Yesterday there were interesting news in South Africa. It would seem that a political group called the “Economic Freedom Fighters” are planning to lay charges against the deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, the former police prime minister Nathi Mthethwa and the top police management for the deaths of 44 people at Marikana three years ago. You can read all the details in the article “Markana: EFF to lay charges” from the IOL News – South Africa.
What interests us is not the fact that a civil organization bordering on the left edge of the political spectrum (the EFF) is attempting to use an incident that happened 3 years ago as a means to discredit their political opponents. From their website (Economic Freedom Fighters) they define themselves as:
“The EFF is a radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement with an internationalist outlook anchored by popular grassroots formations and struggles.”
Basically, they are deluded communists that are stuck in a time warp. Eventually reality will smack them around and they will realize that communism is dead simply does not work.
What interests us are their demands. Of course they want “justice”, preferably if “justice” just happen to sink their political opponents. But there is more to the story. They demand R10 million for each victim’s family and R5 million for each worker who was injured. Which is deeply odd considering that they are Marxist-Leninists.
This is something that most people will miss but it is nevertheless of crucial importance. The underlying idea is that “justice” is all good and fine but the main purpose of “justice” should be to provide reparations to a degree that more-or-less compensates for the damage that was done. This is something that we do not typically see in Western-style justice where there are two defined tracks: criminal and civil. In this case, the death of many people is clearly framed in criminal law, yet, the EFF insist in civil reparations. And this is the right thing to do.
Our very own views on how “justice” should operate is also aligned with this concept (see Justice In The Austro Libertarian System). It is interesting to see that even the most radical political points of view sometimes do behave with common sense.
Of course, we fully expect that all these “intentions” fizzle in thin air leading nowhere fast as the real deal is ironed out behind closed doors. This is political maneuvering plain and simple, yet, there is at least one correct idea behind it.
What further interests us is the notion that as a consequence of these political operations people are being educated correctly. Sure, the EFF will wrap-up their demand in their ridiculous ideology, but in the background there will be a concept left to grow: money is important; money matters. Much that the EFF claims:
“The EFF is a South African movement with a progressive internationalist outlook, which seeks to engage with global progressive movements. We believe that the best contribution we can make in the international struggle against global imperialism is to rid our country of imperialist domination. For the South African struggle, the EFF pillars for economic emancipation are the following:
- Expropriation of South Africa’s land without compensation for equal redistribution in use.
- Nationalisation of mines, banks, and other strategic sectors of the economy, without compensation.
- Building state and government capacity, which will lead to the abolishment of tenders.
- Free quality education, healthcare, houses, and sanitation.
- Massive protected industrial development to create millions of sustainable jobs, including the introduction of minimum wages in order to close the wage gap between the rich and the poor, close the apartheid wage gap and promote rapid career paths for Africans in the workplace.
- Massive development of the African economy and advocating for a move from reconciliation to justice in the entire continent.
- Open, accountable, corrupt-free government and society without fear of victimisation by state agencies.”
In the end people will realize that all this has been tried before, it is a blatant contradiction in terms and it failed miserably. Then, people will evolve. Of course, as South Africans just recently came out from a dictatorial regime, many of them are still stuck in a tribal mind-set. Which means that they have not yet evolved passing the communist/socialist phase. That’s OK. Political evolution cannot be rushed. But with political parties as the EFF, evolution is guaranteed to happen in the minimum amount of time. We positively love! radical politicians and political ideas because there is no fuzz. They go straight to the debacle and chaos. No intermediate stops. And the sooner people become thoroughly disillusioned with their theories, the sooner people evolve.
In any case, it is a case (redundantly redundant) of one step at the time. Meanwhile, we don’t mind coherent points of view, even if on the way to economic oblivion.
Unless you are a South African who believes that communism is the way to go thus forfeiting all further economic gains and increases in standards of living. If that’s the case, enjoy!
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
