LETTER: Peter Bruce’s bizarre reasoning hits record high

There have been many times that I have failed to understand Peter Bruce’s convoluted reasoning. It has rarely, though, been more bizarrely stated than in this Sunday Times article (“As ANC wanes awful alternatives come into focus,” February 7 2020.

He begins by listing areas where “Ramaphosa and his closer team seem to have entirely lost touch with reality” — citing calls for a state bank, punting a national airline to the tune of billions that will never fly, strident protectionism to protect local manufacturing allowing them to charge higher prices in their home market and a foray into a costly and potentially corrupt nuclear build. He rightly describes it as an “administration built on sand”.

Then he drops a doozy, warning that voting against Ramaphosa’s ANC would be a mistake, because “if you think Ramaphosa is bad, you ain’t seen what Malema and the EFF can do with a little power”, despite categorising Ramaphosa’s first term as “crushingly disappointing” and “very feeble”.

Bruce would do well to remember that papers ranging from the New York Tribune to the Cleveland Plain Dealer to the Chicago Tribune credited Mussolini with saving Italy from the far left and revitalising its economy. From their perspective, the post-World War 1 surge of anticapitalism in Europe was a vastly worse threat than fascism. Ironically, while the media acknowledged that fascism was a new “experiment,” papers such as The New York Times credited it with returning turbulent Italy to what it called “normalcy”.

And let’s not forget that while the ANC are no Nazis, they are committed nationalists and socialists — that heady combination that underpinned Nazi and fascist ideology — along with an unhealthy dose of corruption and inefficiency.

No doubt Bruce would see his support for Ramaphosa as being the best of a bad bunch as a bulwark against the rise of a dangerous Zuma faction in cahoots with the EFF. What he fails to realise (the historical comparison notwithstanding) is that the combined opposition constitute the only democratic platform poised to stem this eventuality and able to hold the governing party to book.

Surely it would be wiser to throw one’s lot in behind the opposition (offering perhaps some constructive criticism) instead of disingenuously asserting that the opposition (the DA, in the main) is ineffectual? That fails to understand that not only is it in the throes of a comprehensive formulation of economic policy (which Bruce mistakenly sees as nonexistent) but that we operate in a democracy where the choices before voters are plain and where voters, well in excess of 20%, stand currently with DA.

What he also seems to be advocating is the emergence of a strong voice from civil society, which like the “United Democratic Front ... brought enormous pressure to bear on the last apartheid government”. What he fails to understand is that while civil society has a place and a voice in a democracy (the apartheid regime was not), it cannot, and should not, supplant the institutions of democracy — of which the opposition is a central part. If you bought into the new dispensation in 1994 — as the entire country did – you cannot possibly seek to supplant it because you feel the institutional levers  and players are wanting.

Bruce says “pressure is what is missing in our politics,” and by this I understand extra-parliamentary pressure. By all means, bring it on, but I would direct it at the ANC — the administrations of Ramaphosa, Zuma, Mbeki and yes, even Mandela, under whom the rot began (with the arms deal). The opposition will then be poised to step into the gap and be similarly judged by its performance — in this regard the track record in the Western Cape speaks volumes. Come now Mr Bruce, time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Ghaleb Cachalia, MP, Parktown North