Black Neofascism? The Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa

Abstract

This article argues that twenty-first century fascism is variegated and shaped by complex socioecological conditions. While enabled by the specific conditions of contemporary capitalist crisis, it is actually different from its antecedents. This requires actual in situ case studies. Hence, this article focuses on the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa and explores its emergence in the conjuncture of hegemonic crisis faced by the ruling African National Congress. Moreover, the article challenges current liberal classificatory discourses that seek to define the EFF in South Africa's democratic order and also revisits the history of fascism from a decolonial perspective. It is argued there where two moments of fascism in the twentieth century, interwar fascism, and militarized fascism in the peripheries supported by U.S. imperialism. The EFF does not share anything in common with these twentieth century fascisms and therefore has to be analyzed and explained on its own terms. RésuméCet article soutient que le fascisme du XXI e siècle est diversifié et qu'il á eté façonné par des conditions socio-écologiques complexes. Bien qu'il ait pu se développer grâce aux conditions particulières de la crise capitaliste contemporaine, il diffère effectivement de ses prédécesseurs. Cela exige desétudes de cas réels sur le terrain. Le présent article porte essentiellement sur les « Combattants de la liberté » (Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF) en Afrique du Sud et se penche sur sonémergence dans la conjoncture de la crise hégémoniqueà laquelle se trouve confronté le Congrès national africain (ANC) présentement au pouvoir. En outre, cet

The Community

“…Miners spoke of how they were beaten up by rival gangs, of vigilante groups who dispense their own form of violent justice by assaulting, and even killing suspected criminals, and how certain ethnic groups, or those with connections to the police can turn on the innocent if they are weak, or come from an minority ethnic group. And it is a form of fear mongering, and performance-based politics that is being echoed on the national stage by a prominent political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (Mbete, 2015;Satgar, 2019), which I return to in Chapter 5.…”

Reconceptualising ecofascism in the Global South: an ecosemiotic approach to problematising marginalised nostalgic narratives

“…6 The implication of making this political identification clear is that it is possible for neo-fascism to occur on either end of the pollical and social spectrum, such as far-left progressivist movements usually founded on anti-colonial, racial, nationalist emancipatory sentiments. However, a careful distinction needs to be clearly made between neo-or proto-fascism and leftist populism (see the work of Satgar [2019] and his careful deconstruction of the EFF [Economic Freedom Fighters] party and symbolism in South Africa). Reducing the one to the other collapses the opportunity for responsible theoretical and political engagement with such movements.…”