Like Hamas, the ANC exploits inequality to stay in power

Comparing the ANC to Hamas is almost as awkward as likening our CEOs to Israeli leaders. Yet beyond the many differences lie hard truths. Somewhat similarly, despite China’s economy and ours being nearly polar opposites, both are bedevilled by the same core affliction.

If youth unemployment accurately gauges a political party’s ability to deliver a better future — and it does — Hamas and the ANC are among the world’s worst. A large majority of our current 20-somethings will never be meaningfully employed. Prospects for our teenagers are no better. Ditto for young Gazans.

Like our business leaders’ pursuit of investment-led growth, Israeli efforts to develop commercial and diplomatic relations with Muslim nations were well-reasoned but relied upon far too much. 

There were no plausible scenarios whereby investment-led growth could resolve our youth unemployment crisis prior to a generation being condemned to a life sentence in the “open-air prison” of sub-subsistence grants. The July 2021 riots were a cautionary tale.

Israel was in the process of being accepted by many of its neighbours, as the entire region must transition from excess reliance on exporting commodities, specifically hydrocarbons. Politics anchored in blaming the West and Western ways subverts such transitions. 

Our business leaders working with government counterparts to pursue investment-led growth is sensible on many levels, such as encouraging pro-growth policies. But it was never realistic to presume that such efforts would spur adequate job creation; or that Israel’s bridge-building with its neighbours would assuage Hamas. Both efforts to align interests were maliciously exploited.   

Unlike SA, China achieved tremendous growth and competitiveness by focusing on adding value within global supply chains. Yet China’s economy still doesn’t produce sufficient domestic demand to fuel sustained high growth. Nor does ours.

Given its effect on capital markets, analysts fully appreciate that China’s domestic demand is insufficient to sustain healthy middle-class growth. While Gaza and SA also lack adequate domestic demand, along with nearly all of the Middle East and Africa, various politically-motivated voices link widespread poverty in Gaza and SA to Western-induced types of apartheid. Yet by rejecting integration with affluent economies governments inflame poverty.

How victim narratives are framed

As anti-Israel protests make front-page headlines, the framing of victim narratives is suddenly attracting considerable scrutiny. In the background looms a Cold War predicated on authoritarianism being able to stare down democratic governments. 

Meanwhile, generational divergences amplify geographic differences. As opportunities flourished in countries embracing global integration, the ANC and Hamas squandered their citizens’ prospects. Youthful ambitions were devastated. 

The swift outpouring of progressive students at elite Western universities marching to support Hamas could, perhaps, be labelled misplaced youthful exuberance if it wasn’t so patently anti-Semitic. While the careers of some student protesters could suffer, the repercussions are more immediate for those a generation older who hold key positions at universities and media outlets.

Instantaneous support for Hamas’ October 7 attack exposed grotesquely overindulged woke-ism. This traces to students at prestigious universities being taught that language is sufficiently imprecise that all interpretations are valid. 

Language is imprecise, and we should be open to diverse perspectives. However, how individuals and communities interpret events and ideas has always had consequences. What changed is that some privileged people now presume that survival pressures have been repealed — at least for them — and they are entitled to indulge their biases when interpreting the world around them. Yet while they have not been the ones suffering for their indulgences, the implications for them are now rising.

Whereas the country’s security hinges on defeating Hamas, by insisting that Israel is responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza, students, professors and commentators incentivise Hamas to hide behind human shields. Might woke-ism’s survival now be threatened as its support for barbaric behaviours alongside blatant anti-Semitism is confronted by left-leaning moderates?

How inequality is politically exploited

SA’s parallel to such misframed debates is how inequality is politically exploited. Western universities and corporations have interwoven diversity, inclusion and equity as complementary tools for bludgeoning Western accomplishments. Whereas the first two are easy to defend and support, prioritising equity amid rampant unemployment provides a smokescreen for large-scale patronage and corruption.

As woke-ism’s hostility towards problem solving will now attract much scrutiny across the West and beyond, SA must similarly confront how prioritising inequality worsens poverty and unemployment, thus ultimately amplifying inequality. Ideally, opposition parties would be pointing out how our governing party exploits inequality to manipulate the electorate. Yet directly challenging inequality politics could easily backfire.

Many who endeavour to be broadly informed have recently seen videos of Gazan children being indoctrinated by schoolteachers to hate Jews. Israel sought to counter this through creating jobs and building ties with Muslim nations. But this was tricky, as many neighbouring governments are deeply anti-Hamas whereas their citizens sympathise with Gazans, who will now be even poorer for having lost so many relatively well-paid — and vital — jobs with Israeli employers.

The ANC doesn’t rely on schools to indoctrinate — or to teach. It focuses, economically and politically on redistribution to the point of being hostile towards increasing productivity, competitiveness and global integration. While cloaking its religion-like fervour in Marxist rhetoric, its policies provoke dependencies, which make a mockery of liberation sloganeering. Nor can “new dawn” taglines be reconciled with youth unemployment, which is as extreme as it is entrenched.

The ANC’s political economics relies on chanting inequality and exporting commodities, as much as Hamas relies on instilling ethnic hate among Gazan children. Given the current destruction it is difficult to imagine how Gazans will ever reject hate and begin to prosper, but at some point a new low will trigger new forms of determination.

Israel’s leaders seek to work with neighbouring countries to transition away from overreliance on commodity exporting. Our CEOs want to work with the ANC to help transition SA’s economy. But the ANC’s motivation to co-operate with big business centres on attracting funding. 

As the ANC’s redistribution-focused mindset downplays improving productivity it disregards investing in people. Instead, the party scores politically from evangelising inequality. Our commercially capable, though largely pale male, CEOs are in no position to rally against the ANC’s unaffordable fetishisation of inequality.

Gazans have had to hit a real low for Hamas’ self-serving and hateful tactics to now be under threat. We lack workable paths to purge the ANC’s electorally effective exploitation of inequality, except perhaps if our diverse voices can unite around tackling youth unemployment.