IMRAAN BUCCUS: Is this a turning point in our politics?

The EFF’s carefully choreographed and evidently well-funded performance at the FNB Stadium two weeks ago could be a turning point in our politics. It’s only a few months since the complete failure of the party’s “national shutdown” but the juxtaposition of that fiasco and the successful anniversary rally event in the stadium reveals a great deal.

How do we interpret the fact that so few people showed up for the “shutdown”, while the stadium was packed to capacity for the anniversary rally? How do we understand the failure of the “shutdown” leading to so much derision on social media, while the success of the stadium event apparently generated tremendous enthusiasm among many young South Africans?

The answer seems to be that one mode of politics is being eclipsed by another. Since the 1950s, building popular organisations and then manifesting that power in the streets has been an important form of politics in SA and elsewhere in the world, such as with the civil rights movement in the US.

In SA the politics of mass organisation and mass public protest reached its pinnacle in the 1980s with the formation of the United Democratic Front and union federation Cosatu. Many of us who were formed in that generation assume this is what successful popular politics outside of parliament should look like.

Of course, this kind of politics is not totally dead and does continue. We still have large mass-based organisation in Abahlali baseMjondolo, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA and Cosatu, and they continue to organise large street protests from time to time. But while these three organisations can each bring thousands or tens of thousands of people onto the streets, it seems highly unlikely that they could, on their own, fill the FNB Stadium.

It is also striking that when Abahlali baseMjondolo brought at least 7,000 people (some have put the number as high as 10,000) onto the streets in its anti-Freedom Day protest in June there was almost no media present, and almost no coverage of the event. Of course, there was wall-to-wall coverage of the EFF performance at the FNB Stadium.

That the media seems to have lost interest in the sort of public protest that comes from mass-based organisation is an indicator of a significant cultural shift that is under way. The excitement over the EFF stadium show on social media is equally significant. It seems highly unlikely that young people would be as moved by a march of thousands of workers or shack dwellers demanding material changes to their circumstances.

The politics of the carefully choreographed spectacle, of politics as entertainment, is taking the place once occupied by the politics of grassroots organisation and mobilisation. This should not take us entirely by surprise. Social media are changing many aspects of life worldwide. For example, in the US and Europe right-wing leaders have stormed into public view, and sometimes into power, via media-dominated politics.

Older ways of doing things have been dramatically shaken up in ways that experts have repeatedly failed to anticipate. In SA the EFF is the only party that really knows how to play this game, and it is benefiting from this. The party does not have democratic grassroots structures. It is organised around the spectacle of leader Julius Malema’s charisma, initially generated on social media and then expanded into traditional media.

If this is the politics of the future, as it may well be, the EFF is not just ahead of the curve, it is the only player in the game at present. Comparisons have been made between Malema’s approach and that of World War 2-era Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. There are certainly some resonances in terms of the theatricality of their politics and its militaristic character, authoritarianism, crude opportunism and drift from left to right.

However, drawing analogies from the past only takes us so far. What is really happening here is that an old form of politics — popular organisation and street mobilisation — which held sway for generations, is giving way to a form that comes naturally to Malema and the EFF.

The party will undoubtedly draw its own lessons from the failure of the “shutdown” and success of the FNB performance. It seems unlikely that it will return to the failed model and will stick with what has worked — the politics of well-funded and choreographed spectacle designed for social media.

Some of the meanings of the cultural and political shift under way are clear. Popular organisation is democratic by definition, but the politics of social media lends itself to authoritarian manipulation. It’s the perfect medium for a dictator in waiting.

Malema’s opportunistic flip-flopping makes it impossible to predict what life would be like under a Malema government, but we do know it would be highly authoritarian and that a crude nationalism would almost certainly be used to cloak a new kleptocracy in the guise of political legitimacy. It also seems unlikely that the media would continue to enjoy the freedoms they currently have, and that dissidents in and outside the EFF would not be treated kindly.

Nobody outside the Trotskyite sects — always looking for a new horse to ride into power — believes there could be an outcome that might be even vaguely left or progressive if the EFF were in power. While we just don’t know what positions an EFF government would take on specific issues, it seems certain that SA would face the agony of a political, social and economic crisis along the lines of those faced by so many postcolonial societies.

Many of our democratic and civil institutions are already fraying, and those that have been able to hold out are under significant pressure. It’s not over the top to wonder if our democracy could survive an EFF government. On the contrary, it seems likely that we would end up in a situation analogous to the slow motion train wreck that is Zimbabwe.

That said, there is no empirical reason to believe Malema’s support at the next election will move beyond the current 10% of the vote. It may be that for the moment the only audience that is receptive to the EFF's form of politics is a limited fraction of the youth.

However, the fact that the ANC and DA look like political dinosaurs in relation to how astutely Malema plays the media — social and otherwise — is far from irrelevant.

• Dr Buccus is senior research associate at the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute and post doctoral fellow at Durban University of Technology.