Time ticks for three horsemen of dystopia – Zuma, Trump and Boris
Tina Joemat-Pettersson. A name to conjure with and, to apply Churchill’s famous quip about Russia, a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. My intention was to try to get under the skin of this confusing, contradictory politician, who died in mysterious circumstances 10 days ago.
After all, Joemat-Pettersson was in some important respects emblematic of the times. She was neither all bad, nor all good. Just like her party, the ANC. Neither’s legacy will be clearly defined now; the scars and suspicions of corruption will obscure a great deal of the more positive side of their respective political ledgers.
Like the ANC, she served “the people” and she probably stole from them too, or was accomplice to the larceny that has pock-marked the past decade or more, even though there is countervailing evidence that on some occasions she was willing to stand up for what was right.
Alas, I don’t have the wherewithal to solve the puzzle of Joemat-Pettersson’s life, let alone her death. And besides, subsequent events have overtaken the news of her passing on 5 June. Now there are bigger fish to fry.
Working backwards, earlier this week the godfather (a word I choose advisedly, in the circumstances) of the rise of a new form of authoritarian populism led by cultish Big Men leaders, the Italian Silvio Berlusconi, died aged 86.
All of the rest have ridden on his coat-tails: from neighbouring Hungary’s grizzly Viktor Orban, to nasty little-Englander Nigel Farage, to our very own Julius Malema and Gayton McKenzie.
But, relatively speaking, these are the bit-part characters. The leading actors in this unfolding global political tragedy have been Donald Trump and Boris Johnson and, in our neck of the woods, Jacob Zuma.
The similarities between the three are enticing: they all lie shamelessly; none of them have fixed ideological moorings — they say whatever they think will serve their political needs and wants; each of them lacks an ethical compass; they have profoundly misogynistic tendencies, with highly dubious track records in terms of conduct towards women.
And it doesn’t stop there, either. In very similar fashion, each of Zuma, Johnson and Trump have provided cover for the kind of violent, lawless, venal bigotry and copycat behaviour in broader society.
Their mendacity and distortion of the truth has provided the cover that others need to kick on — whether it is ethnic extremists in South Africa, Brexit extremists in the United Kingdom, or the Proud Boys in the United States.
They are the Gaslighter Supremes.
The riots of July 2021 in South Africa — when Zuma’s incarceration for contempt of court for refusing to be held to account by the judicial inquiry into state capture under his presidency triggered a wave of violent unrest, instigated and encouraged by Zuma’s family and loyalists; “Partygate” in the UK — when Johnson glibly broke the Covid lockdown rules and partied as people were dying or unable to see loved ones before they died, and then tried to cover it up with lies; and the 6 January attack on Congress — when Trump tried to steal an election and in defeat whipped up a frenzy of violent intent that led to the storming of the Capitol: these are the monuments of their dangerous and harmful abuse of power.
But the past week has been a good week. All three have suffered serious setbacks, as they have once again been exposed as the cowards they truly are, for all the bravado.
Zuma’s attempt to bully a journalist (Karyn Maughan), who had the temerity to report on Zuma’s dishonesty, through a private prosecution that was as vexatious as it was vindictive, was dismissed by the high court. The right of freedom of expression, through a free press, was protected.
Johnson resigned his parliamentary seat rather than face the adverse findings of the parliamentary privileges committee that has conducted an investigation as to whether he misled parliament over the Partygate allegations.
And Trump was arraigned with a potentially very serious set of charges relating to his possession of classified documents after he ceased to be president.
At worst, Trump may be found to have sold or given away national security secrets to foreign powers or enemies — traitorous conduct.
Predictably, Trump and Johnson played the victim card, from exactly the same play book of Zuma, blaming others, unable to take responsibility, and whipping up populist frenzy to try to create leverage amid the carnage caused by their narcissism.
It doesn’t stop there, either. All three continue to cast long shadows and will continue to do so, in service, once again, of their personal, venal interests. This has caused harm, and will continue to do so, as each of them fights to stay out of prison or even to resurrect their political careers.
In doing so, they will continue to cause huge inconvenience to their respective political parties. The Republicans are as divided as the US itself because of Trump; moderate conservative members of the party are apparently unable to find a way to stem the bleeding.
That the ANC has a “KZN problem”, born of its “Zuma problem”, is plain to see. A divided, chaotic KwaZulu-Natal ANC means it will shed votes to the Inkatha Freedom Party at a scale that could cost the ANC its majority nationally next year.
Equally, Johnson’s departure from the House of Commons will not solve anything so far as the internal divisions in the Conservative Party are concerned — just as with the Republicans, moderate Tories are struggling to hold the line and defend their party from authoritarian populists of the extreme variety.
Johnson has started to try to undermine Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, just as Zuma and his ghastly children try to undermine President Cyril Ramaphosa and his reform and rebuild efforts at every turn.
Yet, democracy and the rule of law are fighting back — as the last week amply demonstrates. But it is just a start. And it may well not be enough. The fight is going to be long, unrelenting and bloody.
Progressive democrats are going to have to “tool up” (an expression I must credit to a former colleague in Chambers in London). His simple point, with which I concur but had not yet found a way to capture so pithily, is that the liberal left is going to have to find a way to meet fire with fire, otherwise it will be overpowered and run over because the other side fights by different rules.
The rise of the right — in yet another incarnation, one that is arguably more vicious and more ruthless, and certainly even more dangerously armed than before given the truth-killing power of the internet in all its different manifestations — threatens the fragile consensus around human rights and democratic freedoms that emerged post-World War II and which has accompanied significant advances in human development globally.
This progress has also been accompanied by growing inequality in and between countries. Some aspects of the model of globalisation that has been predominant since the Fall of the Wall in 1989 have hastened this trend while also ostracising many people who fall outside of the cosy urban elites who are generally the cheerleaders of the vanguard of further generational advances in rights — such as trans rights. This has created the underlying conditions for authoritarian populism to flourish and for fascism to return to centre-stage in many parts of the world.
What does “tooling up” look like? It means a more rugged approach to the fight. It’s not just even more extensive use of litigation, and far more creative and aggressive use of social media to counter-attack and defend science and knowledge.
It means being far more “in the face” and, when it comes to it, physically so. I well remember in the foothills of my life in politics as a scrawny teenager marching against the National Front fascists in late 1970s London, alongside members of the Anti-Nazi League — tough characters who were more than willing to go toe-to-toe with the Union Jack-bedecked racists across the street.
In the end, the fascists backed off and dissipated. Now they have returned, and once again the defence of progressive politics will need more than polite argument. It will require a proper fight. We need to prepare accordingly.
Richard Calland is an associate professor in public law at the University of Cape Town and a founding partner of the Paternoster Group.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.