Racists and nationalists dip their cups into same punch

You would think white racists and black nationalists have almost nothing in common. But an unlikely set of similarities has emerged between ostensible enemies: on the one hand, a new and evolving brand of white rightwing thinking; on the other, a genre of black populism associated with the radical economic transformation (RET) faction of the ANC. On the face of it, they are like oil and water. Look a little closer and they seem more and more alike.

The comparison is not quite straightforward: the white, racist syndrome I am talking about takes Donald Trump as its hero, rather than any home-grown South African, so the signal events in its imagination jump to and fro across the Atlantic.

The first unlikely similarity is a shared anti-black racism. At the heart of the story the RET faction tells about SA is a group of black people who are “mentally colonised”, to quote the now famous words of Lindiwe Sisulu, and “lick the spittle of those who claim superiority”. The people so condemned are the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa, who ostensibly negotiated a constitution designed to defend white privilege, and Justice Raymond Zondo, that constitution’s chief guardian.

In the white right-wing story the villains have different names

Jacob Zuma, not Ramaphosa; Brian Molefe, not Zondo but their crime is the same. They are black people who cannot create value, but are parasites draining the wealth others have made; people without ingenuity, without mettle, lacking the gumption to make something new.

In both stories, the problem lies with Africans who are psychologically or culturally deficient. In both stories, racial slander substitutes for analysis.

There is a second similarity. Both are founded on a fictitious, conspiratorial understandings of history. In the RET version white monopoly capitalists and black compradors banded together during apartheid’s last years to dress the old system up in new attire. This moment constitutes democratic SA’s original sin; it must be undone before the country can begin anew.

In the white version, the conspiracy wanders back and forth across the Atlantic. It is the betrayal of white working-class Americans by rich elites who opened up trade and let in streams of migrants, undermining a way of life. Or it is white South Africans who were betrayed by the leaders the ANC steamrollered into submission at apartheid’s end. In both cases a comic-book story of elite betrayal substitutes for an understanding of delicate moments in history.

The most glaring similarity between the two syndromes is their shared penchant to break legitimate institutions by way of flagrant attack. “Lick the spittle of those who claim superiority” is a Trumpian phrase through and through: the intention to humiliate and belittle; the intuition that outlandish insults may actually work because they garner outsize attention. The objective is the same too; to remove neutral referees from the field of the game so that it becomes possible to cheat.

I first got an inkling that the two syndromes were coalescing several years ago at a working-class dinner table in a Thembisa home. A man at that table was saying that the Rothschilds controlled Ramaphosa, that SA should close its borders to migrants, that it was time a true son of the soil, if any were left, should be in the Union Buildings. The backdrop to his story was South African, but the discourse itself was a generic one that circles the globe. With a tweak or two it could alight in Brexit Britain, in Trumpian America, or in Eric Zemmour’s France.

Racist stereotyping; a narrative of elite conspiracy; the betrayal of decent, honest-togoodness folk; the serial humiliation of independent officials; the substitution of populist paranoia for analysis.

Broadband is carrying this brew across the planet. Ostensible enemies dip their cups into the same punch. People shout each other down, sounding much the same.