The Big Read: Why Malema is in tune with the rise of the new right

You could not find a hotel room in central Berlin, Germany, on June 3 2000 even if you were one of the original three Wise Men from the East.

The place was awash with journalists, diplomats, bureaucrats, activists and the attendant blue-lights and bodyguards. We were all there to listen to South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, and 13 other left-leaning world leaders as they tried to flesh out their idea of a "Third Way" in world affairs.

They were young - they included Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bill Clinton - and they had dreams of a more humane, more generous, more open, more compassionate and collaborative world in which the poor and marginalised had a place at the top table.

Mbeki spoke of shared values and the need to put those values into practice.

"There's a value system which is common among us. There are certain things that we're pursuing that need to be achieved. There's a globalisation process taking place and therefore the international system of co-operation is one of the things that must be addressed during this process of networking," Mbeki said.

The leaders spoke about coming up with a blueprint for promotion of "civil rights, employment and prosperity, and equal opportunity for women and men" across the globe.

A few months later Clinton was replaced by George W Bush, who promptly took the world to war.

The Tories in the UK later kicked Labour from power.

Sixteen years after that meeting left-leaning parties across the globe are being obliterated. The shock success of Donald Trump in the US presidential election last week is the latest of a series of setbacks. It will not be the last.

Just four days after his win, one of the first European leaders to get a meeting with Trump was Nigel Farage, the British Ukip leader who fronted the successful charge for Brexit earlier this year.

Farage has said in television interviews that, in a country run by his party, there would be no law against discrimination on the grounds of race or colour.

Centre-right and far-right political parties - as I have written here, before and after the Brexit vote - are on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic.

Inspired by the successes of Farage and now Trump, they believe they are on the verge of dominating key European cities and states.

Writing in the Financial Times last week, Wolfgang Munchau wrote that the West is in the grip of the "politics of insurrection". That insurrection might hit France next year, with Marine le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, in the ascendency.

Wrote the New York Times: "And Le Pen is not alone. From the Balkans to The Netherlands, politicians on the far right have greeted the election of Trump with unrestrained delight and as a radical reconfiguring of the political landscape - not just in the US, but in Europe as well."

Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch far-right Freedom Party, was ecstatic about Trump's win: "Congratulations! An historic victory! A revolution! We will return our country to the Dutch."

In Germany, Angela Merkel's centrist Social Democratic Party is polling at an alarmingly low 20% while far-right groupings are gaining traction.

On December 4, Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria, could win the country's presidency.

Earlier this year I wrote that an EU without the UK might tip the world back into the fascistic, mean, dangerous political waters of the 1930s. I fear we are still headed that way. The ideals and beliefs that Mbeki, Clinton, Blair and the other leaders who met in Berlin in 2000 propagated are on the back foot. In their stead is the rise of a mean nationalism, immigrant-bashing and populist leadership. The walls are going up, literally and figuratively.

What is to be done? Munchau posits in the Financial Times that the left-leaning parties' problem is that their economic policies are almost indistinguishable from those of their centre-right rivals. He says they pursue the same "austerity" policies and echo the same lines about free trade, open borders and financial liberalisation.

He offers a solution that might echo why Julius Malema and his EFF are striking a chord in some parts here at home. He says centre-left parties must challenge the establishment consensus on austerity, demand more public-sector investment, and elect political leaders who are prepared to sink trade deals.

It is interesting to me that here at home the ANC has shifted increasingly to the centre, while the left flank is occupied by the EFF. The "politics of insurrection" are nearing the ANC while a populist Malema does exactly what a Trump has done - only from a left, albeit nationalistic, frame.

If the left-centrists are being pummelled by populists across the globe, who is to say that they won't be pummelled here in South Africa? Either way, it seems to me that change is coming.