As we enter the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century in a few months, we are confronted with questions that not only need answers but action. But before we even commence the business of answering the questions, we must at least dissect these questions, make meaning of them, analysing them using revolutionary tools of analysis, through this we can reconcile our minds in being ready to answer these questions.

In this article I will analyse Frantz Fanon’s Chapter 3, “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness”, in his book The Wretched of the Earth, appropriate from the chapter to expose the Pitfalls of South Africa’s pseudo-democracy and in this expose, I will also use Marx’s dialectical materialism to make meaning of the phenomena and in so doing try and map a way forward which will be rooted in theory and practice.

In “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness, Frantz Fanon invites us to analyse the “national bourgeoisie” which in this case is the new political elite, the BEE comrades, higher-ranking members of the liberation party/movement(ANC members) that come into power after independence or in our context, post-apartheid. This national bourgeoisie must be noted that it is not necessarily in charge, they are in charge on paper and the reason they are not in charge is because they have no idea what they are doing.

“The national bourgeoisie turns its back more and more on the interior and on the real facts of the underdeveloped country, and tends to look towards the former mother country and the foreign capitalists who count on its obliging compliance. As it does not share its profits with the people and in no way allows them to enjoy any of the dues that are paid to it by the big foreign companies, it will discover the need for a popular leader to whom will fall the dual role of stabilizing the regime and of perpetuating the domination of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie dictatorship of underdeveloped countries draws its strength from a leader.” Frantz Fanon, 1961. This is already prevalent in South Africa as white monopoly capital, a very organized group, funded the campaign of Cyril Ramaphosa to ascend as the President of the ANC and de facto the country. They bought him the Presidency so that he can administer their affairs, whilst through the media which they have always captured, the poor masses on the ground are sold the idea of this Messiah-like saviour, who will bring investment, stabilize the economy. It must be noted that the power of this media is suffocating as it vindicates with auspicious lies any alternative party or leader that might come and disrupt the status quo.

These pitfalls show themselves as time goes by in the reign of the national bourgeoisie. The national bourgeoisie has gotten comfortable, lazy and uninventive because they are not in the business of actually governing and including the poor masses in the economy, but in the business of administration for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. “The struggle against the bourgeoisie of under-developed countries is far from being a theoretical one. It is not concerned with making out it’s condemnation as laid down by the judgement of history. The national bourgeoisie of under-developed countries must not be opposed because it threatens to slow down the total, harmonious development of the nation. It must be stoutly opposed because, literally, it is good for nothing.” Frantz Fanon, 1961. This struggle qualifies itself not through us having to convince each other and wasting time in trying to find something that’s progressive about this national bourgeoisie, it qualifies itself through the lived experiences and current material conditions of the lumpen proletariat that haven’t improved over the last 25 years of this bogus democracy.

Fanon then requests us to envisage a party that is different from the liberation movement which is reaching its expiry date, a party that is by the people and for the people, a party which regularly is critical of itself and looks to correct itself decisively. “In an underdeveloped country, the leading members of the party ought to avoid the capital as if it had the plague. They ought, with some few exceptions, to live in country districts. The centralization of all activity in the city ought to be avoided. No excuse of administrative discipline should be taken as legitimizing that excrescence of a capital which is already over-populated and over-developed with regard to nine-tenths of the country. The party should be decentralized in the extreme. It is the only way to bring life to regions which are dead, those regions which are not yet awakened to life.” Frantz Fanon, 1961. In our context, Fanon is saying we must imagine a party where the leaders of the party live in the rural areas, for example, the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, North West and Northern Cape and so forth, avoiding Gauteng and the Western Cape, whilst we acknowledge the brilliance of this idea especially in assisting in regions where the party is dead and the masses are living from the palms of the liberation movement, the capital itself assists in the party keeping its relevance in mainstream politics and having information about what is happening in the country. The dangers of the leadership living in the capital is the tendencies of the capital. The capital swallows, captures a revolutionary and turns him to a stooge who envies the life of the national bourgeoisie and its decadent overconsumption of frivolous amenities which are rejects of the mother country. The capital in essence distracts and delays the revolution.

CLR James in his Essay (1947) titled the “Dialectical Materialism and the Fate of Humanity”, states that “the second law of dialectical materialism is the change of quantity into quality. At a certain stage a developing contradiction, so to speak, explodes, and both the elements of contradiction are thereby altered. In the history of society these explosions are known as revolution. All the economic, social and political tendencies of the age find a point of completion which becomes the starting-point of new tendencies.” This second law was formulated by Karl Marx progressing on Hegelian dialectics. It’s important to simplify this law through analysing the South African political dynamic and context. I think that before we can get to an explosion, it is those tendencies of the national bourgeoisie that must be sharpened for all to witness so that when their reach their completion, we will have the chance at that “starting-point” to create the revolutionary tendencies which we seek to see. This moment might in the near future be characterised as a cultural revolution that won’t overthrow the state and liberation movement but will serve as a springboard for the revolution that is bound to happen.

The next decade offers a new opportunity in how the revolutionary party itself, the Economic Freedom Fighters matures in the way it runs its organization, deals with the reactionary and counter-revolutionary mainstream media or creates its own media by taking its machinery to the people. It is the Economic Freedom Fighters advantage in always being consistent in how they sharpen the contradictions prevalent at a specific time whether in parliament, press briefings or through the work done by their councillors in municipalities. The declarations adopted at party assemblies will gradually change as time goes by in the new decade, but what’s important is they change with urgency in addressing the current conditions of the dispossessed, dejected and landless masses of our people.

Independent Media journalist and seasoned investigator Piet Rampedi has recently come under fire for his call for an inquiry into the media fraternity. He argues that there is a capture in media circles which has resulted in individuals constituting themselves as cabals, pushing particular political narratives and defending certain discourses at the expense of fairness and neutrality, core principles that underscore journalism. His claim is not one he shares alone, most recently the Economic Freedom Fighter’s has been on the frontlines of questioning how reporting is done in South Africa and how media entities constitute themselves as proxies within political battles in the country. Although I agree, I would argue there is a deeper analysis that must be done. That is to actually investigate the environment that produces such cabals, its ideological, infrastructural and financial underpinnings. This is to say that the cabal culture that exists in the media fraternity is a product of a deep-seated problem, a problem of the economic system and political actors that produce a distinct type of media, one that exists for particular interests, and employs journalists into existing biases.

The claims for anyone interested in objectivity are not as baseless as those who are accused like to present. Veteran journalist and Co-Editor of the Sunday Times Ranjeni Munusamy was the first scalp to fall in the Zondo Commission of Inquiry on State Capture, where it was alleged by a senior Hawks official that her car payments were covered by a Criminal intelligence slush fund. Another veteran, Karima Brown was also found guilty of not being balanced after making allegations of a patronage network against the likes of Gwede Mantashe and former SABC officials. She was subsequently found to be in breach of provisions of the Broadcasting Complaints Commissions’ code of South Africa, and of not affording individuals the right of reply. Right wing hero journalist Barry Batemen was caught referring to Julius Malema as a poes, weaponizing female genitilia into an insult, and the likes of Ferial Haffajee, Peter Bruce and Max Du Preez have found themselves firstly denying the existence of the rogue unit of Pravin Gordhan in totality, to attempting to argue for it having been established legally. These are individuals who have been at the centre of what is much larger problem in the media fraternity, which is narrative manipulation for the political expediency of certain political actors.

The narratives that have been manipulated, and the seemingly caucused persistence on how to handle certain political actors as opposed to others has been palpable. This has been the hallmark of a Ramaphosa and Gordhan Presidency, which has resulted in mainstream media in South Africa being a PR desk of a faction of the ruling party the ANC. One minute we are told that the establishing of patronage networks by former President Jacob Zuma in the ANC and the state constitute state capture, as certain individuals purchase influence over the ruling party and inevitable placement in key sectors of the state. The next the incredible revelations of billions of rands being spent on the election of Cyril Ramaphosa into the ANC Presidency, and ipso facto state Presidency is an evil justified to fight another, which must be applauded and defended. This despite that entities such as Bidvest and Bosasa which dominated donations to his campaign have been privy to tenders with the very state that Ramaphosa has led for the past decade. This despite the suspicious coincidence of role players and donors to his Presidential campaign being placed in strategic sectors of our economy and state such as the office of the Ministry of Public Enterprises in the form of Pravin Gordhan, Maria Ramos at Eskom to oversee the SOE’s surrender to capital and the recent and shocking display of lack of policy sovereignty that came in the form of the Harvard and George Soros funded economic recovery strategy released by the treasury.

All of this, coupled with a declining economy, rampant violence in society, unemployment and sophisticated corruption is something established media entities have turned a blind eye to. Rather, they have taken it upon themselves to focus their energies on the third largest opposition party in South Africa, the EFF. Their focus has come in a range of forms, all in an effort to create a devil to contrast their angel. The critique of media bias by the EFF has been framed as an attack by the compromised, supposedly the popularity of the EFF has declined despite the scientific evidence of the recent elections which illustrate otherwise, and the EFF’s policy perspectives and political actions have been deliberately mischaracterised as fascist and authoritarian, without any substantive reading or understanding of them. However, the shining light in the detracting tunnel of an underwhelming media fraternity has to be the matter of VBS.

The Venda Building Society Mutual Bank which was liquidated in 2018 has to be one of the most jarring instances of ANC led corruption post 1994. A black run bank where the deposits of the elderly from the villages of Limpopo was pillaged through unsophisticated corruption, which saw the fictitious deposits created in VBS accounts, while real money was transferred from the bank to corrupt beneficiaries. It saw ANC led municipalities illegally invest municipal funds into VBS in exchange for kickbacks, and embattled audit firm KPMG was caught in the middle of an elaborate cover up. Adv Terry Motau SC illustrated in a report into the heist that almost 2 billion was lost in the swindling of the bank and named almost 50 beneficiaries. None of them were the EFF as an entity or its leaders.

The second scandal relates to a fleet tender in the DA led City of Johannesburg with a service provider named Afrirent. According to Amabhungane, an investigative news publication, there was an irregular awarding of a tender to the service provider and it attempts to locate the EFF and its leadership at the centre of that, citing a supposed proximity to subsidiary service providers namely Mahuna Investments and Santaclara. They claim that the EFF received a series of kickbacks at particular moments prior or post the tender being provided to Afrirent, but have no prima facie evidence linking the EFF, or its leadership to payments whether directly or indirectly. Furthermore, the interesting part is that no irregularity has been found in terms of how the City of Johannesburg (which is ironically not at the centre of interrogation) awarded this tender to the service provider, but rather, a shadow of doubt is cast on the legitimacy of the entities it sub-contracted, presenting its directors as fronts, and the companies themselves as slush funds.

These conclusions are reached through what can only be deemed as confirmation bias, where Amabhungane has confirmed wrongdoing through suspicion and its own inability to prove its own suspicions wrong. This has resulted in a strange scenario, where the burden of proof for not being corrupt is placed on those who are accused, yet there is no substantive evidence of corruption. Afrirent is put in a bizarre situation where it is asked as to whether it complied with contractual process that are nowhere in any level of business regulation in the sector, such as whether they investigated whether the directors and companies they contracted to provide services have any links with political parties or people, and to disclose sensitive information relating to services rendered. Amabhungane has no proof, and thus relies on repetition, speculation and their own lack of investigative ability as the basis for guilt on the part of the EFF.

The most immediate and the most distant family relations of the leaders of the EFF has become grounds for the EFF being corrupt. Perhaps more interestingly, one cannot help but wonder why is it that the two biggest political parties in the country, which ought to be at the centre of investigation for both scenarios mentioned above are not the ones subject to weekly front-page scrutiny? It certainly is not for lack of corruption or evidence in terms of the ANC, and is certainly as a result of simply a lack of trying in the form of the DA. The reality is that the current ANC regime is one that must be spared any shadow of doubt when it comes to corruption, as it does not fit well into the New Dawn Agenda to which the DA plays a supportive role. The two political parties are two sides of the same coin, whom if challenged results in media entities that are vocal on Ramaphosa and Gordhan corruption such as Iqbal Surve’s Independent Media being raided, and journalists that do not succumb to the pressure such as Piet Rampedi and Mzilikazi wa Afrika being isolated and defamed.

For the EFF it is simply a matter of accepting that it constitutes itself as an immediate class enemy to the interests of capitalist power in South Africa. The media attitude towards it therefore goes beyond individual biases but is a manifestation of the very fabric of the media fraternity towards certain legislative and political perspectives in the country.

The likes of Amabhungane have amongst their donors George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, a known regime change kingpin and capitalist threat to the sovereign development of the global south. An investment firm named the Omidyar Network with “reimagining capitalism” as part of its core objectives, and the Bertha Foundation, with its roots in England and closely linked to Oxfam.

The developmental aspirations of institutions established under the vision of Hungarian capitalist Soros’s are those of privatisation and weakening the role and control of the state on economies and social development in countries. It goes without saying that this is not in sync with an EFF that is against the privatisation of State-Owned Entities and stands firmly against the corruption that characterises the relationship between Independent Power Producers, state political actors and private entities. The less said on perspective regarding land, banks and mines the better.

It goes without saying that the EFF is an enemy of NGO’s that align themselves with companies that thrive off perverse outsourcing relations with the South African state, where workers are exploited and prices for services rendered are inflated. If for a basic example these are funders of a media sector which thrives on speculative investigation on the EFF, then the sincerity under which these reports are written must be put under scrutiny, for the mantra of he who feeds you controls you comes into effect. Investment companies, NGO’s that fund media entities under the guise of strengthening democracies must be placed under scrutiny. We know very well investment companies, banks are currently playing a critical role in being debt providers and asset managers of private entities that are usurping the functions of the state at an alarming rate under Ramaphosa and Gordhan. Mind you these are individuals who have a large stake of ownership in the very private sector that seeks to be in business with the state.

The democratic project in South Africa has long been one that is compromised, but it has now reached a point where we need to remove the blind folds which make us naïve. The assumed neutrality of the media and NGO sector to the developmental project of the South African state, and its actors has to be done away with, and all must be engaged with an understanding that there are material interests in the legislative, ideological and economic direction of the country. It can then justly be said that journalists who find themselves in compromised cabals in this country are fighting battles that are above their heads in the interests of actors far larger than them. Everyone is in a war for their interests to remain intact, and the left in South Africa must begin to appreciate this fact, especially when it comes to the media.