Propoganda: We must acknowledge that powerful states use “fake news” or lies as part of their political strategy.
Watching the debate in South Africa on international issues is like watching the same film on a relentless loop.
One faction, mostly white and generally self-identified as liberal, roundly condemns states that are in conflict with the US and demands that South Africa have no contact with the states. Sometimes it descends into conspiracy theory and makes assertions without evidence, such as the claim that Iran bribed the ANC to take Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Another faction, more racially diverse and generally identified as nationalist or left wing, condemns the US and other Western states while remaining silent on the failings of the regimes opposed to the West. On occasion it too descends into conspiracy theory, denouncing opposition to the regimes as a Western plot.
Both sides are often propagandists. This is a tiresome and pointless exercise that takes us nowhere.
The uncritical cheerleaders for the West cannot be taken seriously until they acknowledge that the West supports and collaborates with authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
They also need to acknowledge that the West has engaged in illegal bombings, wars and coups against many countries and that it has backed Israel’s assault on Gaza. Those who support all the regimes opposed by the West need to acknowledge, for example, that labour conditions in Chinese factories are atrocious, Russia locks up its dissidents, Zanu-PF runs a rapacious regime in Zimbabwe and the past election in Venezuela was stolen.
Getting past the sorry state of affairs requires, as a first step, that the empirical facts of each situation be taken seriously. We must acknowledge that powerful states inside and outside the West use “fake news” or lies as part of their political strategy. This is as true of the US and Israel as it is of Russia or Zimbabwe.
If we use Venezuela as an example, the documented facts are that the fentanyl that has caused much damage to US society is made in Mexico, with chemicals imported from China and not Venezuela. It is also clearly true that Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) — the alleged cartel US prosecutors claimed Nicolás Maduro led — does not exist. There is also no doubt that the US violated international law when it kidnapped Maduro and his wife.
However, it is also true that Maduro stole the past election, ran a corrupt government, locked up some political dissidents and presided over a police force that regularly killed dark-skinned and poor young men.
Any political position that does not acknowledge all the confirmed facts is not credible. Similarly, it must be acknowledged that the West is waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine that followed a Western-backed coup and that the Russian state has violated international law and committed war crimes.
It must also be acknowledged that China has done well to end absolute poverty and that it runs an exploitative labour regime and represses dissent.
At home, we must be clear that the ANC has been complicit in authoritarianism and corruption in Zimbabwe and it took a principled position on Palestine and in support of international law when it approached the ICJ.
Both the left and the liberals must, if they are to be taken seriously, deal with the factions in their midst that line up behind one side or the other in the new Cold War.
Liberalism has many currents, some of which hold consistent positions but figures such as Greg Mills, on its right wing, happily support the West at all costs and under all circumstances. This must be addressed.
The left also has many democratic currents but the inheritors of the old Stalinist tradition happily support any authoritarian regime that opposes the West.
They are known pejoratively as “tankies”, after the Stalinists who supported the crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 by Soviet tanks. In South Africa, the South African Communist Party (SACP) takes the tankie position. The radical nationalists in the Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto weSizwe Party do the same.
There is a tankie current in the trade union movement, with its origins in the SACP but the most principled positions on international politics in public life are taken by the democratic components of the trade union movement, with their origins in “worker democracy”.
Zwelinzima Vavi is one of the few public figures who has noted that Maduro was an authoritarian leader and that his kidnapping by the US was illegal and an outrageous violation of sovereignty.
Liberalism in South Africa has been dragged to the right in recent years and while there are left liberals who hold states on all sides of the geopolitical divides to the same standards, there is no organised expression of this kind of liberalism. It does not have a party or its own NGOs or the media.
In party politics, Songezo Zibi of Rise Mzansi is the only significant figure willing to be critical of both the US and Israel and their enemies.
However, his party has one seat in parliament and while his voice on international affairs is welcome, it has limited backing. It is only the democratic currents in the independent trade unions that offer a principled position on international affairs backed by numerical support.
Even though South African politics has few voices that do not uncritically line up behind one side on geopolitical issues, the country’s commentariat have no excuses for continuing with crude forms of comment and analysis. We should all be opposed to all human rights violations and all forms of authoritarianism, as well as illegal state actions and the mass killing of civilians, whoever the perpetrators might be.
Dr Imraan Buccus is a senior research fellow at ASRi