The Sunday News
The era of “alternative facts” that we are living through and which is named the “age of post-truth” is so powerfully represented by Donald Trump.
And that is not a problem. Trump believes in his own “alternative facts” that are removed from the reality of multitudes in the world. He truly represents a “post-truth” political world that believes that facts and reality are not important; what matters is power. The problem is that academics, journalists and even some intellectuals want to pretend that the “post-truth” era is new and that it was invented by Trump.
Some journalists also believe and write as if the “post-truth” political tendency is an invention of politicians. I write in this short piece to note that throughout posterity tyrannical power has always invented alternative facts of its own and practised post-truth politics that does not care about the reality of the oppressed and marginalised. I also write to state that it is intellectuals and their cousins the academics that invented the “post-truth” political paradigm; politicians only, as true opportunists, took the idea and not only ran with it but also took it to its monstrous levels. One can go further and argue that Trump and his like are not created and produced as monsters by politics but intellectualism, and they are maintained by academicism and journalism as tired disciplines that have become increasingly uncritical.
Even the most rabid of despots and tyrants in the world rely on, at best some knowledges and at worst, some ideologies. Some scholar or ideologue somewhere was responsible for the ideas that led to such catastrophes as the Holocaust and the many genocides and massacres that the living world has witnessed. It is scholars, be they simple academics or proper intellectuals, that invent ideas which some power hungry and power drunk politicians go on to implement to disastrous ends. Some of the most toxic forms of politics are linkable to the development and flourish of certain ideas and ideologies traceable to the desk of some thinkers somewhere. That the pen is more powerful than the sword is a feel-good slogan of scholars and journalists that forget the rude truism that behind every bloody sword there is a dirty pen. That behind the violence of post-truth politics is post-modern ideologies which is the capital allegation of my present article.
The tyranny of the post-modern
Before post-modernity held such intellectual and political sway there were intellectual and political ideas that were “orange” and later “green.” It was politically correct for intellectuals and politicians, even those that supported and implemented slavery and colonialism, to pretend to believe in reason, truth, environmental friendliness, peace, justice and enlightenment.
Excellence, profit, knowledge, discipline and order were the big ideas and metanarratives of that time when conquest, slavery and colonisation were the reality of the majority of the powerless peoples of the world. The tyranny of the orange and the green politics of Empire was based on preaching what one did not practice, being politically correct while keeping power by all means necessary and unnecessary.
When post-modernism became an intellectual vogue it claimed to be anti-foundational. Its claim to fame was to prove old facts wrong and overturn durable intellectual and political legacies of the modern era. Such intellectual celebrities as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jean-Francois Lotyard claimed, not in so many words, to be iconoclasts that were not only determined but successful in their argument that “there is no truth.” Everything that appeared to be true and real was actually constructed, imagined, invented, manufactured and perceived to be so.
For the reason that what appeared to be real and true knowledge was constructed and imagined, the prophets of post-modernism recommended “deconstruction” as a method of intellection.
The irony is that these prophets wanted post-modernism and its deconstruction to be accepted as true, neutral, real and valid knowledge for everyone and everywhere. They wanted what was their theory to be received as everyone’s truth under the sun.
Smartly, they wanted to replace the orange and green tyranny of modern thought with the tyranny of post-modern thought. In the belief that there is no truth at all but constructions and that their own theory was true the post-modernists became narcissist and also nihilist; a world that has no truth but all constructions except the theories of a few prophets of the academy that believe in the deconstruction of everything, a risky and unstable world where nothing can be protected and preserved.
The Tyranny of the Post-colonial
Most academics and some intellectuals know post-colonial theory for its critique of colonialism.
What is concealed to them is that post-colonial thinking is based on the dangerous assumption that colonialism is a thing of the past, an era that we have passed. In that unfortunate way, post-colonial critique of colonialism is colonial critique of colonialism, Eurocentric critique of Eurocentricism, it is an internal irritation of Empire from within its belly. To rebuke Empire without doing anything to shake its roots is to participate in its preservation. Post-colonial thinkers, no matter how radical, strengthen rather than disrupt coloniality. The collapse of administrative colonialism in the Global South did not expire colonial power, knowledge and ontological relations that remained racist, sexist, Eurocentric and therefore imperial.
By trying to force into common sense the mistaken belief that colonialism ended, post-colonial thinking participates inalternative facts and post-truth politics of denialism and ignorance.
The Tyranny of the Post-political
Oppression is real in the world. Oppressors are an actuality. The political reality of all time is that power, powerful people and organisations need to be checked so that they do not use their power selfishly, oppressively and exploitatively.
To believe and do otherwise, pretend that racism, tribalism, xenophobia, sexism and bigotry are old fashioned political problems that people must not talk about is to participate in alternative facts and to ignore the truly political world. The truly political world is conflictual, potentially violent and permanently competitive. Constitutions and independent institutions should always be invoked to prevent the political game from being dirty and bloody.
Such scholars as Francis Fukuyama, he of “the end of history and last man” fame circulated post-political myths of the end of ideologies, the end of conflict, victory of neo-liberal politics and capitalism. Not far away from Fukuyama’s office, 9/11 was to prove to the whole world that political enemies remained real in the world and ideas and institutions were needed to prevent disasters. Post-politics, infamously personified by Fukuyama, is thoughtless Euphoria and excitement about political changes and forgetfulness that the world is still a tricky and very violent place that needs control and care. Post-politics claims easy victories and tells lies, to benefit from the aphorism of Amilcar Cabral. Throughout the world, politics requires cruel pragmatism of understanding and treating every politician, be it a Messiah or a saint, as a potential monster that needs to be watched.
Recovering lost causes
Such tyrants as Donald Trump did not fall from the sky but were shaped by post-modern ideas that have disrespect from truth and morality. The idea that there are alternative facts besides real facts is a post-modern idea. The tyrants are voted into power, not only by evil right wingers but also naïve, excited and excitable populations that believe, post-politically, in easy heroes and paradisal political changes.
Coloniality has continued in the Global South because some scholars and politicians have been taken up by the post-colonial thinking that colonialism ended. Belief in miraculous political changes and in messianic heroes has sent nations to hell on earth where monsters have been hugged as deliverers of the people.
Such big ideas and big truths like decolonisation, revolution and liberation have become dirty words and boring ideas because many powerful people have betrayed them. Edward Said in 2002, described these big ideas and grand narratives as “lost causes” in which people have lost interest and conviction because everyone who has turned up talking about freedom, independence has turned out to be a crook or a monster that eventually betrays the cause.
Decolonial radicalism demands that respect, conviction and energy should be restored to big ideas such as decolonisation, revolution and liberation, in spite of the fact that the “posts” from post-modernism, post-colonialism to post-truth and post-politics have allowed these grand narratives to be betrayed and to become lost causes. Decolonially, the lost causes of decolonisation, revolution and liberation should be recovered, away from the temptations and tyrannies of the posts.
– Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena is a founder member of Africa Decolonial Research Network (ADERN). He writes from Pretoria: [email protected].
