False consciousness. The most potent ingredient for any dictatorship: a nation that suffers from mass false consciousness. I googled the definition and chose one which went like this:
1. a Marxist theory that people are unable to see things, especially exploitation, oppression, and social relations, as they really are: the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances.
2. any belief or view that prevents a person from being able to understand the true nature of a situation.
Hence, very possible in a democracy and so a dictatorship in a democratic setting.
Those involved with the United Democratic Front (UDF) in South Africa during the 1980’s would recall the slogan: organise, mobilise and educate!
Integral to their efforts, the activists believed then, was that in order to embarrass the Apartheid government and question its legitimacy they had to ensure that whoever they mobilised and whatever they organised, had to include, as a matter of course, political education.
(In fact, many would believe that the single important challenge in the Mass Democratic Movement today is the question of cadre development and political education; but that for another day.)
The UDF was established as an "alternative” to the Apartheid regime’s plan to establish the Tri-Cameral parliament. Coloured and Indian stooges were used to legitimise the Apartheid folly with each race group i.e. White, Coloured and Indian, having their own parliament. Notably Africans had their own tribal homelands and were therefore only in South Africa for cheap labour.
At the same time, while this UDF activism was happening in South Africa, false consciousness was widespread throughout West. Most noticeable in the UK and the USA, with working class Britons returning Thatcher to 10 Downing Street in 3 consecutive general elections and working class communities in the USA putting Reagan into the White House in 2 presidential elections and then voting Bush Senior into power after Reagan’s second term.
Working class Americans (from the US) and Britons could just not comprehend that Thatcher and Regan/Bush were the most anti-worker leaders their countries ever knew yet they won overwhelming majorities, thanks to working class communities, at every election.
There exists, of course, one could argue a link between false consciousness and Gramsci’s cultural hegemony. The working class suffer from false consciousness as it were because of cultural hegemony or at least the two compliment each other. Thatcher’s glitz and glamour together with Regan’s theatrical moves made the working class go gaga for these leaders even though it was to their own detriment.
The oppressed in SA, in the eighties, would not suffer the same folly. The broad alliance of organisations and leaders that formed the UDF made sure that political education was primary in fighting Apartheid. After all, as Steven Bantu Biko would remind us, the most potent weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Today, the mobilisation and organisation tools of the UDF have somewhat whittled down. It exists in pockets here and there, especially in civil society coalitions – the few that we have – but by and large they are weak. Service delivery protests are the children of the protests and “boycotts” of the eighties: burning tyres/cars, throwing stones, damaging state/municipal property and looting shops. Recent developments by Ses’Khona People’s Movement indicate an emergence of organisation similar to that of the UDF where street committees and organisers play a central role in mass mobilisation. TAC’s success was due to the important emphasis the leadership placed on educating people about diets, about ARV’s and bio-politics.
Yet the great malaise in our politics, especially in the Western Cape, is due to the inability “...to see things, especially exploitation, oppression, and social relations, as they really are: the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances...”
With the 7 May elections done and dusted one cannot but help to think that the working class in the Western Cape must be suffering from the same false consciousness as those Britons and Americans did during the ‘80’s. They elected a woman and party that is the most anti-trade unions and therefore most anti-workers, anti-poor and anti-small business since the dawn of democracy in South Africa.
A good example of this false consciousness: the majority of the estimated 40 000 people who took to the streets in Cape Town a few weeks ago, to rally against the attacks on Gaza do not realize the exploitation, oppression and discord that exists and is happening right here under their noses in the Western Cape. The human rights report on sanitation is but one example. When Ses’Khona People’s Movement march, do these who protest against the occupation and bombardment of Palestine, join them?
In fact the majority of those who marched two weeks ago as well as those who marched this past Friday, voted for the Zionist funded DA on the 7 May; classic false consciousness. It is no secret that the DA is funded by Zionists and yet we see no attempt for those who organise and mobilise around the Palestinian cause to educate marchers about whom the local Zionists are and why the Zionists are doing what they are doing in Palestine. In fact, their argument goes: Palestine is not a party-political issue! What rubbish!
The Premier of the Western Cape should be told that what is happening in Gaza is not a question of religion. It is a question of humanity and it is a question of politics. The same reason why Arab governments have been silent in condemnation of Israeli atrocities is the same reason why our home-grown Zionists are silent: money.
Apartheid fell not because the masses, Black and White, could mobilise and organise but because the activists and their leaders knew that they could never leave education out of the equation. Apartheid Israel will only fall once those inside and outside start realising who their local Zionists are, why the Zionists are occupying Palestine and why Apartheid Israel is bombing Palestine at this point in time.
