Forget Ramaphosa or the GNU, it has been an unlikely Dr Piter Groenewald, leader of a minority party, who has unexpectedly found his name thrust into the national political discourse. Out of nowhere the Freedom Front Plus main ou has burst onto the scene, relentlessly popping up on the social media timeline and has had both obscure and established personalities chopping and harping on a speech he once gave that has – in popular speak – ‘gone viral.’
There was a time when the masses would’ve simply laughed. Probably said this Boer is out of his mind. Those were the days when the term FF+ was generally used interchangeably with phrases like ‘racist, right wing, conservative, no different to the AWB.’ But now here he is, the unwitting talk of the town – regarded suspiciously and praised in equal measure. I’m sure even he must’ve been taken aback by it all. That his words, no different to ones he’s said numerous times before, were drawing enough traction to get people suddenly engaged, some of them even openly saying they’d vote for him.
The stirring speeches in question? Well, in one of them Groenewald says: ‘we have the honourable Minister of Public Enterprises now coming in to explain about badly-constructed plants for Eskom. And now he’s looking for foreign engineers to solve the problem. Chair[person] through to the honourable president, we have enough competent, qualified engineers in South Africa to solve the problem. But because of blackness in the economy they went to foreign countries. Stop Black Economic Empowerment because it’s nothing else than black elite enrichment.’ He says this looking directly at a Ramaphosa who has his hand listlessly under his chin.
Comments: ‘He is 100 percent correct[.] I don’t know what us black people are gaining by putting BEE forward[.] It’s not benefiting the ordinary citizen.’
Another: ‘A white man saving black masses of our country! Where? When?’
One more: ‘As long as we keep talking about black and white we will never grow as a nation … it’s time we see each other as humans.’
This particular comments thread was pretty evenly divided but, of course, this being SA was not absent of the hateful ultras that straddle the extreme ends of the political spectrum.
Anyway, the immediacy of the socials began to churn out images of black supporters clad in FF+ regalia. Under those gazebos – traditionally manned by bulky men is quasi safari suits with combs stuck in their socks – suddenly it was women in their doeks and pinafores passing out pamphlets and singing merrily. So bizarre it all seemed that one wondered if these had not been skillfully doctored or if AI wasn’t responsible for this absurdity. Then the reels and videos began doing the rounds.
Suddenly it was clear that something unusual had happened: the popular quatro of Ramaphosa, Zille, Malema or Steenhuisen had been flung to backbenchers and the man who ran his last campaign on a ticket to ‘restore and build’ and mostly flew under the radar had finally attracted public attention in a manner hitherto unseen for his party. How fast the Gen Zs move on? Not long ago, many were toasting to Ramaphosa’s bold stance in the face of the US’s G20 fallout with our dear Republic. They were, at the time, letting the whole world know how proud they were to have an upright president like ‘Cupcake.’
But things, in such short a time, have quite apparently gone back to how they have been for some time and the chattering classes were in need of something else to chew on. Have this writer’s insignificant observations that ideological loyalties have slowly taken a backseat to employment and economic opportunity finally been vindicated? Have those testimonies and those embarrassing Louis Vuitton blockheads appearing before the Madlanga Commission just shown us how dangerous and regressive both cadre deployment as well as tenderpreneurship are to the nation’s overall welfare?
Are the masses so gatvol of corruption, unaccountability and honest whistleblowers been picked off like flies as to turn to what was often associated with a ‘return to Apartheid.’ Apartheid 2.0 as it has been called! Never, I thought, but for objectivity’s sake one had to make sense of it all by painstakingly going through more of the comments sections as well as the Groenewald clips, always mindful, however, of the dubious accounts and agenda-pushing trolls.
In another video, the FF+ leader is not holding back anything as he, in Parliament, tears into a sullen Ramaphosa’s legacy: ‘When you became the president in 2018, the economic growth rate was 1.3%, last year it was 0.9%.’
‘You yourself said, twenty years ago Eskom was seen as one of the best electricity utilities in the world. Who destroyed Eskom? The ANC destroyed Eskom. You were in charge of the war room to end loadshedding. You failed.’
He goes on to reflect on how since Ramaphosa’s tenure as president the Rand has grown weaker against the dollar, the JSE has lost some 22% in US dollar terms, and general and youth unemployment figures have also gone up.
‘The president himself said that the ANC is accused number one when it comes to corruption. And, I said to yourself but you are number one of accused number one and now you have a number two who’s also accused of corruption but nothing happens. What happens with corruption in South Africa?’
‘The fact is your Secretary-General, Fikile Mbalula, he said that they lied to protect the former president in terms of corruption … the ANC misused its position to defend and to protect the previous president. It comes to you as well as the next president after Zuma when it came to the Phala Phala issue, it was this ANC in Parliament who protected you. Why? You said that you did nothing wrong. Why didn’t you come forward and be accountable to the people of South Africa?’
Some more of the comments from the popular videos: ‘They (the leftists) are the ones also dining with white people yet they tell you that white people are bad… why are they not staying in townships with us yet… they are staying in suburbs. If you hate white people so much, why are you staying with them?’
Of course there were those who were quick to shoot such expressions down but it was undeniable that there was generally a perceptible change of tongue. Individuals reassessing their fealty and pondering what the future might look like if the reigns were handed over to someone else. To say that the average black voter would ever cast a vote for Pieter Groenewald or his party would be a bit of a reach. However, for the first time, the silver fox who’s not generally big on the spotlight of popular culture found his name all over social media. If anything, that should tell you something about the attitudes that are quietly finding place on the ground.