Malema, Mngxitama and the Price of Unity

History is littered with a litany of peoples popular struggles which have been hijacked by elements which are antithetical to the interests of those struggles. The most recent manifestations of this are currently playing themselves out in Libya, Egypt and Syria.

In Egypt where almost 90 million people are facing the brunt of an economy and state in crises, the military has engineered a social process that has thrown up the Muslim Brotherhood as the face of the new state. The Brotherhood, like the ANC in South Africa, had gambled that public office would secure sufficient leverage with which to bring about change in the ownership of the means of control, or in other words, the means of production. The economic agents who shape the political discourse and economic trajectory of Egypt, and here it must be acknowledged the Egyptian Army is reported to control up to 40% of the Egyptian economy, besides its direct funding by the United States, had also gambled that it would be able to manage the Brotherhood, through a process of corruption, coercion and strong arm tactics.

The breakdown in relations between these two protagonists, which was spurred on by the popular  uprisings, which has also been rumoured  to have been manipulated by the military, indicates that the Brotherhood had resisted the demand by the military to act within the confines of its Military Economic Complex. The break in relations between the Brotherhood and the Military appears to be significantly more principled than the similar gamble undertaken by the ANC, noting that the material conditions and objective realities were significantly different and that any inference of similarity is tenuous at best, the comparison however serves to highlight the role played by the economic agents who shape the political process and discourse and that of the co-opted political elites.

In South Africa, the co-opted political elite has not sought to destabilise or to undermine the existing economic complex which has allowed it to remain in power but which has led to an increase in inequality and impoverishment of growing numbers of people, the majority of whom are women and children. In fact, the elite capture of the state has led to an entire class of predatory elites, living off extracted economic rents, who are constantly engaged in battles among themselves to capture the state and by implication access to economic rents.

The latest instalment of this attempt by political elites to capture state power has seen Julius Malema launch his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).  By virtue of his seemingly unstinted support among young people,  this initiative poses a real possibility of not only weakening the support base of the dominant ANC, but also threatens to turn the popular struggles of people living in poverty, into a stepping stone for Malema`s own political and economic  ambitions.  

Recognising this potential, Andile Mngxitama , recently wrote that he and his organisation the September National Imbizo are considering engaging with the EFF on the basis of “public service, a radically redistributive economic policy and substantive democracy”.

There can be little doubt, that just like the people of Egypt, who hunger for both bread and hope, South Africans living in poverty are desperate for a change to their material conditions, and are easily seduced by smooth tongues who promise radical alternatives but who in reality have proven to be primarily interested in their own accumulation.

The initiative by Malema has variously been described as an opportunistic attempt to harness the real frustrations and legitimate demands of people living in poverty, and his utterances of economic equality has been rendered hypocritical by the exposure of his lifestyle and the extent of his accumulated wealth. To objective observers, the collection of invested interests coalescing within the EFF is representative of an elite attempt to regain access to economic rents.

 In order to do this, The EFF and Malema have embarked upon a campaign of shameless opportunism by inserting themselves within legitimate struggles. We saw how Malema has inserted himself into the situation which unfolded after Marikana and has regularly emerged at protests and events, often providing impromptu speeches claiming allegiance to those struggles.

The question then, for those who are engaged in grassroots struggles, and who are eager to build broad coalitions of the exploited, is, should the legitimate struggles of the marginalised and dispossessed be sacrificed at the altar of a contrived unity? By placing Malema and the EFF at the head of legitimate struggles, are we not laying the ground work for a repeat of an elite capture and indeed another hijacking of the people’s legitimate struggles, by a group of individuals who have an inglorious track record of corruption and pillage?

The lure of Malema`s apparent support should not seduce grassroots movements into believing that their struggles can dispense with building the agency of the communities they claim to represent. By supporting an individual’s political ambitions, we not only deny the agency of people living in poverty, we also fail to present an alternative to the structural inequality, despite claims to the contrary, instead it legitimizes the current representative democracy  which allows individuals such as Malema to accumulate vast amounts of wealth at the expense of the people.

Our future does not lie with discredited pseudo revolutionaries; rather it lies in the building of a real and tangible people’s power.