South Africa's Right Wing Has No Originality

 

 

So on Saturday morning I noticed the above screenshot of a poster put out by the local Afrikaner nationalist newspaper, "Die Burger", being circulated on social media. The poster makes it fairly clear that "Die Burger" are trying to encourage local right wingers to join in with the hate for Taylor Swift - presumably for the very same reasons that the US variety of right wing loons are doing it.

But this set me to wondering why the local right wing nutters would focus on Taylor Swift? Why should they even care about Taylor Swift?

What is it with Afrikaners these days? Is it something in the melktert? 🤔

Last I heard, the US singer really had nothing to do with South Africa, other than some of her music making its way out here, and I think it's really bizarre that the local right wingers have managed to put down their Klippies and biltong and have stopped arguing about rugby or singing De La Rey long enough to focus on sending hate towards a remote American singer who probably doesn't even know they exist, and whose music they have probably never even listened to, probably because it has no concertinas  or right wing icons in it.

Don't South Africans have enough problems of their own - closer to home, to be concerned about? 

More to the point, why is it that every time the red-cap brigade over the pond get their panties in a twist about something, the attention of the local right wingers seems to follow their example?

Don't they have any originality?

 

Over in the USA, since the beginning of this year, the Christian right wing Q'Anon brigade (which aside from being rabidly incoherent racists, anti-Semites, transphobes and homophobes, is made up of conspiracy theorists, MAGAts, outright neo-Nazis and general science-deniers) has taken to attacking the American singer Taylor Swift.

There are all kinds of bizarre unsubstantiated conspiracy theories being pushed out into the internet via the usual array of inane right wing hate groups, propaganda mills and gossips with YouTube channels and blogs masquerading as actual news agencies which make a fascinating list of claims (1,2,3,) about the singer.

Granted, it seems that Taylor Swift has shown a public interest in US politics, as from 2018, when she began to be more outspoken, but the level of insanity in this backlash has been - well, insane. I kid you not, it makes about as much sense as listening to a "Young Earth Creationist" or a "Flat Earther".

Chiefly, to summarize (1,2):

• Swift's relationship with an NFL sports hero Travis Kelce, is portrayed as "sinful"
• Swift and Kelce supposedly aren’t a real couple; their relationship is just a show to boost Biden’s chances in the coming election, and the NFL match in January was rigged so that Swift-Kelce would "make Joe Biden look good" for the coming election
  
• Swift is being portrayed as the figure leading an "attack on MAGA", and the rumor mill portrays her as being a CIA/FBI agent or operative
• Swift is supposedly being used as a tool by the Pentagon to help Biden win reelection.
  

and that's just the tip of the iceberg as it turns out, because that's just from JANUARY, and while things appear to have calmed down a bit on that subject during March, it hasn't completely died down. 

However, it's a pretty hefty leap - with a bit of a fair run-up - to get to  "Taylor Swift is Satanic" as "Die Burger" has - all the way down in South Africa, the home of sunshine, state capture, and of course, melktert.

This sort of trashy, sensationalist, fly-trap click-bait reporting style is the usual fair for tabloid publications (note I didn't actually call it a "newspaper" although most of its readership laps up every word in it as gospel), but I tend to view it as just another stop on the precarious journey of the crazy train.

Now I won't be going down to the shop to actually pay these hacks for a copy of "Die Burger", since I don't want to sponsor ignorance, bullying, fake news, tabloid "journalism" - or terrorism, so I warmed up my mouse, and dove into the internet to find out just where they got this lamebrained bat-shit insane idea from. 

I started with the News24 website, the parent company of "Die Burger" ("The Citizen"). The intro to the article "Taylor Swift ‘is van die duiwel’, sê bedryfsielkundige van Kaap" ("Taylor Swift 'is from the devil' says industrial psychologist from Cape") reads:

"'n Bedryfsielkundige van Durbanville, Kaapstad, sê mense behoort hulself en hul kinders te beskerm teen die “satanistiese” sangeres Taylor Swift..."  - Translation: "An industrial psychologist from Durbanville, Cape Town, says people should protect themselves and their children from the 'satanic' singer Taylor Swift..."

The rest of it lurks behind a paywall, because of course it does - they wouldn't want everyone to actually read their stuff and verify their sources, now would they?

As it turns out, they wrote an article calling Taylor Swift "satanic" apparently while quoting a local industrial psychologist from Cape Town, who allegedly "said so".

Of course, they must know what they're talking about, right, because they're making sure to mention the credentials of their alleged source - whose name, if it is even mentioned, is hidden behind the security of the paywall.

Meanwhile, this poor singer/entertainer, who does a lot of charity work, is - according to their "learned" source, some sort of devil worshiper or demonic entity, and got her very own poster showing an obviously AI-generated image of her surrounded by "satanic" worshipers, complete with a red mood light. And of course, they cleared themselves of any wrong-doing (in their minds, or at least legally) by making sure they mentioned they were "only quoting their source" in the headline.

Riiiight. Ahem.

Firstly, no industrial psychologist would deliberately stake their professional reputation on making such a statement - unless they were unethical, unqualified, or insane. 

Why do I say that? Well, because no scientist - and believe it or not, psychology is a science - would taint their work or their field by presenting a conclusion which is filtered through the lens of religious prejudice. It would be considered unprofessional and unethical if they did so - just as a newspaper should.

Either "Die Burger" is putting some massive spin on whatever this alleged "industrial psychologist" said to them, or this "industrial psychologist" is a fraud or a grifter, and one who is probably motivated - and compromised by their own personal prejudices, whether religious or political.

Secondly, industrial psychology only provides practitioners with a very BASIC understanding of the human psyche, doesn't even venture into relevant territories like criminal or behavioral psychology, and is limited to industrial applications of workplace psychology - which would cast some serious doubt on the credibility of this source.

According to the American Psychological Association, industrial psychology "addresses issues of recruitment, selection and placement, training and development, performance measurement, workplace motivation and reward systems, quality of work life, structure of work and human factors, organizational development and consumer behavior" with similar, basic definitions or parameters being used throughout the industry. 

Basically, whoever this person is they're quoting here, they are essentially qualified to head up an HR office at a big company, and have no legitimacy or credibility to pass comments like this onto tabloid rags like "Die Burger". I have no doubt "Die Burger" actually knows this, but still scampered straight to the presses with such an inflammatory (and defamatory) story, to ride the resulting wave of sensationalism - and of course, sales, and I would say this speaks volumes about their own credibility, ethics and reputation as an alleged "newspaper".

Of what value is anything this individual had to say - and of what interest would it be to the ordinary South African? Perhaps this is relevant due to this entity's readership - white, cisgender, Christian - and not just Afrikaans-speaking, but Afrikaner nationalist.

That sort of half-arsed journalism and lack of integrity is not the sort of thing we should expect from a serious newspaper. It's the behavior of a tabloid, which is a "rag" or aggregator of fake news, sensationalist bullshit or even blatant propaganda - which is exactly up the Burger's shady little alley. I've previously labeled "Die Burger" as a "church newsletter" on numerous occasions because of the sensationalist and prejudiced way they covered issues relating to LGBT rights and religious freedom for religions other than Christianity, and as far as I'm concerned, this sort of low-brow gossip-mongering only cements my opinion.

And this brings me back to my other point: that South Africa's right wing (of which News24 and its off-shoot "Die Burger" form a part) simply has no originality of its own.

It seems to have this need to remain relevant, to unite its followers against someone - or everyone else - looking for someone to fight or oppose, but isn't exactly sure on its own who - without looking to others overseas for that inspiration.

In the 70s and 80s, the Afrikaner nationalists copied the swastika, style and uniformed ethos of Nazi Germany and strutted around wearing safari suits and khaki pants under the AWB flag and the Vierkleur, echoing Nazi ideology and hiding behind the "more respectable" mask of "moderate" Afrikaner politics and doctrine represented by the National Party government and its very real WW2-era Nazi sympathizer origins - all neatly blended with Dutch Reformed Christianity - and increasingly since then, charismatic Christianity.

During the 1980's, the South African right wing, which was majority Christian, co-opted the "Satanic Panic" - straight from the US "bible belt", and began to see "satanists" hiding in the bushes, or under sofas, and in soup bowls everywhere in South Africa - and even established a special police unit to conduct a taxpayer-sponsored witch hunt that lasted all the way up until the mid 2010s. 

Remember the so-called "culture war"? That's right, they got that idea from America too - and ALL the propaganda used by reactionary right wingers to oppose and persecute everything from "occult" religion, homosexuality, transgender people, feminism and racial harmony originally came directly from the right wing in the USA - and it seems that it still does today.

Have a 'chat' with one of these local right wingers, face to face (if you're brave enough), or online, and pretty soon you'll encounter the usual spectacular variety of bizarre right wing indoctrination flooding the entire world's right wingers, straight from the US of A, courtesy of the internet, practically verbatim - and without being debunked or challenged by that little thing called "critical thinking" at any point along the way. Did you know that most of these people - even South Africans, idolize Donald Trump? I'm not even surprised.

The South African right wing, although its face has changed a bit since 1994, always seems to take its cues from the bottom-feeders in the illiterate American religious right. Why is that? Are they really that connected, are they really so incapable of being original - or are they really all just that gullible? 

As can be seen throughout the last 30 years - and even the century or so before that, the South African right wing has no originality.

Perhaps the rest of us should be thankful.