GARETH VAN ONSELEN: The ANC’s become a parody of a racist stereotype
The Zuma administration has fallen far, and in a fashion typical of autocracies the world over
For as long as the ANC has been around it has sought to fight the various stereotypes of African governments as corrupt dictatorships, incompetent and self-serving. Only, now, according to many in the ANC itself, the party and its leader have come to embody many of the archetypal sentiments against which it has historically rallied. Under Jacob Zuma, the ANC of 2017 is a real-life parody of the very thing it stands against. These sorts of stereotypes are deeply rooted in post-colonial Africa. Every country has its own peculiarities and history but almost all have pleaded exceptionalism at some point. SA is no different and the ANC has expended much effort countering the idea that it will go the route of, say, Zimbabwe; with it, the kinds of sentiments attributed to the continent by those who regard it as some generic democratic disaster zone. Stereotypes like:• African democracies inevitably become “banana republics” or “basket cases”, governed by self-serving elites that reduce the...
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