Julius and Visagie are mirror images of our fractured society

By Zukiswa Mqolomba

Analysis of South African politics has often been overshadowed and reduced to the politics of cult personalities, sex, drugs and power-politicking. Analysis has often lacked the lustre of critical analysis and in its context. Far too often, political analysts have pursued sound-bite analysis that “sells” to capture the imaginations and the fears of the day.

Take, for example, the current analysis on Juju and Visagie. Analysis has often been informed by the dialectical hate-love relationship and on the basis of their crude and unorthodox persona. Little analysis about them has been done in context, having applied normative thinking to explain what is wrong with current social reality against shared norms.

Remember, both Julius and Visagie are not aliens of South African society; alas they are products and by-products of a fractured society.

They represent and are perfect embodiments of all that is still ill and ugly in South African society. That is why they continue to enjoy popular support by their respective constituencies. They mirror their struggles and project these into mainstream society.

They are products of a fractured and disenfranchised society. They are agents and victims of systematic exclusion that continues to produce and reproduce philosophies of racial prejudice and racial hatred. Both feel betrayed by the outcomes of the revolutionary programme of the African National Congress.

We can’t wish them away. They are a part of us. They are us, we are them. They perfectly embody and remind us of the defects of postmodern South Africa.

Take Malema. The ugly truth is that Malema perfectly embodies the sentiments of “the average black man” fed up with the unrepentant attitudes of white people who still have a chip of white superiority on their shoulders, thinking they’re still king in an African man’s home. He represents the bona fide sentiments of the average black man tired of being the face and life of poverty, unemployment, poor quality education, and no property ownership. Malema represents the struggle of the average black man to own himself, to defend his freedoms and to reclaim his citizenship as the indigenous of his land.

Malema represents the common perspective of the average black man who continues to elevate racial purity above shared and common humanity, believing he too deserves to win first prize in the lottery of life. His motives are noble. His tactics, however, remain questionable.

Visagie, on the other hand, represents all that is ill and backward about Afrikaans tradition. He embodies the sordid sentiments of the “average Afrikaans man” fed up with the unrepentant attitudes of black people who have a chip of black pride on their shoulders, thinking he is king in his own home. Visagie represents the common perspective of the average Afrikaner who continues to elevate racial purity above shared and common humanity, believing in the inherent right to win first prize in the lottery of life. His motives remain noble unto his own. His tactics questionable, only most of the time.

Neither of them have internalised the democratic and humanitarian ideals espoused by Mandela, the great humanitarian whose life’s struggle and personal philosophy can be summarized in his own famous words:

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Neither is willing to live for principle for its own sake. Both are driven by sectarian interests for their own sake. Both are will to die for these.

South Africa is still to internalise the post-1994 ideals. What we have are sentimental attachments to notions of reconciliation, racial unity and nation-building. South Africa is still to own it in real and concrete terms.

Both parties must make the necessary compromises and in the interest of the majority poor. How much of ourselves are will willing to lose so future-generations are assured of shared identity? How much are we willing to give?

Or as Steve Biko asked, is the black man on his own?

Zukiswa Mqolomba is completing her Masters in Social Sciences at the University of Cape Town.