LETTER: Deep populism yet to emerge in SA

Bryan Rostron’s attempt at using an international explanatory framework for the rise of global populism onto SA is unconvincing (“Populists find rich pickings among fans who don’t care about truth”, September 25). Suggesting that AfriForum is nostalgic for a “golden age that never was” is patently wrong.

That whites, especially poor whites, were better off in the past is incontrovertible. Moreover, unlike in the UK or US, since white reactionaries here can, at most, grow to no more than 10% of SA’s population, their effect on political power is nil. Our category of actual “time exiles”, or reactionaries, are never read as such, perhaps because they are multiracial.

They have been largely immune from criticism, benefited personally and dramatically, and have long since taken political control. For about 30 years now, this relatively small group of political exiles and their acolytes have been pointing us back to “our” glorious struggle for justice and “their” past heroism.

Realistically though, they also command only a small share of the SA electorate, which is why they tirelessly solicit solidarity from the black majority: painting all Africans as victims very much still in need of affirmative action. While a wonderful lifeline came their way when the white-privilege narrative surfaced in the US, their rhetorical appeal is wearing visibly thin.

Of course, Julius Malema and his ilk are not reactionaries in that sense. They are political opportunists making full use of racism dressed up as identity, with no regard for our past or future. Deep populism, which has a political consequence for this country, is yet to emerge. It will be tricky because a common “golden age” for which an eventual majority of the electorate might pine is hard to discern right now.

With few exceptions, our written histories cast Africans as repressed and exploited victims — hardly something to draw on. Traditionalism in turn is regarded as exclusionary and patriarchal, while white nationalism has shown its colours. So populism of the kind found in mature democracies will only take root here if xenophobia grows significantly, to unify a domestic majority across race and tribe against newcomers.

It is not inconceivable. This same force is driving populism in the liberal West, and the disruption it brings to the values and welfare of the host population will always be evaluated by voters against their past circumstances.

Jens Kuhn
Cape Town