IF THE social justice agenda depends on inflating the popular support and the commitment to equality of a loud group of racial nationalists, it is in more trouble than we thought.
The nationalists are the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), whose 6.35% of the vote has been hailed by the media, commentators and voices on the left.
This explains why Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was assumed to be an icon of the poor and why Malema and the EFF have taken over this mantle.
This fantasy ignores overwhelming evidence that living in poverty is no bar to rational thought and that poor people are perfectly capable of knowing who represents their interests and who does not. Since most know that the EFF leadership is far more familiar with the world of the rising middle class than that which they endure, they have no reason to support it.
Since many poor people in Malema’s home province, Limpopo, also associate him with using public resources in ways which do not assist the poor, it is no surprise that one in 10 voters there rejected the EFF.
The second reason is wishful thinking among those who are so eager for social and economic change that they latch onto implausible signs that it is happening. The EFF may sound radical but its chief message is racial nationalism, not social justice.
It is led not by a leader elected by its members but by an anointed commander-in-chief. It reacts to most issues with threats that it will use not political action but force.
Those on the left who have embraced the EFF have disregarded the difference between a movement for social equality and a nationalist populism with strong militarist undertones.
A middle-class movement concerned not at inequality but at the race of those who benefit from it becomes a radical justice movement with deep roots among the poor.
The EFF is not the people’s movement that will challenge the post-1994 era’s skewed distribution of power and privilege: that is yet to emerge. It is, rather, a trigger to the mainstream prejudices and left-wing delusions, which obstruct an effective challenge to social injustices.
Steven Friedman is the director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg. This article is from the South African Civil Society Information Service
Hyping up how the EFF fared in the elections
The nationalists are the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), whose 6.35% of the vote has been hailed by the media, commentators and voices on the left.
This explains why Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was assumed to be an icon of the poor and why Malema and the EFF have taken over this mantle.
This fantasy ignores overwhelming evidence that living in poverty is no bar to rational thought and that poor people are perfectly capable of knowing who represents their interests and who does not. Since most know that the EFF leadership is far more familiar with the world of the rising middle class than that which they endure, they have no reason to support it.
Since many poor people in Malema’s home province, Limpopo, also associate him with using public resources in ways which do not assist the poor, it is no surprise that one in 10 voters there rejected the EFF.
The second reason is wishful thinking among those who are so eager for social and economic change that they latch onto implausible signs that it is happening. The EFF may sound radical but its chief message is racial nationalism, not social justice.
It is led not by a leader elected by its members but by an anointed commander-in-chief. It reacts to most issues with threats that it will use not political action but force.
Those on the left who have embraced the EFF have disregarded the difference between a movement for social equality and a nationalist populism with strong militarist undertones.
A middle-class movement concerned not at inequality but at the race of those who benefit from it becomes a radical justice movement with deep roots among the poor.
The EFF is not the people’s movement that will challenge the post-1994 era’s skewed distribution of power and privilege: that is yet to emerge. It is, rather, a trigger to the mainstream prejudices and left-wing delusions, which obstruct an effective challenge to social injustices.
Steven Friedman is the director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg. This article is from the South African Civil Society Information Service
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