Enter the jargon: the intertextual rhetoric of Radical Economic Transformation following the logic of Demosthenes’s oratory

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the timing and entry into public discourse of ‘Radical Economic Transformation’ as a concept that is open to deliberate misinterpretation in the media. Whilst, as the title suggests, it is necessary to distil the content signified by its rhetorical signposts, the diverse uses to which ‘radical economic transformation’ is being put by the media, government and researchers requires examination relative to parameters of debate set by the Greek orator Demosthenes’s thesis in his Against Meidias, during times of political crisis in Athens Macedonian expansion. Similarly, in the wake of oligarchies and deepening economic inequality along racial lines, Jacob Zuma’s Radical Economic Transformation (RET) was intended to be a bulwark against further expansion, exploitation and pauperization. In its intention, the rhetoric RET signposted a pro-poor intervention for ownership, management and control of the economy in favour of all South Africans. If the exordium is whether ‘Radical Economic Transformation’ should be embraced, then the debate takes stock of the observation by Mark Swilling that while there is a clear need for ‘radical economic transformation,’ there are concerns that ‘this is being used as an ideological smokescreen to mask the rent-seeking practices of the Zuma-centred power elite’ (Bhorat et al., 2017). In the media, Schutte argues that Radical Economic Transformation is part of a ‘distorted discourse [which] is the weapon of choice [at a time when] empty rhetoric is served up on Orwellian platters’. Following the logic of Demosthenes, the debate around the rhetoric of Radical Economic Transformation demands and deserves to be tested against legality, justice, expediency, practicability, decency and consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• Radical economic transformation
• intertextuality
• rhetoric
• demosthenes
• Jacob Zuma
• state capture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See Obike (2016) ‘Nelson Mandela’s Address to the U.S. Congress: A Universal Appeal to Dignity,’ African Journal of Rhetoric 8: 128. Such an approach as Wrage’s (1947, pp. 451–457) has allowed Obike incredible analytical purchase in demonstrating how Nelson Mandela’s appeal for human dignity was transformed into ‘demands for economic rights through the rhetoric of economic moralism’.

2. Bendile (2017) for Mail & Guardian ‘Let’s embrace radical economic transformation’, available on https://mg.co.za/article/2017-07-02-00-lets-embrace-radical-economic-transformation, accessed on 11 August 2017.

3. Gumede (2017) for Mail & Guardian ‘The state does have ways to radically transform SA’, available on https://mg.co.za/article/2017-06-01-00-the-state-does-have-ways-to-transform-sa, accessed on 25 July 2017.

4. Wa Thiong’o (1993, p. 50).

5. Bendile, Op Cit.

6. When taken to task, after an email expose, the Public Relations firm Bell Pottinger capitulated to the position that they created a political frenzy with the term White Monopoly Capital, on behalf of the Gupta family at the heart of State Capture claims.

7. Fredal (2001, p. 252).

8. Worthington (2002, p. 4)

9. Agnew (2016, p. 3).

10. Tabane (2017) for SABC News ‘Radical economic transformation is needed for inclusive growth: Davies Monday 8 May 2017http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/f9015f804110c2549549f510d2cccae0/Radical-economic-transformation-is-needed-for-inclusive-growth-20170805, accessed on 22 May 2018.

11. Ibid.

12. Worthington (2002) Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator. London & New York: Routledge: 3.

13. Schutte (2017) ‘The Radical Economic Transformation Lie’, Media for Justice, online https://www.mediaforjustice.net/the-radical-economic-transformation-lie/, accessed on 22 May 2018.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Eye Witness News (2017) for Eye Witness News,‘Thuli Madonsela gives her take on Radical Economic Transformation’, available onhttp://ewn.co.za/2017/06/17/thuli-madonsela-gives-her-take-on-radical-economic-transformation, accessed on 16 May 2018.

17. Ibid.

18. Gretler and Griffiths (2017) for Bloomberg News ‘Johann Rupert: Radical economic transformation just a code word for theft’, available online on http://www.fin24.com/Economy/johann-rupert-radical-economic-transformation-just-a-code-word-for-theft-20170913, accessed on 22 May 2018.

19. Ibid.

20. Dodovu (2017) available on http://www.unmaskedkm.co.za/a-critique-by-china-dodovu/, accessed on 16 June 2018.

21. Pauw (2017) The President’s Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma in Power and Out of Prison outlines the significance of the rhetorical action of Radical Socio-Economic Transformation in dealing with foes who were questioning ‘State Capture’, conflating them with ‘White Monopoly Capital’.

22. Bhorat et al (2017) Betrayal of the Promise: How the Nation is being stolen, PARI: Stellenbosch, 2.

23. Bendile (2017) op cit.

24. Elucidating the loss of oppositional structures outlined by Jacques Derrida in his defocalization strategy of reversal and displacement of the whole system of dependence in his reading of Plato’s Pharmarcy, in Zeyneb Direk (2002) Jacques Derrida: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers. London & New York: Routledge: 72.

25. Hobson (1998) Jacques Derrida: Opening Lines. London & New York: Routledge.

26. Worthington (2002, p. 4).

27. Gumede (2017) op cit.

28. Ibid.

29. Bisseke (2017) for Business Live ‘DEBUNKING THE MYTHS: Nine myths about SA’s economy’, available online on https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/cover-story/2017-09-21-nine-myths-about-sas-economy/, accessed on 21 September 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Insitute of Human and Social Sciences [WG01651].

Notes on contributors

Michael Kgomotso Masemola

Michael Kgomotso Masemola, The author of South African Autobiography After Deleuze (Brill & RODOPI, 2017), Professor Michael Kgomotso Masemola serves as the Executive Dean of the College of Human Sciences at Unisa—with a history of being the Co-Editor (with Liberty M. Hove) of Strategies of Representation in Auto/biography (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) ISBN: 978-1-137-34032-0. Having contributed book chapters such as ‘Autobiography in Africa’ in The Oxford History of the Novel in English: The Novel in Africa and the Atlantic World, edited by Simon Gikandi (Oxford University Press, 2016), Masemola is also a Full Professor of English in the same University who has published in top-drawer journal articles locally and internationally. Professor Masemola holds the distinction of having won Research Excellence Awards since 2010, a National Research Foundation rating based on the international peer-review system, as well as a Chairperson of Council Award for Excellent Overall Performance in 2014. He studied for his Doctorate in English Literature at the University of Sheffield in England, his MA at the University of Natal, his BA and BA Honours at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Over and above being the Convener for the NRF Rating Panel for Literature, Language and Linguistics, he serves on Advisory Boards of accredited journals and, as occasion demands, serves a reviewer. Professor Masemola is also a successful supervisor of MA and PhD students and acts as an external examiner for theses submitted for the PhD degree at various universities. A Principal researcher for several research projects, he holds grants that enable collaborative research beyond South African borders. He can be contacted via email on [email protected] as well as [email protected]