Conservatism can grow into fascism and dictatorship

Thirty-one years into democracy, South Africa is in deep crisis. Unemployment on the expanded definition is catastrophic, poverty is entrenched and public services are dysfunctional. Instead of dignity, justice and equality, the majority experience despair, insecurity and hunger.

- Zwelinzima Vavi

Beneath this lies another truth: the widening social gap between leaders and the working class. If left unchallenged, this gap will empower conservative forces and open the door to fascism and dictatorship.

The warning signs are there. Material conditions shape consciousness. As leaders move further from the township, anger risks dissipating. As black professionals adapt to the suburbs and former Model C schools still dominated by whites, still excluding African languages - neoliberal ideas harden.

Capitalism becomes “common sense”. Efficiency trumps justice. Hunger is normalised. This is not universal, but it is a trend we must ring alarm bells about.

This is how fascism grows: not with jackboots first, but with the quiet erasure of the poor. When selling on a pavement is criminalised while supermarkets thrive; when hunger is ignored but corporate profits are celebrated; when “clean cities” mean cities without the poor.

This is the dialectic of conservatism: when anger is blunted, the call for order seduces. Fascism begins when efficiency replaces justice and exclusion is normalised as progress.