If there’s one thing clear about the GNU conglomerate, it’s that although it has a smattering of serious people, the rest would be outstanding in a circus. Burnt-out Leninists and wannabe liberals share the floor with court jesters who will not pass up an opportunity to raise disruptive points of order for a cheap cackle. Or simply to unwittingly expose to incredulous Saffers just how much of a toss they give.
Seemingly everybody has something to say – often nothing to do with the business of the day but to take swings at the next guy and to behave like the steroid-amped doofus at the gym. If you can sneak in an ugly word or a disgusted ‘yheses!’ somewhere in there, all the better. These draw immediate applause and laughter from the gogos and oupas tasked with deciding what’s in the nation’s best interests.
To those of us who don’t really get what’s there to laugh about, the images are disturbing to watch.
The EFF, the party that stamped the ubiquitous ‘point of order’ onto the parliamentary lexicon, had in the wake of their poor election showing in May promised to return not as disruptors but as a constructive entity in the self-styled Progressive Caucus. At the time, it seemed that the equally rowdy MK party would replace them in that former role but now it’s clear that they are no more than willing accomplices to count on. Barely a few months on and old habits clearly die hard.
In the absence of refreshing policy ideas and without Zuma to ridicule and taunt into ‘paying back the money,’ the EFF had targeted Ramaphosa on Phala-Phala. But with that angle not quite capturing the national imagination, they have been in want of something to latch on, leaving everyone in their path as fair game. Zuma’s doomed Cabinet reshuffle in 2015 and the Red Brigade’s incessant mocking of uBaba in Parliament saw the unprecedented ZumaMustFall campaign comprised of civil society groups, political parties and swathes of layfolk taking to the streets in the hope of forcing the man from Nkandla to step down.
Despite his increasing unpopularity, it became evident that the ruling ANC doesn’t take kindly at being told what to do. Not even by thousands of people signing petitions and picketing, it still chose to fire Zuma – as it had done to his predecessor Thabo Mbeki – from within. In many ways, these were the years that signalled the decline that the ANC would probably never recover from and also a Parliament that was fast degenerating into seed. The ‘white shirts,’ Parliament’s buff security detail had become a frequent, donnering feature of the august House, itself an indictment on the poorly-termed Honourable Members.
Sadly, that both the EFF and ANC have suffered serious knocks at the polls hasn’t quite coaxed the top brass into putting the finger back on the nation’s pulse. The DA, it would seem, is of late opening itself up to similar criticism and it’s not doing anybody but those who anyway took a dim view of the GNU from the onset any favours. When it emerged that party leader and Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen had appointed a certain Roman Cabanac as his chief of staff, even a vengeful alt-right fringe might’ve wondered what Steenhuisen had been smoking. Cabanac’s appointment has been a godsend to detractors of both the DA and the GNU. It’s played straight into the hands of those who’d always maintained that the DA was foremost a white party that spoke with a forked tongue on issues like cadre deployment and liberalism itself. The appointment appears to give credence to these accusations.
Cabanac, a podcaster summed up by Daily Maverick’s Rebecca Davis as ‘notoriously one of the most divisive, race-baiting voices on local social media,’ could pass as a white version of Malema but with a law degree to – at least in Steenhuisen’s eyes – sanitize all the hateful stuff. If Malema’s utterances around whites and the land question had everybody on edge, Cabanac’s posts on social networks are a solace to bittereinder sorts looking to fight back.
‘South Africa was a better country in 1993!’
‘ANC begs whites to fix its mess!’
With such priceless one-liners, the man clearly has a knack for getting under people’s skin. The worry, though, is whether there aren’t already way too many of this wayward fringe on the political landscape and whether the answer to spewing hate is simply to spew more hate.
For those South Africans who simply pray on a functional government, social media offers little to keep our waning hopes alive. Take this clip for instance, in so many ways a most succinct portrayal of the dearth of wisdom and common decency in the hallowed chambers of power.
The senseless back and forth between Minister of Sports Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie, the EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and later the MK’s Des van Rooyen, is the stuff that – were this not the same House where our collective destiny is decided – the thing to do would be to change channels. Sadly, there were still a few more speakers on the roster and what they had to say affected us all. Not so for our parliamenterians, who had more important questions to ask not least of which was ‘who killed Chris Hani.’ Such displays might make for some entertainment amidst the generally dour nature of these settings. Unfortunately, nowadays they have taken precedence over the really important stuff. More jeering and heckling than engaged, fruitful dialogue.
More disheartening are the faces that have come to represent us in the highest positions in the land. There’s a disgraced judge, an ex-minister who lasted just a weekend on that gig, ministers fingered in orgies of looting and – behind the scenes – we’ll likely have a minister’s chief of staff with nakedly bad vibes towards Bantu people. The GNU was pitched as a collective that would foster some social cohesion and work towards a working South Africa. But even on their best day, these chaps seem to be taking us in the opposite direction. Hopefully sound reason will prevail while they are still at loggerheads and nobody has lunged at anyone’s throat.