Why the Free World must pay attention to South Africa's existential election

The most important election in South Africa in 30 years has far-ranging consequences for geopolitics and our culture war

South Africa looms large in the imagination as it always has, most recently with the ANC regime levelling charges of genocide against Israel, backed up by some of the world’s most corrupt and despotic governments. The obsession with Israel, as it was with Apartheid era South Africa, allows many Third World governments to be given a pass for their corruption, incompetence and brutality.

That South Africa has many features of a failing state is something which doesn’t warrant much further elaboration in this piece, since you already know that. But what does matter here is the issues which make clear that what divides South Africa today, besides racial, ethnic and class lines, are the kind of ideological and cultural faultlines which characterise Western democracies.

Like Iran, South Africa is unavoidably entangled with the Western Culture War. This is because Apartheid era South Africa is a critical component of the canon of the West’s modern civic religion and moral regime, no less than the American South and Nazi Germany.

South Africa seems to be the bellwether of what follows in the West’s self-loathing over race and history. This goes far back to anti-Apartheid campaigns, and the delegitimisation of European settlement in South Africa (and Rhodesia) has since been transferred to the USA, Canada, Australia and NZ.

Since then the trajectory of worsening race relations in the West has closely followed South Africa. This includes virulent anti-white hate speech (and the insufficient condemnation thereof by liberal elites), calls for the destruction of European heritage and monuments (“Rhodes Must Fall”), the normalisation of anti-Semitism, and so on.

But onto the election. It’s a distinct possibility that the ANC is going to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since nonracial elections began. The corruption, incompetence and decline of South Africa in the last two decades has steadily eroded the party’s support. Sensing this, opposition parties have formed a coalition though whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

The ANC and its backers typically peddle the lie that a vote for the Democratic Alliance (DA) or any other opposition party will be a “return to Apartheid”. This tactic has since been adopted by the Democratic Party and European leftists who claim that their opponents will bring back “fascism” and “white supremacy”. It’s no surprise because all of this is straightforward Cultural Marxism.

The parties which are offshoots of the ANC are similarly if not even more ghastly. The EFF, for instance, is now known worldwide for its genocidal rhetoric. The new MK party is named after a group which never fought a real war, and spent much of its time abusing its own people in exile camps. Furthermore, the EFF’s Julius Malema advocates a “borderless Africa” since he believes (erroneously) that national borders are a “white” “colonial” creation.

All of this sounds familiar because the rhetoric you see from the ANC and its offshoots are indistinguishable from Western progressives, such that they are one and the same (right down to their embrace of anti-Semitism and misogyny).

Also familiar are the Culture War issues affecting the West, including migration - and thus fueling what liberals call “populism” and “nativism” in response. Since the Democratic Alliance is the largest opposition party, and presumably to lead the next government if given the chance, it will be held to account by its potential partners in pursuing a South Africa First policy.

For these reasons, the election due to take place next month will be closely watched. The government which takes shape after will have some bearing on the future direction of geopolitics and our culture wars.