IN ITS various forms nationalism lends itself to the development of a very particular kind of language. When it is crude and strong and has in its grip some crisis-torn or subservient society, its rhetoric is all-encompassing and unconditional.
Emotion is both its calling card and its great enforcer, and it evokes its most commanding terms. Words like "love" and "hate", "patriotism" and "treason", "friends" and "enemies" punctuate its instruction to the world. In the face of adversity and resistance, then, it is grand and unqualified when it enjoys moral authority. These are the building blocks at the heart of an "us" and "them" universe so particular to nationalistic discourse.
It is also true that, when nationalism is a minor influence on a people and desperate for attention, absolutism is how it endears itself to the susceptible. Its great appeal is the certainty it offers to the insecure, and certainty requires conviction. It talks of "the people" and of "revolution", it evokes "history" and makes "the past" compete with "the future". Through emotional grandeur, it captures hearts and minds.
In short, when both powerful and power-hungry, nationalism turns to those baser instincts that fuel the fear it generates and the affirmation it bestows on its chosen people in equal measure. That is reflected, in turn, in the language it deploys. Those words have meaning because behind them lies power.
However, when caught between two worlds, when nationalism is both powerful and weak — in command but out of control — its language too becomes ambiguous. For Then the strength and weakness inherent to fundamentalism begins to work against it: its every word divides as much as it unites. And even "love" can generate hate. And so it seeks refuge in uncertainty, in the obscure and vague. Those great emotional dividers become couched in euphemism and suggestion.
South Africa currently constitutes such an environment. The African National Congress (ANC), once an all-powerful political force is in disarray; its conduct and policy — and with those two things, its legitimacy — is under relentless and brutal assault on a wide variety of fronts.
Where once Thabo Mbeki would tell the country it was a land of two nations, one black, the other white, with all the hegemonic authority of a king, today its plea is for "unity" and consideration for "the national good".
It is ironic indeed that nationalism should need power in order to practise division but divisiveness is its lifeblood. Without the ability to enforce it, all it can do is plead.
There are very practical consequences for all of this. One of the most peculiar is the effect of this uncertainty on those words one assumes have a common understanding. They become hollowed out of meaning, contradictory and nonsensical. A country’s democratic lexicon becomes corrupted because every hard idea must be subverted if its intended purpose is to be denuded of value. "Accountability", "transparency", "consultation", "freedom", "justice", "separation of powers", "free speech" and many others; all these ideas are currently contested. And, in every case, the ANC’s contribution is to further strip them of meaning and definitive purpose.
It is true, in any democratic order principles and values are always contested. But in a mature democracy those disputes usually involve application of a principle, as opposed to a fight over the nature of its fundamental tenants. When a basic premise is under attack and that attack sustained over time, there is a trickle-down effect. Words that rank lower in democratic importance are likewise negatively affected. In South Africa, the poison has infected the very bottom of the barrel.
Take the word "recommendation", for example. It is common cause that the word is a synonym for suggestion — a proposal or advice. In blocking the portfolio committee on communications’ decision to "recommend" to President Jacob Zuma that South African Broadcasting Corporation chairwoman Ellen Tshabalala be suspended, parliamentary chairman of committees Cedric Frolick, argued: "We can’t go so far that we interfere with the competencies of the president."
Parliament, he said, should not "prescribe" what action the president should take.
Well quite. But the committee did no such thing. It merely made a recommendation. That is, it provided the president with its considered opinion and made a suggestion. It is up to the president whether or not he accepts it as valid. But Frolick, who clearly believes the president is too obtuse to distinguish between choice and instruction, has negated that possibility. You can be fairly sure the president approves.
The great irony of Frolick’s attitude is that he simultaneous chairs the ad hoc committee on Nkandla, the very purpose of which, from an ANC’s perspective, is to contest the idea that the public protector’s findings are prescriptive and advocate they constitute mere recommendations.
He has done much to facilitate that narrative.
So, prescriptive recommendations for the portfolio committee, nonprescriptive recommendations for the public protector. The word can mean whatever Frolick wants it to mean. And in turn, it means nothing. It cannot have a set meaning, because that would necessitate action and accountability. And that must be avoided at all costs.
That is an example fresh in the public mind. But there are many others and, often, the disease is far more subtle and mendacious.
All hard ideas have their edges sanded down. "Failure" becomes "challenge". "Decision" becomes "consideration". "Crime" becomes "indiscretion". "Promise" becomes "suggestion". "Deadline" becomes "goal". "Emergency" becomes "fast track". "Nonnegotiable" becomes "priority".
And, perhaps more insidiously, meaning shifts. "Respect" means "deference". "Patriotism" means "party loyalty". "Inclusivity" means "exclusivity". "Consensus" becomes "partisan interest".
In and between there are naturally ambiguous words, stock-standard political jargon, that proliferate to such degree that almost no public undertaking is definitive: "intervention", "monitor", "facilitate", "sharpen", "direct", "leading role", "guide", "promote", "efficient", "effective".
All of these words need to be quantified to retain their meaning and influence. They are too general on their own to be helpful. But generality is the hallmark of unaccountable behaviour. And so they never are. They are left free-floating, each one used as an escape clause rather than a firm commitment. When your legitimacy is on the table, you cannot afford to commit to anything. And they are everywhere.
Failure becomes inherent to language too. Words that should indicate decisive action are given an adjunct — suggesting the initial idea dead but new life imminent. This language of second life also spreads and infects: "redirect", "revitalise", "reconceptualise", "reconsider", "reform", "rejuvenate", "reinvest", "remodel". Each word is in and of itself a concession of failure.
And there are phrases too, that speak to this idea. "Turnaround strategy", for one. There is no end to the number of public entities that, year-in and year-out, announce a new "turnaround strategy" in the face of profound failure or financial mismanagement. South African Airways has been "turned around" more times than a spinning top. Who knows which way it is now facing.
With every "turnaround" meaning is exponentially stripped from the idea. If one strategy was incorrect and a "turnaround strategy" the right course of action, what happens when it too fails? A second turnaround strategy suggests the first course of action was, in fact, the correct one. By the time you get to a third, the phrase becomes meaningless. If every corrective measure is a turnaround strategy — a fundamental change in direction — your options have run dry. Either you are headed on a course already plotted or, more likely, in circles. But never fear, the phrase is rehashed again and again; for history too has lost its meaning.
Time is therefore also perverted. "The past" is never dated. It becomes an amorphous whole encompassing everything from yesterday. "The future" too is not defined. But always we are working towards it. Next week, next month, next year, these are all too particular. In their place: "a brighter future", "better prospects", "projections", "forecasts", "predictions".
And actual change — that word at the heart of progress — has no parameters. One does not move from 20% to 25%, rather one "shifts expectations". The old form a problem took is not a precise point of reference so much as a rhetorical device. "We have made progress", we are told. On a good day, "We have made significant progress". Quite how and why, nobody knows.
The great linguistic battle in SA is between nationalist jargon and constitutional principles. And the great reality is that the former has subverted the latter.
Many of these problems are not particular to SA. All democracies face them. But it is both the scale and the fundamental nature of contestation that sets SA apart. And the great contributor to that situation, in turn, is the ANC and the demagogic language of vagueness and generality it has adopted as it desperately tries to mask its various crises in jargon that affords it the pretence of legitimacy and control.
Here is a telling question: what key democratic principles and values can be said to share a generally agreed upon meaning in SA today?
Little wonder no one worries too fundamentally about Frolick playing games with "recommendation" when, truth be told, "accountability" itself is up for grabs.
It is unfortunate that, for so long, South Africans looked to the ANC to define the keywords in our democratic language, rather than to historical precedent. The result is that, as the party’s own crisis of legitimacy undermines words and meaning, they undermine our own confidence too.
We have become too reliant on the ANC to interpret ideas that are well established outside of the insular and self-referential universe we occupy. If we want to claim them back, the first thing to do is recognise one must start to look elsewhere.
Emotion is both its calling card and its great enforcer, and it evokes its most commanding terms. Words like "love" and "hate", "patriotism" and "treason", "friends" and "enemies" punctuate its instruction to the world. In the face of adversity and resistance, then, it is grand and unqualified when it enjoys moral authority. These are the building blocks at the heart of an "us" and "them" universe so particular to nationalistic discourse.
It is also true that, when nationalism is a minor influence on a people and desperate for attention, absolutism is how it endears itself to the susceptible. Its great appeal is the certainty it offers to the insecure, and certainty requires conviction. It talks of "the people" and of "revolution", it evokes "history" and makes "the past" compete with "the future". Through emotional grandeur, it captures hearts and minds.
In short, when both powerful and power-hungry, nationalism turns to those baser instincts that fuel the fear it generates and the affirmation it bestows on its chosen people in equal measure. That is reflected, in turn, in the language it deploys. Those words have meaning because behind them lies power.
However, when caught between two worlds, when nationalism is both powerful and weak — in command but out of control — its language too becomes ambiguous. For Then the strength and weakness inherent to fundamentalism begins to work against it: its every word divides as much as it unites. And even "love" can generate hate. And so it seeks refuge in uncertainty, in the obscure and vague. Those great emotional dividers become couched in euphemism and suggestion.
South Africa currently constitutes such an environment. The African National Congress (ANC), once an all-powerful political force is in disarray; its conduct and policy — and with those two things, its legitimacy — is under relentless and brutal assault on a wide variety of fronts.
Where once Thabo Mbeki would tell the country it was a land of two nations, one black, the other white, with all the hegemonic authority of a king, today its plea is for "unity" and consideration for "the national good".
It is ironic indeed that nationalism should need power in order to practise division but divisiveness is its lifeblood. Without the ability to enforce it, all it can do is plead.
There are very practical consequences for all of this. One of the most peculiar is the effect of this uncertainty on those words one assumes have a common understanding. They become hollowed out of meaning, contradictory and nonsensical. A country’s democratic lexicon becomes corrupted because every hard idea must be subverted if its intended purpose is to be denuded of value. "Accountability", "transparency", "consultation", "freedom", "justice", "separation of powers", "free speech" and many others; all these ideas are currently contested. And, in every case, the ANC’s contribution is to further strip them of meaning and definitive purpose.
It is true, in any democratic order principles and values are always contested. But in a mature democracy those disputes usually involve application of a principle, as opposed to a fight over the nature of its fundamental tenants. When a basic premise is under attack and that attack sustained over time, there is a trickle-down effect. Words that rank lower in democratic importance are likewise negatively affected. In South Africa, the poison has infected the very bottom of the barrel.
Take the word "recommendation", for example. It is common cause that the word is a synonym for suggestion — a proposal or advice. In blocking the portfolio committee on communications’ decision to "recommend" to President Jacob Zuma that South African Broadcasting Corporation chairwoman Ellen Tshabalala be suspended, parliamentary chairman of committees Cedric Frolick, argued: "We can’t go so far that we interfere with the competencies of the president."
Parliament, he said, should not "prescribe" what action the president should take.
Well quite. But the committee did no such thing. It merely made a recommendation. That is, it provided the president with its considered opinion and made a suggestion. It is up to the president whether or not he accepts it as valid. But Frolick, who clearly believes the president is too obtuse to distinguish between choice and instruction, has negated that possibility. You can be fairly sure the president approves.
The great irony of Frolick’s attitude is that he simultaneous chairs the ad hoc committee on Nkandla, the very purpose of which, from an ANC’s perspective, is to contest the idea that the public protector’s findings are prescriptive and advocate they constitute mere recommendations.
He has done much to facilitate that narrative.
So, prescriptive recommendations for the portfolio committee, nonprescriptive recommendations for the public protector. The word can mean whatever Frolick wants it to mean. And in turn, it means nothing. It cannot have a set meaning, because that would necessitate action and accountability. And that must be avoided at all costs.
That is an example fresh in the public mind. But there are many others and, often, the disease is far more subtle and mendacious.
All hard ideas have their edges sanded down. "Failure" becomes "challenge". "Decision" becomes "consideration". "Crime" becomes "indiscretion". "Promise" becomes "suggestion". "Deadline" becomes "goal". "Emergency" becomes "fast track". "Nonnegotiable" becomes "priority".
And, perhaps more insidiously, meaning shifts. "Respect" means "deference". "Patriotism" means "party loyalty". "Inclusivity" means "exclusivity". "Consensus" becomes "partisan interest".
In and between there are naturally ambiguous words, stock-standard political jargon, that proliferate to such degree that almost no public undertaking is definitive: "intervention", "monitor", "facilitate", "sharpen", "direct", "leading role", "guide", "promote", "efficient", "effective".
All of these words need to be quantified to retain their meaning and influence. They are too general on their own to be helpful. But generality is the hallmark of unaccountable behaviour. And so they never are. They are left free-floating, each one used as an escape clause rather than a firm commitment. When your legitimacy is on the table, you cannot afford to commit to anything. And they are everywhere.
Failure becomes inherent to language too. Words that should indicate decisive action are given an adjunct — suggesting the initial idea dead but new life imminent. This language of second life also spreads and infects: "redirect", "revitalise", "reconceptualise", "reconsider", "reform", "rejuvenate", "reinvest", "remodel". Each word is in and of itself a concession of failure.
And there are phrases too, that speak to this idea. "Turnaround strategy", for one. There is no end to the number of public entities that, year-in and year-out, announce a new "turnaround strategy" in the face of profound failure or financial mismanagement. South African Airways has been "turned around" more times than a spinning top. Who knows which way it is now facing.
With every "turnaround" meaning is exponentially stripped from the idea. If one strategy was incorrect and a "turnaround strategy" the right course of action, what happens when it too fails? A second turnaround strategy suggests the first course of action was, in fact, the correct one. By the time you get to a third, the phrase becomes meaningless. If every corrective measure is a turnaround strategy — a fundamental change in direction — your options have run dry. Either you are headed on a course already plotted or, more likely, in circles. But never fear, the phrase is rehashed again and again; for history too has lost its meaning.
Time is therefore also perverted. "The past" is never dated. It becomes an amorphous whole encompassing everything from yesterday. "The future" too is not defined. But always we are working towards it. Next week, next month, next year, these are all too particular. In their place: "a brighter future", "better prospects", "projections", "forecasts", "predictions".
And actual change — that word at the heart of progress — has no parameters. One does not move from 20% to 25%, rather one "shifts expectations". The old form a problem took is not a precise point of reference so much as a rhetorical device. "We have made progress", we are told. On a good day, "We have made significant progress". Quite how and why, nobody knows.
The great linguistic battle in SA is between nationalist jargon and constitutional principles. And the great reality is that the former has subverted the latter.
Many of these problems are not particular to SA. All democracies face them. But it is both the scale and the fundamental nature of contestation that sets SA apart. And the great contributor to that situation, in turn, is the ANC and the demagogic language of vagueness and generality it has adopted as it desperately tries to mask its various crises in jargon that affords it the pretence of legitimacy and control.
Here is a telling question: what key democratic principles and values can be said to share a generally agreed upon meaning in SA today?
Little wonder no one worries too fundamentally about Frolick playing games with "recommendation" when, truth be told, "accountability" itself is up for grabs.
It is unfortunate that, for so long, South Africans looked to the ANC to define the keywords in our democratic language, rather than to historical precedent. The result is that, as the party’s own crisis of legitimacy undermines words and meaning, they undermine our own confidence too.
We have become too reliant on the ANC to interpret ideas that are well established outside of the insular and self-referential universe we occupy. If we want to claim them back, the first thing to do is recognise one must start to look elsewhere.
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