TOM EATON | Sometimes it’s impossible to follow the ANC’s train of thought

On Wednesday, South African labour unions tried to shut down the economy and burnt billions to protest the fact that the economy isn’t working and there’s not enough money.

At first glance, it all looked like an exercise in absurdity and yet another reason satire is dead.

Certainly, given the whirring revolving door between Cosatu and the ANC, there was a strong case to be made that this was another example of the ANC marching against the ANC to demand that the ANC fix the problems caused or worsened by the ANC or else the ANC will get very cross indeed with the ANC.

To be fair, however, not all of it was absurd or hypocritical: some genuine leftists, motivated by their beliefs rather than their bellies, joined the “national shutdown” to protest the vast profits being made by energy companies and their already rich shareholders, even as the poor are forced to choose between food and medicine.

I don’t always agree with the arguments put forward by the left. For example, I see nothing inherently wrong or immoral in businesses making huge profits: to me, the current crisis of capitalism is caused by those profits not being adequately taxed and reinvested by the state in health, education and infrastructure.

In other words, to those true-hearted warriors on the barricades, I say thank you and long may the aluta continua.

I do, however, value the noise the left makes about the excesses of capitalism, for one very simple reason: if protest were left to the middle-ground middle-class, sighing and shrugging and saying, “But is it really that bad?” the private sector would soon be finding ways to privatise air or make us pay rent to use our own internal organs.

In other words, to those true-hearted warriors on the barricades, I say thank you and long may the aluta continua.

To the leadership of Cosatu, however, I just have a question: when you announced you’d be marching to the offices of Prasa to protest a “public transport crisis” in the Western Cape, did any part of you feel embarrassed?

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the mileage you can make out of pretending to save your political opponents from what you describe as an “unreliable” train service, but the thing is, commuters in ANC-ruled provinces can only dream of having unreliable trains. Entire railways stations have been stolen in Gauteng. Commuter trains are essentially extinct in the Eastern Cape.

And that’s on you.

You helped do that. You enabled the corruption and the dysfunction, the cadre deployment, the protection of criminals.

Oh, you can march and denounce and demand and pretend this is all the fault of international capitalist villains, but you made sure those trains stopped running. You forced workers into expensive taxis and buses, catastrophically increasing the cost of living you pretended to worry about on Wednesday.

You did that.

And we see you.