Two things at once: both can be true WRITTEN BY Terence Corrigan

Shortly after I filed my column last week, things blew up with President Trump’s executive order on South Africa. It’s been the news. Say what you want about him, Trump has a knack for placing himself at the centre of attention. Or perhaps there is a large community of people with an insatiable appetite for all things Trumpian.

Maybe a bit of both. The Trump phenomenon functions – to put it in a commercial analogy – on dual principles of demand and supply. He thrives on attention, and he knows that the way he’s positioned himself will ensure that he gets it. It’s mildly (or wildly) amusing to remember the wall-to-wall coverage he received when he made his initial bid for the American presidency. “Do it! Do it! Look at me! Do it! I will personally write you a campaign cheque now on behalf of this country which does not want you to be President, but which badly wants you to run!” said comedian John Oliver back at that time, capturing the mix of scorn and amusement with which he was initially seen.

He could attract attention, but there was plenty of demand for what he was offering, a lot of it from his detractors. Trump has been well served by the unrelenting focus his opponents have directed at him.

Probably more than any public figure I can think of, Trump attracts binary responses. People love him or loathe him. I touched on this last week, and it’s one reason I felt last week that his remarks on South Africa and now his executive order are damaging to South Africa. He became, as I’ve said, the story, where the far more consequential issue was the nature of the law.

And, unfortunately, the binary response to Trump went straight into the reaction and the “debate” – such as it has been – around the Act. There has been remarkably little analysis, and very little criticism, of what this means. Business Unity South Africa, for example, went in to bat for the Act. A journalist at The Citizen, Mandla Mthembu, wrote a piece with the self-explanatory headline “Expropriation Act paves the way for land reform and justice”. Even Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen – though admittedly now hogtied as a government minister – “clarified” the Act (though give his party its due, the DA is taking it to court).

Lambasting Trump

A large volume of commentary was directed at lambasting Trump, and caricaturing its claims. Some of these fell into a very doubtful truth zone themselves, such as the claim that AfriForum had promoted the myth of white genocide (including by a piece on a website that bills itself as providing “rigorously-checked, independent and easy-to-understand news”). AfriForum has, whatever its sins, not promoted this idea. Both Bongani Bingwa and the Mail and Guardian have had to back down after making such claims. That the accusation is resurfacing is regrettable and lamentable, and says nothing positive about the people making these accusations.

“But the funniest thing of all, in a good way, is that it has united a deeply divided country. Nothing unites people more effectively than a common enemy”, wrote John Matisonn. Well: among much of the country’s political class, business elite and commentariat, anyway. The real problem, I’d suggest, is to be found in Matisonn’s own wording: “Enemy”. Think about that for a moment: South Africa clustering together in combat with an opponent with whom there can be no agreement or compromise.

There’s that binary again. And be careful of it, because we stand to be stuck with this legislation long after Trump is no longer available to be a channel for our disaffections. The dangers for the country’s future are profound too. This is akin to political tribalism. It sets us up for a zero-sum non-conversation where views conflict rather than compete.

The point is, it’s possible to believe two things at the same time. One might recognise that Trump is profoundly wrong on his claims that farms were being confiscated; but also that the Expropriation Act is damaging to South Africa’s future and needs to be thoroughly reworked. I’m seeing very little of that right now.

Genocide

Or try this: there is no genocide of white people (or anyone else) in South Africa, and claims that there is genocide are simply wrong. That doesn’t mean that there are not victims of crime or violence, or that there are no legitimate concerns regarding such pathologies as farm attacks. These are entirely rational, as is the criticism of the state’s response. I can attest to the fears for person and property that farming households experience. Being relatively isolated makes them vulnerable. The abolition of the commando system removed a key element of farm security, imperfect as it may have been. And the rhetoric coming from many senior political figures has been unconscionably incendiary. It’s not only Trump who engages in this…

Or how about this: South Africa suffers from an enormous intergenerational overhang of state-mandated discrimination (“the legacy of apartheid”). But it does not follow that the current regime of race-based policy – Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, Employment Equity – is either morally right or economically productive. Quite the contrary. The drive to manipulate outcomes has created a dreadful incentive structure within the economy, encouraging rent-seeking rather than entrepreneurship. Demands for the surrender of equity amounts to a direct tax on investment and has chased it away. Meanwhile, durable solutions – things like improving education, enforcing law and order, getting the country’s infrastructure functioning efficiently: all critical for a productive business environment and the opportunities it provides – are hard, unsexy and sometimes unpopular things to undertake. So, they are ignored.

Such binaries have exercised a cloying hold on our politics over the years.  It’s the framing of our choices as “doing nothing” or “doing everything we’re doing now, and a lot more on top of it”. Or an instant-fix moralism where the choice is between “more of this” (even if it’s not working or it’s roundly counterproductive) and “letting people die”. It never ceases to amaze me how readily some of us default to this thinking.

And it’s crippling not only our public debate but the prospects of finding solutions to the enormous problems that confront us.

source:Two things at once: both can be true – Daily Friend