White settler colonialism and the trick of electoral politics in “South Africa”

“My father had complete confidence in the intellectual and administrative superiority of the White man. He was convinced that, come what will, these would see him safely through all trouble. It would also enable him to live indefinitely in a state of semi-overlord over the Blacks. He considered this mental superiority the White man’s greatest asset” ( J. C Smuts 1952).

A summary history of African political thought in conquered Azania reveals two dominant traditions in relation to the question of white settler colonialism and white supremacy. The first group of Africans who encountered conquest since 1652 understood the nature of the struggle to be one of “the reconquest of the land and sovereignty” over the territory and existence of Africans. The second group since at least 1853 mainly in the Cape colony which comprised victims of intellectual warfare in the form of the imposition of the institutional framework of European conquest such as liberal democracy understood the nature of the struggle to be reducible to the “right to vote” as the so-called civilized natives. This is not to suggest a chronological nature of the two main traditions of African political thought.

By the time of the founding of “South Africa” as an exclusively white man’s land by the likes of Jan Smuts, these two traditions have always been in contestation. This contestation reached its apex in 1959 and the late 1990s between mainly the Pan-Africanist Congress and the African National Congress or the Azanian school and the Charterist school. The PAC on the premise of African nationalism and the Programme of Action of 1949 embodied the tradition of “the reconquest of the land and sovereignty” while the ANC on the basis of liberal nonracial nationalism and the so-called Freedom Charter represented the tradition of the “right to vote”/ “one man, one vote”. Many of the founding members of the ANC as liberal blacks accepted the legitimacy of a white settler colony called “South Africa” but complained about their exclusion especially the lack of the right to vote. It is in this sense that the ANC never questioned the fundamental structure and institutions of white settler colonialism but wanted to be included. They accepted “South Africa” but lamented the absence within it of the democratic rights of the African majority. Some of its famous leaders such as Nelson Mandela proclaimed their shameless admiration of the Westminster system of the British empire thus European conquerors.

The ANC embodies the tradition of African political thought which fought for the extension of white settler democratic rights to the Indigenous people. The main problem for the ANC was the reconciliation of “South Africa” as a white settler colony and liberal democratic rights of everyone irrespective of race. Once the ANC is located within this tradition of African political thought it becomes easy to categorise it as Civil Rights movement as opposed to a national liberation movement such as the PAC. Since the violent imposition of liberal democracy in 1853 by white settlers in the Cape colony the numerical majority of the Africans has always been one of the sources of “black danger/peril” and swaart gevaar. Of course, the racial and numerical supremacy of the African majority was always the main problem during the wars of reconquest as embodied by the African political thought which foregrounds “reconquest and sovereignty”. But from 1853 it became the fundamental problem within the institutional framework of white settler colonialism. White settlers in the two British colonies of the Cape and Natal fretted about the right to vote and the fear of being overpowered by the African majority to a point of manufacturing their fake majority. Dutch settlers in their so-called Boer republics did not have to worry about the electoral power of the African majority as they excluded them in terms of their constitutions. When the two colonies and republics were consolidated in 1910 to form the Union of South Africa by the likes of Jan Smuts, both the British and Dutch settlers were concerned with the electoral power of the African majority.

In order to reinforce “the right of conquest” these white settlers suppressed the right to vote of the African majority through their constitutions from 1909 to 1983. Following the white supremacist philosophy of Smuts in the sense of “the intellectual and administrative superiority of the White man” these white settlers both British and Dutch decided to fake their numerical majority through a “white democracy”. It is in this sense that the superiority of the White man was attained through cowardice and cheating typical of whites as the “pale fox”. This fake superiority of the White man was reinforced by liberal white settlers who ensured that the unsustainable regime of Apartheid was replaced in 1994 with a liberal democratic regime since the Cape in 1853. These “friends of the natives” were assisted by their “civilized natives” within the ANC in the process of constitution-making from 1993 to 1996. The White man and woman demonstrated their “intellectual and administrative superiority” by rigging the entire liberal democratic regime again in 1996 through tricks such as the creation of the constitutional court and the principles of constitutional supremacy and judicial review.

The cowardice and cheating of white settlers as facilitated by “civilized natives” of the ANC have enabled them so far to “live in a state of semi-overlord over the Blacks” as Smuts stated. It is in this sense that the useless tradition of African political thought of traitorous “civilized natives” as found in the ANC and the annoying naivety and generosity of Africans in general has made the racist arrogance of white settlers such as Smuts to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is on the basis of this brief context that we can comprehend the formation of the so-called government of national unity between the DA of cowardly and cheating white settlers and the ANC of disloyal “civilized natives” and naïvely generous Africans. The naïve and generous Africans who through electoral politics facilitated the ascendency of white settlers through the DA, fail to understand is that the problem is not the rigging of elections, but the fact that the entire system of liberal democracy which was violently imposed by white settlers since 1853 has always been rigged against them and in favour of white settlers. The past thirty years of the so-called constitutional democracy have proven that the tradition of African political thought which foregrounds the “right to vote”/ “one man, one vote” is useless. The naïve and generous African majority must abandon their fascination with the “right to vote”/electoral politics and embrace the tradition of African political thought which pursues “the reconquest of the land and sovereignty” outside the current rigged liberal constitutional democratic framework. It is in this sense that the African majority must reconsider their choice between what Malcolm X called “the ballot or the bullet” thus electoral politics or revolution.

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