By Bheki Gila
How the mighty have fallen is a eulogy for a hero whose valour and singularity of purpose in battle is embodied in his larger-than-life frame lying supine, still and lifeless on the rugged plains of skirmish.
The ANC, however, may not deserve such an ode to heroism. They have been planning to fall for a long, long time. And fall they did, arguably in the worst manner they had long contemplated and masterfully crafted.
Information wars, as they countenance protagonists and sworn ideological adversaries, are facets of psyop tactics, reminiscent of the British psychological warfare, cultural dehumanisation and propaganda onslaughts against Sinn Féin and the IRA in Northern Ireland, in much the same way the apartheid regime was on a virulent campaign against the liberation forces in general and the ANC in particular.
The modus of their version of such info wars was the fusing and hybridisation of the terms terrorist and communist, constantly used interchangeably, until the employ of one inexorably involved the subliminal invocation of the other.
So much so that the gruesome killing of Chris Hani was punted as the elimination of the anti-Christian terrorist bent on destroying a capitalist and Christian economy. But above all, it was vaunted as a triumph over the most dreaded of them all, the communist.
The propaganda spigots gushed open as soon as the first democratically-elected ANC government came to power. They were, in their proselytising, living under a corrupt “black” government, which was irredeemably inept.
The ANC, for its part, was not helped by counter-revolutionary charlatans in their midst, who had sharpened their populist demagoguery with the one hand while dutifully looting the public treasury with the other.
Unlike its well-oiled publicity and propaganda machinery in exile – through radio, publications and other global mobilisation initiatives, which were qualitatively superior to the flaccid, insouciant and tired racist lines of the apartheid state broadcasts – the ANC quickly abandoned its counter propaganda project on its return.
If the Mbeki era countered with the ANC Today publication, espousing well-researched positions, Mbeki’s putsch in Polokwane resulted in the dissipated decline of this much-sought-after publication and its subsequent desuetude.
Realising that the war was lost, the leadership of the ANC became insensitively dictatorial in defence of their personal interests, their friends and – as it turned out – their secret handlers.
Of their handlers, especially the secret ones, it did not take long after the incumbent’s appointment as leader of his party to quickly rush to court to prevent the world – or to be certain, the voting ANC constituency – from knowing who bankrolled his campaign.
Sadly, it triggered a rapid downward spiral in the morale of the oldest liberation movement on the continent, and the racist propaganda artillery started firing on all cylinders.
Money scandal after another turned into gifts that never ceased gifting, providing veritable fodder to the info wars machinery. Arguably, that is why the “GNU” Frankenstein was concocted.
And to no surprise, the biggest skeleton that could not fit into any cupboard announced itself in a moniker that captured the imagination of the chattering classes, “Phala-Phala”.
All the while, the ANC agenda was in full and dedicated counter revolutionary poise, especially at the behest of persons whose names history will never ever know.
And the courts will see to that. Could it even be possible that the ANC SG signed a document with the inscrutable Helen without reading its contents?
The sages among us see it rather differently. They are convinced that when you sell someone out, it may have to be done rather quickly! Even the documents nominated for execution, notwithstanding the odiousness of the iniquity, have to be signed somewhat in haste.
The stern warnings on the presence of a menacing and obnoxious devil in the detail could not deter the resolve. After all, selling out is such a stinking enterprise, so much so the sooner you get it done and over with, the better. This is just so as one should be hurriedly spared from the stench of perfidy.
The ANC should have known that by insisting on a “coalition” or by whatever other fancy sobriquet such burlesque answers to, spurred by faceless forces called “the markets” who somehow have veto rights over the people’s votes, the DA is in an existentialist crisis.
Its traditional so-called “Coloured” vote in the Western Cape is suddenly highly prized and contested by new political evangelists. And scarcely can the Caucasian vote be guaranteed neither.
Or why did the righteous and incorrigible DA insist on a coalition with the “devilish”, corrupt and incompetent ANC? No money for guessing this one, save to say that when a party is in terminal decline, it exhibits irrationality that beguiles common sense.
Even more so when it is hypocritical. It yells disturbingly loudly. And while at it, it can sneer derisively at the bedamned Moonshot conspiracy.
Besides, unlike the FF Plus, which is pragmatically right, the DA is an extreme far-right party with dangerous militaristic instincts. To be sure, the ANC can start digging. Shallow or deep, no matter.
The 112-year-old organisation shall be interred therein without ceremony. The DA will minister over their last rites. And possibly over the DA’s too!
When the National Party info wars failed spectacularly, apartheid and its farcical pillars had a cataclysmic and biblical collapse. When the ANC abandoned its post at the front line of info wars, it was humiliated out of its absolute majority.
If the ANC hopes to claw its way back to the battle fronts of the people’s hearts and minds, it has to win the info wars.
The ANC had a death wish, I suppose. It just needed a plan to execute it. As I see it, I prefer the Great Bible of 1539, which says it profoundly…
“Oh how are the mighty overthrown”
* Ambassador Bheki Gila is a barrister-at-law. The views expressed here are his own.
Sunday Independent