Throwing stones in the digital sandbox: Corrigan - Biznews

Terence Corrigan

In its formative days, social media was punted as the great democratiser of political debate. It would enable untold (and hitherto unheard) millions to have a voice in public debate, free from the explicit or implied barriers of space and invitation that made traditional media the province of elites. This was the new public square, a digital arena where we could all get involved in hashing out the big questions. 

That this proved an optimistic reading is to put it mildly. Social media opened the gates and removed the safety barriers. Rather than encouraging debate, it often serves to foster confrontation, often catering to some of society’s baser instincts. Inclusive, perhaps, but hardly democratic in any meaningful sense. 

Bad enough when ordinary folks engage in this – though there is something ripely pathetic about the self-importance that attaches to the pronouncements of someone hiding behind a handle like @spankthemonkey69 – it is quite unsettling when supposedly serious political figures do it. And when they use it to communicate important messages.  

Enter Fikile Mbalula, secretary general of the African National Congress. AKA Mr Razmatazz, his demeanour obscures the not inconsiderable power that he wields through his office, in effect as its most senior bureaucrat. Historically that’s a role that has mattered.  

Right now – and I’ve said this before (plenty of times) – foreign affairs are occupying a rare prominence in the country, what with South Africa having attracted the attention and disfavour of the United States. The implications of this for us are dire, centering mostly on access to a market that is both large and receptive to our manufactured products, and capital markets that could rev up the stuttering national engine. We need that relationship. 

But not all that much, apparently, according to our foreign affairs department, who issued a démarche to the new ambassador after 17 days in office.  

Mbalula mounted his X account to expound on this. (By the way, what kind of name is X? It works well for a children’s pirate story as in “marks the spot”, was great for a TV series when conjoined with “Files”, is a great superhero band when paired with “Men”, and has a certain titillating brand recognition when linked up with “rated material”; but as a platform for debate, it conveys the wrong message: generic, thoughtless, indistinct. Still, maybe that matches the tenor of what takes place on it.) 

Quoth Mbalula: “Bozell came here and spoke out of turn even before he presented his credentials, he fought against this democracy by protesting OR Tambo. He disrespected and undermined our courts. We will not allow disrespect and that’s why our government decided to demarche him because of his undiplomatic utterances.” 

Where does one start?  

I think it’s worth stating that, technically, Bozell’s actions in the 1980s were not directed “at this democracy” but at the ANC. Now as it happens, any resolution of the impasse at the time needed the ANC’s involvement. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the system of governance and the party that has presided over it for the past three decades are not coterminous.   

Did he “undermine our courts”? Well, he dismissed the veracity of a court decision. Not politic by any means, but hardly something that poses a danger to the rule of law. There is a big different between accepting the judgment or a court as a matter of law and feeling that it has not captured a significant moral or political implication in its ruling. The ANC has returned to this point repeatedly over the years.  

Mbalula continued: “We won’t be told by an ambassador what to do when it comes to our transformation policies, our courts independence will always be respected and protected.” 

That’s encouraging, and a bit of a stretch. Back in the 1990s, the ANC pledged to extend its hold over all “levers of power”, including the courts. Documents from its Deployment Committee indicated that in addition to fielding CVs, it had in fact considered the appointment of judges. Absent holding a gun to a judge’s head, a more damaging undermining of judicial independence would be hard to imagine. 

Besides, there is a long train of thinking in the ANC that is considerably more dismissive of the country’s courts than anything that the ambassador had to say. Those of us with long memories –prior, incidentally, to the advent of social media – remember how the courts were part of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy. Completely untransformed.  

Later, when they were “transformed”, it didn’t seem to make much difference. The courts were trying to “co-govern”, and represented in any event “the white man’s way” (Jacob Zuma – as president). The whole constitutional edifice was a “fatal compromise” (Ngoaka Ramatlhodi). When courts made inconvenient decisions, they would, from time to time, be “disregarded”; we mustn’t get too hung up on “judicial purism” (Gwede Mantashe). Black judges were “mentally colonised” (Lindiwe Sisulu).  

I hasten to add that South Africa has retained a robust judiciary, which has regularly ruled against the government. I think it’s also fair to make the point that the ANC’s conduct has not been an uninterrupted litany of hostility. It was one of President Mandela’s contributions that he urged respect for the courts, even as many of his colleagues damned them as apartheid hangovers. He was even prepared to testify on an executive decision (though it apparently made his blood boil to do so). “Respected and protected”? Well, not always. This is profoundly important stuff. 

The X-verse meanwhile, is a rabbit hole that dangerously trivialises all this. From behind digital bulwarks, and speaking into a raucous void, there is every incentive to escalate, revelling in the applause of one’s tribe. The problem is that such messages are not confined to the immediate target audience. They are accessible to all. (And in the current American president, there is someone likewise given to diplomacy on X. Or on Truth Social. Top tip: be wary when anyone appropriates the word “truth”.) 

But both message and delivery tell me that the South African side has no particular interest in dialling back any of the tensions between the two countries. Trump can’t be easy to interact with to be sure, but Mbalula denotes the self-defeating South African response. For the moment, an economic deal remains elusive, without much prospect of one on the horizon.  

South Africa’s people can expect to take a knock from this, but I can’t help hearing in the background the words of Lord Farquaad from the first Shrek movie: “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.” 

Bombast and foolishness are not features against which politics can readily be immunised. This has become all the more so with communication platforms that resemble less the arena of ideational contestation than a toddler’s sandbox after a rainstorm. 

Terence Corrigan is the Project Manager at the Institute, where he specialises in work on property rights, as well as land and mining policy. A native of KwaZulu-Natal, he is a graduate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg). He has held various positions at the IRR, South African Institute of International Affairs, SBP (formerly the Small Business Project) and the Gauteng Legislature – as well as having taught English in Taiwan. He is a regular commentator in the South African media and his interests include African governance, land and agrarian issues, political culture and political thought, corporate governance, enterprise and business policy.

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This article was first published on the Daily Friend.