise the message that the new leadership want to send out. It is a
non-confrontational strategy, and with good reason. With over one million
followers, most of whom are social conservatives in orientation, any direct
rebuke of Helen Zille would undoubtedly raise the hackles of many within the
conservative core within the DA.
Indeed,
should the new – now significantly black – leadership of the DA be seen to be
embarking upon a campaign to distance themselves from her views vocally and
unequivocally, they run the risk of losing the support of their main base. Without
having made significant inroads into the black voter base they are caught
within a rock and hard place. They need their traditionalist (and yes: racist
and quasi-racist) old hard-line conservatives to make their marks on the DA
slot on the ballot.
So they
have left it to others within the twitter-sphere to take her on directly over
her pronouncements, which like Trump, border significantly close to being
racist, but do not overstep the mark clearly enough to be called out on it. To
be fair, many of her incendiary comments appear to be more a product of
hard-headed ignorance than unrefined racism, but it is difficult to ignore the
tacit, systemic racism in her comments and their delivery. Much like Donald
Trump, she skirts the line with a sense of her own inviolability; she is
utterly convinced of herself and can see nothing wrong with her approach. Indeed,
many black people do take offense at her remarks, and it is clear that the closet-racists
within the DA find comfort in them. One only needs to criticise her directly on
twitter to bear witness to the army of twitter trolls who descend upon you in
her defence.
The DA
mayor of Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba, and former businessman who founded the “Black
Like Me” hair product line, is a self-confessed Donald Trump supporter and fan.
Mayor Mashaba strongly believes in the free market, and views business and
entrepreneurship as the route out of poverty for disadvantaged – mainly black –
South Africans. This, despite the fact that the ANC adopted neoliberal free
market policies wholesale early in the new dispensation, and while the South
African economy has grown, South Africa now has the highest inequality in the
world (according to the World Bank).
Like
Donald Trump – and Helen Zille – Herman Mashaba takes a dim view of immigrants
to South Africa, viewing them as harbouring criminal elements and engaging in
criminality. Not long after he took office he ranted about immigrants in the
inner city of Johannesburg, labelling them criminals; an act that drew widespread
outrage from human rights and other groups in South Africa. Like Trump,
however, he was merely giving voice to deep-seated prejudices that reside
within many South Africans, who are ignorant of the plight of refugees and
immigrants from other African countries. And while the same sentiments can be
found within the ranks of the ANC, the ANC is subject to stricter leadership
correction in this regard; COSATU, the SACP as well as the ANC are quick to
correct misconceptions regarding immigrants and refugees from the continent,
decrying ‘afrophobia’ as a destructive and dis-unifying sentiment.
To add to
this, there have been a number of incidents of anti-black racism of late
involving white DA members – one who was a member of parliament – that blew up
in the public sphere and has resulted in widespread condemnation; followed by reluctant
apologies and even court action. Within this context it makes little sense for
Premier Zille to proceed with her shoot-from-the-hip approach towards social
media, but such is the nature of our time that any and all publicity inevitably
works to the advantage of those in the public eye. It matters little whether
they do wrong or right, as long as they are in the limelight.
In the era
of globalisation and social media, the changes that threaten conservatives ironically
also work in their favour. Moreover, globalisation and change ensures that it
is not simply a black-white issue either. There are many black and brown conservatives
who find a home in this mix as well. Further afield, reactionary postures have
been adopted towards what has been termed the “liberal consensus” – the social
engine of globalisation – across the globe. Whether one looks to India under
Narendra Modi, or the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, or to France, the
Netherlands, Greece and the UK, there is a consistent push-back against the
centrist liberal consensus that now threatens to destabilise the global world
order as it was at the end of the 20th Century.
It is
within this context that the DA’s particular unspoken ideological foundation
needs to be understood. It itself is split between occupying the territory of
the liberal consensus, and the territory of the emerging resistance to it on
the conservative right. This, paradoxically, is how the DA maintains its
legitimacy with its support base, which is split between the two. The DA’s
pro-establishment credentials give it a sense of legitimacy and authority – as
evidenced in the Obama styled rhetoric of its leader Mmusi Maimane – while its
tea-party styled conservatism gives it legitimacy with those who are deeply
aggrieved wtih the very same establishment that has ushered in secularism,
LGBTQ rights, abortion rights and services, gender equality, sustainability,
green tech and green economic growth, climate change awareness, black economic
empowerment, identity politics and so forth.
The
aggrieved conservative, religious right are a strong component of the make-up
of the DA, and only tolerated the transition to a liberal, egalitarian
constitutional democracy because they believed – at the time – that it would
preserve their ‘way of life’ amidst the upheaval of change and transition.
Instead, they have seen their old, 20th Century way of life eroded
by the vast changes that globalisation has brought with it.
To
liberals and the left, these changes are inevitable, and to be welcomed, as they
represented a freer, fairer public sphere, one where all can find their place
within it. To the conservative right, however, they have seen their hegemony
over the public sphere – especially in terms of the dominance of religious
morality in the values, beliefs and norms that ascribe the polis – steadily
eroded and ground down to a nub. To many, who aren’t fiscal conservatives in
the traditional sense, but are social and religious conservatives, the changes
have left them wondering what kind of world they live in. They no longer relate
to it.
The DA -
Trump/Tea Party/Breitbart Connection
In order
to trace the thread between the DA’s conservatism and the rise of right wing
conservative sentiment across the globe, the following story is instructive.
Joel
Pollak is Breitbart News’s senior editor at large. Breitbart News is the voice
of the alt-right in America. It represents the voice and the heart of the new
conservatism in the United States of America. He once stood as the Republican
nominee for Illinois’s 9th congressional district (he lost), and,
endorsed by the Chicago Tea Party, is a self-proclaimed Tea Party Republican.
He has authored several books (some self-published), and is infamous –
according to Wikipedia – for his role in pushing out Breitbart reporter
Michelle Fields who alleged that she was manhandled by Donald Trump’s campaign
manager Corey Lewandowski while trying to get close to Trump. Apparently he
ordered staffers at Breitbart to stop defending her. Editor Ben Shapiro and
Michelle Fields both resigned over the incident. Yet there is more. Earlier in
his career, Pollak claimed that Yasser Arafat had faked a blood donation to the
victims of 911. But Pollak is still going strong.
Not many
people know Joel Pollak’s name in South Africa. He is, however, a historically
significant behind-the-scenes player in the DA’s growth under Tony Leon, the
first leader of the DA in the new, democratic dispensation in South Africa.
Joel Pollak was Tony Leon’s speechwriter. Tony Leon’s speeches were nothing
like that of the DA of today. His speeches were incendiary and inflammatory,
was dead set against affirmative action of any kind, and were filled with a
combination of neoliberal idealism – i.e. an almost religious conviction in the
effectiveness of unregulated free markets – and social conservatism. His
central proposition was that promoting the interests of business would uplift
the South African economy enough to yield significant trickle down and
socio-economic upliftment amongst the previously oppressed and disenfranchised
majority. Tony Leon gave the impression that he fell within the American styled
conservative camp that viewed the welfare state – erroneously – as the
equivalent of socialist and communist states.
Joel
Pollak wrote many of Tony Leon’s speeches, all of which appealed to the
conservative white core of South Africa, and helped the DA capture the
territory that the National Party once held. However, and unsurprisingly, it
did little to help the DA capture black voters and the DA faced the prospect of
remaining a white and minority interest party in South Africa under Tony Leon. In
a 2015 piece entitled “Why Zille’s wrong about Obama”, Pollak articulates the
central quandary facing the DA (i.e. its inherent ideological schizophrenia) as
follows:
“I can hear some
of my old friends in the DA say–as many have said–that their party rejects the
social conservatism of the Republican Party. Not really.
The truth is that South Africans
are a deeply conservative, religious, and traditionalist nation. If the voters
were allowed to decide issues like gay marriage and the death penalty–which
have been placed beyond politics by the constitution and the courts–few DA members would be happy. The
party wisely gives its members a “free vote” on issues of moral conscience as a
quiet acknowledgment of that reality.
The DA has also embraced
welfare state policies over the past decade, while Republicans in the U.S. have
been moving in the other direction. That, however, has more to do with
circumstance than conviction–the DA’s hunt for votes among the disaffected
black underclass in South Africa, and the Republicans’ growing concern about
America’s exploding national debt and entitlements.
Both the DA and the
Republicans favour words like “individual opportunity” to describe their vision
of the society they want to create. There are other similarities besides.”
Pollak is somewhat
trite, however, when providing an account of how his personal political
ideology developed. In his description when he returned to the United States
from South Africa he had “spurned the radical leftism” of his “college years”.
This, rather conveniently, led him to switch his politics from Democrat to
Republican after finding it difficult to position himself within the Democratic
Party.
To those who knew him in
South Africa, however, Pollak’s turnaround was drastic. He arrived in South
Africa and quickly positioned himself within the South African left. His
convictions were taken seriously, and he did not appear to be merely engaging
in a brief, youthful flirtation with left wing sentiment. He was an active
leftist. He was one of the drafters of the South African “Not In Our Name”
group’s public statement, and curried favour with leftist South African Jews,
many of whom had played an instrumental role in the anti-Apartheid struggle,
and who played a strong role in the ANC, the South African Communist Party and
in the labour union movements. His defection from the left was sudden, and was
only noted when he suddenly came out in opposition to the very public statement
he had helped draft. From that point on Pollak infiltrated the DA and made it
all the way to the top, becoming the party leader’s (i.e. Tony Leon’s) speechwriter
for four years.
His sudden ideological
turnaround rendered him a subject of suspicion within the left, who have seen
many US intelligence operators infiltrate their organisations both before and
after the end of Apartheid. It is unclear whether there is any merit to these
suspicions, but he certainly managed to attach himself to some of the top
leaders in the country, and as Tony Leon’s speechwriter, would have been party
to all kinds of sensitive – and indeed valuable – information. Indeed, his
powers as a political observer seem to far outweigh his depth as a political
intellectual i.e. while his observations are accurate, his analysis and
interpretation is often shallow and overly biased. Nonetheless, it is indeed
difficult to believe that Pollak, then a first-rate student and now a seasoned
political operator, would have taken his left-wing views any less seriously
than he now takes his right wing views. It is perhaps more likely that he saw
an opportunity – as a very young person – to get a one-way ticket to the top of
South African politics in the DA and grasped it eagerly in order to further his
personal ambitions. Pollak is now being
touted as the potential new US ambassador to South Africa under Trump.
The Zille Era
When Helen
Zille took over the reins of the DA, she was a perfect fit for the moment that
South Africa had arrived at in its infancy as a new democracy. She was unlike
the stiff, repressed Tony Leon, who couldn’t relate to the ordinary South
African. In contrast, Helen Zille spoke Xhosa fluently, could get down and jive
and toyi-toyi at rallies and marches, and had a gift for simplifying matters
into digestible packages that the South African public could lap up. She was
not afraid to bulldoze those she held in low regard, and easily integrated into
contemporary culture; she even had Botox injections and speech therapy lessons
that resulted in a dramatic change in how she spoke; her voice grew deeper and
increasingly hoarse, and she often sounded as though she had a cold or flu.
To some
she was Mama Zille – a throwback to Mama Suzman – but to others she was South
Africa’s Iron Lady, cut in the mould of Margaret Thatcher. As a young
journalist Helen Zille was part of a group of journalists who broke the story
of the murder of anti-Apartheid black consciousness activist Steve Biko by
police, but that is where her proximity to black consciousness ends. Her own political
philosophy couldn’t be further from it. Her political philosophy is a strange
blend of neoliberal and neoconservative convictions, blended together on the
basis of anecdotal observations and interpretations of society and political
history. She thoughtlessly transfers lessons from the developed world to the
developing world context that we live in, and applies economic and political
theory simplistically and crudely.
The result
was a DA that had no clear, coherent ideology to speak of. Helen Zille’s
popularity is largely personality-based; she is a hard-nosed, no-nonsense
broker who delivers blunt appraisals and criticism. Nuance and diplomacy is not
her thing, and South Africans who needed a voice revelled in her candid
criticism of the ruling ANC government. She appears to view herself as a person
who ‘tells it like it is’ and has endured great adversity to get where she is. Yet this is the same reason South Africans
love Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema; they are not sophisticated politicians who exhibit
finesse, combining knowledge,
experience, diplomacy and well-positioned rhetoric to win over their audience – they
win over their audience by voicing the audience’s fears and anxieties, and
providing simplistic solutions that masquerade as common sense determinations.
And like Zuma and Malema, her politicking is strategically astute, albeit
lacking in substance.
The New DA
Leadership: Their Key Challenges
The DA’s
new leader, however, employs rhetoric and diplomacy effectively, and has pulled
the party closer towards the centre, and has made left of centre noises. One
analyst – Professor Ivor Chipkin – described the DA’s new leadership as more
social democratic in nature. Yet the reality is that the political philosophy
or ideology of the DA depends on whom you speak to in its leadership. If you
speak to Mmusi Maimane the political face of the DA seems very different from
that which you get from Helen Zille or Herman Mashaba (the mayor of
Johannesburg). The political heart of the DA remains elusive because it is
constituted of a hodgepodge of actors who have been brought together solely by
anti-ANC sentiments. Their unity is not
defined by what brings them together as a coherent political formation as much
as it is informed by their desperate need to form a serious opposition to the
ANC. Yet the catch is this; without a clear, distinct political message they
cannot – in real political terms – provide a viable political alternative to
the South African public.
Indeed,
the ANC’s own unholy tripartite alliance – which brings together compatible but
different ideological centres of the anti-Apartheid liberation movement – has
fragmented and splintered and left the ANC weakened from within, unable to
adequately regulate its own leaders and officials. It is not difficult to
imagine that the DA may also find itself disabled by internal wrangling and
splits should it succeed in wresting power away from the ANC at the ballot. Its
schizophrenia is magnitudes worse than that of the ANC’s. The constituting
members of the ANC government – the South African Communist Party, the Council
of South African Trade Unions and the ANC – have a long history of working side
by side to challenge the Apartheid government. They are also all fundamentally
left wing organisations.
In contrast,
the DA leadership and constituency is split between left of centre, centrist,
conservative and right wing ideologies i.e. it is constituted of political
ideologies that are, for the large part, irreconcilable. Moreover, their
potential coalition partners range from left to radical left to conservative.
The expectation that they will be able to govern the whole country effectively
is therefore highly optimistic. At best they will form a technocratic
government that emphasises bureaucratic and administrative efficiency, but they
will not – in its current state – be able to provide a coherent political
vision that ensures top-down synergy and coherence throughout government and
the state.
It is
hence clear that South Africans are in trouble whether they turn to the ANC or
the DA for leadership; they are both alliances of convenience with little
internal cohesion and coherence. It means that no matter who is in power, South
Africans will not get clear, concerted leadership that they can understand and engage
with. Instead, they will be consigned to an endless series of leaders who spout
empty rhetoric while implementing policies and programmes on the basis of their
own preference at best, and on the basis of self-interest at worst.
Resolving
the elusive heart of the DA, and converting it into a recognisable, coherent
political formation that has a compass, is hence critically important – not
necessarily for its political survival – but that of the country. It simply
cannot continue along as a rag-tag band, a coalition of convenience; it needs
to plant a flag in the ground and boldly stake a claim to its political and
ideological territory clearly for all and sundry to see. It needs to
distinguish itself and demonstrate a strong coherence.
The key to
achieving this is strong, concerted leadership that is consistent with the
liberalism that the DA lays claim to. However, the DA’s new leader, while an
effective ‘rhetoritician’, lacks an adequate grasp of political philosophy and
ideology. This is evident in some of the shortcomings in his leadership.
First, and
foremost, while he has been quick to condemn incidents of racism and race
insensitivity within his own party, he has remained tellingly silent on the
remarks that Helen Zille routinely sparks outrage with. This leaves one with
the impression that he, like many others within the DA, is afraid to assert his
leadership over the party for fear of how her support base may take it.
Second,
Mmusi Maimane’s speaking style derives from his experience as a devoted elder
and pastor within a Christian church named the Liberty Church; one that is
avowedly socially conservative. He famously once preached that
gays, Muslims and the like were all “sinners” and we should hence embrace them
for their flaws.
More
recently, and in an unprecedented move, he visited Benyamin Netanyahu – the
right wing Prime Minister of Israel – whose leadership has proved disastrous
for the prospect of a two-state solution (he has relentlessly waged war on Gaza
and expanded illegal Israeli settlements into Palestinian territory). No
liberal democracy in the world deals with Benyamin Netanyahu without
reservation, they do not accept him with open arms. Even US policy under Barack
Obama became more critical of Netanyahu, and Obama famously once joked (he
didn’t know the microphones were still on) that he reluctantly took calls from
Netanyahu. Visiting Benyamin Netanyahu is not the act of a liberal leader; it
is more akin to the act of a Christian conservative leader whose religious
sentiments dictate that Israel is rightly the long lost home of the Jewish
people.
It is
rather difficult, in light of the incoherence between the DA’s espoused
ideology and its public statements and actions, to believe that the DA is
ideologically liberal. This has huge implications for South African politics. Were the DA to admit to its more conservative
orientations, and own up to it, it is not entirely clear how well black South
Africans may react. It is true, that very many black South Africans fit well
into the mould of Christian conservatism, but the history of the anti-Apartheid
struggle was largely held back, even undermined, by US and UK conservatives
such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Hence, political
and economic conservatism does not sit easily with most black South Africans,
who believe strongly in the role of the state in addressing the basic needs of
the citizenry, and correcting historical injustices. Perhaps the DA keeps its
sacred heart as elusive as it can precisely because were the majority of South
Africans be able to identify it clearly they may find it to be far uglier and
more dangerous than the DA appears on the surface. It is easy for them to rely
on the congeniality and appeal of their young leader, who makes all the right
noises and remains consistent with (ironically) the ANC’s rhetoric, than to
show their true colours. And to be sure, while the DA does have strong roots in
liberal, progressive values; those roots have long been distilled by the
passage of time as South Africa has ventured into the new territory of democracy.
It is now a complex mix of liberal and conservative actors and it’s positioning
is opportunistic, not principled.
Many have
come to view the DA as the party they hope can keep the ANC in check and
perhaps match or beat it at the polls at some point in the future. They are
eager to see true democracy at work, where a change in leadership can be
achieved at the polls. One party rule has led South Africa down a dangerous
path that has led to political and economic instability. South Africans want to
know that power can be constrained and held to account. Yet it is highly
questionable whether the DA can play an effective role in this aspiration
should it continue down its current path, where the absence of a clear political
philosophy and ideology renders it a political vessel that has no essential
core that members or supporters can turn to in order to orient themselves
through trying times.
This in
turn may have disastrous consequences for national policy and governance should
the DA rise to political power in South Africa, and especially if it brokers
broader political coalitions in order to do so as this will only exacerbate the
pre-existing problem of internal consistency within the DA. Currently, the DA
is all things to all people, depending on which constituency it is trying to
woo, and where that constituency lies in the South African political spectrum.
It can only continue down this path for so long before the cracks begin to
show. Currently, with a large, overbearing ANC playing a role as the ‘villain’
it is fighting against, it is easy to forge unity. That will not prove to be so
easy, however, if and when power is transferred into their hands.
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