Writer: Mphutlane wa Bofela | Photograph: Supplied

The refusal of Cyril Ramaphosa and his government to be bullied and dictated to by Trump on how to deal with domestic issues has led quasi-leftist thinkers to plead that we must re-evaluate our views about Ramaphosa’s ideological and political orientation and class position. This betrays intellectual laziness and ideological kwashiorkor.

There are many variables that inform the social, political, and economic conduct of individuals and organisations under varying circumstances. These could include factors such as the political time in which certain events and incidents occur and the image or posture that the realities of time and place compel one to assume in an environment characterised by internal and external political competition and contestation.

It is not unusual for a person of a particular ideo-political leaning, orientation, and affiliation to take positions that don’t fit neatly within their ideo-political leaning, orientation, and affiliation or class position out of convenience or pressure that is informed by a variety of personal and organisational or institutional concerns, considerations, and circumstances.

A typical example is the refusal of the late Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi to participate in the National Convention that P.W. Botha mooted in 1985 to push cosmetic modification of the apartheid state. Buthelezi made a resolute statement that he would not participate in any negotiated settlement without the release of political prisoners and the unbanning and participation of the liberation organisations.

In addition to AZAPO’s “Death to the National Convention” campaign, Buthelezi’s refusal to participate in this farce thwarted the machinations of the Botha regime. Other Bantustan leaders and collaborators had agreed to participate in the National Convention, but the refusal of Buthelezi—who had more clout than fellow Bantustan quislings—to participate in this farce dealt a heavy blow to the manoeuvres of the Botha regime.

The political conduct of Buthelezi in that moment in history did not refute or change his conservative and reactionary ideo-political orientation. It was informed by the dynamics of the time, his reading of the political context, and the pressure for him not to take a political posture that would prove to all and sundry that he was a useful tool of the apartheid regime. It was informed by his anticipation of the ultimate negotiated settlement that would involve the liberation movement and the need for him to project himself in a particular way to be able to be a key role-player in both the transition and post-transition period. The convenience of the position that Buthelezi took was vindicated by the fate that befell other Bantustan puppets who did not read the moment like he did.

Ramaphosa’s response to Trump is a correct response to the moment at hand. His refusal to be bullied and dictated to by Trump and his ilk on how South Africa must deal with issues is laudable. But suggesting that this changes his ideo-political orientation from a liberal bourgeois to an anti-imperialist revolutionary is stretching it too far.

It is not uncommon nor exceptional for a bourgeois nationalist to enlist anti-imperialist rhetoric in defence of nationalist interests while upholding neoliberal and neo-capitalist policies and religiously pursuing socioeconomic policies centred on market fundamentalism and the Washington Consensus.

Little skirmishes between various factions of capital and between neo-colonies and their colonial masters are natural occurrences and must never be confused with the revolutionary delinking from the regimes and regiments of Western hegemony, global capitalism, and imperialism.

The Basic Education Law Amendments (BELA) Act 32 of 2024 and the Expropriation Act 32 of 2024 certainly rub arch-racists and defenders of ill-gotten property the wrong way, but they hardly amount to dismantling the structures of racial capitalism or uprooting the apartheid economy and the apartheid geography.

The Ramaphosa administration, both before and in the era of the Government of National Unity (GNU), has not taken any significant steps towards altering the patterns of control and ownership of the land, wealth, and economy of South Africa to warrant the suggestion that there is an iota of change in the ideological and political leaning and class affinities of Ramaphosa and the party and government that he leads.

(Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a political theorist who focuses on the interaction between politics, governance, and development.)