Fight the powers that be

An old-fashioned description of what journalists do is that they speak truth to power. And if that power were a person, what would he or she hear? Well, if recent developments around the world are any yardstick, all power hears is what it wants to hear. Truth is no longer an objectively definable thing; instead, it’s whatever those with power decide it is at any particular time. In fact, speaking to you directly, Power, and in terms of another overused idiom — what is it about you that corrupts people so absolutely?

We only have to look at our politicians to see what even a little brush with you can do. People supposedly sworn to improve the lives of their fellow citizens become out of touch, get drunk on the potential you give them, and then get drunk on Veuve Clicquot and the Johnnie Walker Rainbow.

They start to believe that Power has made them special and endowed them with the right to abuse the system for their own profit. It’s bad enough when they’re just destroying the lives of their own citizens, and here we can look specifically at South Africa’s own captured state.

It’s possibly even worse when Power becomes untrammelled and starts to destroy the very world. You’ll all know to which particular orange dictator-in-waiting I’m alluding, a man who has taken away funding from any research that mentions climate change, removed all mentions of climate change and global warming from US government websites, and believes that the climate crisis is a “giant hoax”. A man who went from calling himself a servant of the people to proclaiming himself king in a post about parking. In fact, it’s worth quoting that post in its full, capitalised arrogance. “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”

The orange Napoleon has signed executive orders that have gone beyond what would normally be considered legal, fired officials illegally, and frozen funds already approved by the US Congress. And that last one has resulted in extreme hardship for African people, effectively sentencing many of them to death. What is it about you, Power, that makes people imagine they have become saviours and rulers, better than ordinary mortals?

Some answers have been offered. Primarily, it’s because Power allows people to evade accountability. A crass example of this is how the US president before the orange one, Joe Biden, pre-emptively pardoned several of his family members from criminal prosecution in the final minutes of his presidency. And, incredibly, this is legal. It’s as though these citizens of the land formally known as free are begging for a dictatorship.

Once someone realises that they can evade accountability, Power starts to make them believe that they are invulnerable and can get away with anything. And hell, maybe they can, if you look around the world at the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin. That’s the other thing, Power — what is it about you that attracts bad people, people who only operate in their own self-interest? Where are the people who care about the collective good, rather than the profits of corruption?

How did we South Africans manage to escape — by the skin of our teeth, admittedly — what you are managing to achieve in the US? How did we survive our own power-hungry would-be dictator, Jacob Zuma, who tried to do something similar to what the orange messiah is now doing to the US? To wit, strip out all the democratic safeguards so that he could then strip the country for profit. I guess it’s because the Power that politicians and other types of criminals hunger for has a poorer cousin, one that doesn’t desire to dominate and feed off other people. And that’s that hoary old standard, “Power to the people.” Because maybe, just maybe, Power, you’re not inherently corrupt. Maybe it depends on who is using you.

In some sense, people in authority who are possessed by Power are like the zombies in Fela Kuti’s classic song Zombie, about the power of people to change the world. And, as he suggests, “Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think.” It was the power of the people that brought South Africa back from the brink of the sort of Power play we’re seeing in the US right now, that saved us from the evil machinations of our previous president and his gang of thieves.

So, Power, perhaps you are only evil when too much of you accrues to individuals. This sort of thing used to be called democracy, but that term is increasingly becoming a joke. We started off talking about the old-fashioned journalistic idea of speaking truth to power. That used to mean standing up for what is right, letting the people in charge know that you were on to their propaganda, and taking a stand against injustice. But if that sort of Power has stopped listening, it’s time to speak truths to the Power of the people, giving them the tools to fight back against the Power that corrupts.

As Public Enemy sing in Fight the Power, “Our freedom of speech is freedom or death / We got to fight the powers that be.”

From the March edition of Wanted, 2025