What is the point at which virtue turns to vice? Where a bon vivant becomes an alcoholic, where passion stops producing art and starts producing terror? How do we stop a promethean flame turning into the LA wildfires? If, as the kids say these days, everything is on a spectrum, can vanity cool to self-confidence or recklessness transition to daring?
All these questions are not a dodgy attempt to sound philosophical. Actually, their origin lies in the budding friendship between two participants who’ve probably never been described as platonic: Donald Trump and Afrikaans refugees.
Wag oom, asseblief, wag. Before you tie me to the tow bar of your bakkie and go for a drive, I’m in no way, shape, form or fashion saying that Afrikaner people are incapable of philosophical thought or even insinuating that. I’ve just never heard anyone speak about them using those fancy Greek words that second-year philosophy lecturers like. I may just need a new circle of friends.
Back to the point. Both Trump and his would-be asylum seekers are proof of a curious thing that seems to happen when you give Fate enough time to weave her little telenovelas. You see, four score and many years ago, a couple of Europeans arrived on our little slice of paradise. Depending on who you ask, they were either atrocious house guests or intrepid explorers. Either way they stayed and over time developed a reputation of being hardy, rugged and independent. They may not have been universally loved, for obvious reasons, but they were hardly a people one could heap derision on. To be fair, the British did try to compete but it didn’t go as well as they had hoped.
A similar thing goes for old Donald “Executive Order” Trump. It may be hard to believe it now, but not so long ago, the Orange Oligarch was seen as a paragon of real estate acumen and the coolest white guy to have in a rap video. President Grab Em by the Feline was someone '90s and 2000s finance bros emulated.
In both cases, Fortune has decided to recast their roles, turning their virtues into vices or the other way round, depending on how you feel about immigration. This matters because if you turn your nose up and sniff the air, you may notice that right-wing nationalism is on the wind again. Not since the days when the AWB were doing doughnuts into Jan Smuts Airport, à la 1994, have we seen so many people talking about Die Volk in public.
And it's not just in South Africa. European politics are leaning so far right that the party with the second most votes ran on the slogan “Alice Fur Deutschland”, a pun with a charmingly Nazi punchline.
Across the world, people are pretty much “over” this woke business. After a couple of good decades of decadence, people are deciding that enough is enough. It’s time to stop all this loosey goosey globalism and get back to some good old fashioned identity politics, like grandpa used to subscribe to.
The kids these days? They’re getting ready for the end of days. The US and China are getting ready for the second season of the Cold War, Europe is entertaining texts from its Nazi ex-boyfriend and AfriForum is helping people revive the ghost of Eugene Terre’Blanche.
Being anti-immigration used to signal that you were a bigot, now it’s starting to suggest that you have common sense. Having reasonable debates in parliament used to be how things were done, now it just means you’re the thing Trump grabs. Kicking people out of the White House used to be unthinkable, now it’s just a negotiation or publicity tactic.
Take your pick.
One could argue that the world turns and the party has to end. The roaring ’20s were a vibe until they gave way to the dour war generations, who were then ousted by hippies. Young people seem to have become more virtuous, while their elders are becoming more vice ridden.
According to the Economist, in the two decades to 2023 “the proportion of people aged 18 to 34 in America, who ‘ever have occasion to use alcoholic beverages’, declined from 72% to 62%, but among those over 55, alcohol use increased to 59% from 49%.” The article also mentioned that “in the four years to 2023, the number of new syphilis infections among young adults in England fell slightly, while cases in those over the age of 65 grew by 31%”.
If you have met enough middle-class South Africans on the northern border of 40, you’ll probably believe what these numbers translate. In Johannesburg, just go to Bar Ber Black Sheep, a bar in Rosebank, on the right night to see what I mean.
The fun generations have had a good go of it. If you’re middle class and have had a chance to experience South Africa or most of the world before you had to settle down, then you’ve probably drank deeply from the Dionysian cup.
The kids these days? They’re getting ready for the end of days. The US and China are getting ready for the second season of the Cold War, Europe is entertaining texts from its Nazi ex-boyfriend and AfriForum is helping people revive the ghost of Eugene Terre’Blanche.
Somewhere out there, Steve Hofmeyer is so excited about all of this that he may write another song. In the meantime, the kids will prep for the apocalypse while their elders enjoy genital jiving with a stiff martini.
Oh, how the world turns.
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