南非，站在历史的十字路口

提要： 《南华早报》昨日刊登北京对话助理研究员李泽西的评论《后“非国大”时代，南非彩虹犹在否？》（With ANC’s fall, divisive politics is darkening South Africa’s rainbow），强调种族群体在政治斗争中的分化，并呼吁关注这一现象对南非民主制度的长远影响。

6月2日，在南非米德兰的大选计票中心，南非总统拉马福萨在记者会上发言。图源：新华社

种族隔离时代结束30年后，曼德拉的政治传人遭到了一记迎头重锤。他曾领导的“非国大”在南非大选中仅赢得了40%的选票，较该党2019年的“历史最低”57.5%得票率进一步崩溃。

非国大失去的一个重要群体是年轻人的支持。据AtlasIntel选举前夕公布的民调，非国大仍得到超过一半的60岁以上受访者的支持，但只得到16-24岁年龄段群体的27%支持（16-18岁的人可以登记为选民，但还不能投票）。

非国大议员尤努斯·卡里姆（Yunus Carrim）认为，年轻一代“没有经历过斗争年代，所以他们对非国大没有忠诚感，这是可以理解的”。

抛开“斗争”因素，年轻选民的政治意向变化对于许多政党来说再熟悉不过了，包括西方政党。去年波兰大选的票站调查显示，年长选民仍普遍支持建制党派，但年轻女性越来越青睐极左政党，而年轻男性则愈发倾向极右乃至公开贬低女性的政党。

以色列与哈马斯的战争进一步激化了年轻人，美国的多所高校出现了支持巴勒斯坦和支持以色列的抗议者之间的对抗。随着11月美国总统选举即将到来，年轻选民攥着手中的选票，在“要挟”拜登停止支持以色列。

实际上，年轻人对西方制度和社会现状整体感到不满，正在推动更激进的改革。

而南非的情况似乎略有不同：不满情绪是普遍的，不局限于任何群体；我们不难理解这是为什么。

除了“老生常谈”的腐败、“国家俘获”、中等收入陷阱等问题之外，南非近年还出现了食品价格上涨、失业率极高以及频繁的停电等问题。许多国家现任政府的支持率在后新冠时代都遭到了重创，非国大似乎并不例外。

该国最大的反对党“民主联盟”（DA）遭到了后起之秀“爱国联盟”（PA）的挑战后，支持率也有所下降。“民主联盟”以“不分种族”政党自居，但遭到“爱国联盟”指责，称其长期忽视“有色人”的群体利益，却又一直假设得到“有色人”的支持是理所当然的（南非种族隔离时代分出“白人”、“黑人”、“有色人”和“印度人”群体）。

其他国家也正在出现类似的故事：美国民主党正因拉丁裔和黑人选民可能大规模抛弃自己而感到焦头烂额。

非国大失败的另一个主要原因是雅各布·祖马（Jacob Zuma）的突然政治复出，他的新政党“民族之矛”（MK）赢得了14.6%的选票。许多人怀疑，这位正在面临贪腐指控的前总统重返政坛的目的是想将法庭上的争辩变成政治舞台上的博弈。

5月31日，工作人员在南非米德兰的大选计票中心内观看电子显示牌实时公布的最新计票结果。图源：新华社

他显然让人联想到特朗普，尤其因为当祖马在2021年被拘押时，他的支持者发动了南非种族隔离结束以来最严重的骚乱。为了加强两人的“相似度”，祖马在选举结束后也第一时间高呼“舞弊”。

尽管有许多不足，但非国大一直强调自己完成了一项艰巨的任务，即领导一个分裂的国家走出种族隔离的阴影，建立一个团结、充满活力的多种族民主国家。哪怕非国大在西方的批评者也不得不承认这一点。

遗憾的是，这一成果也似乎被动摇了，这次选举的意义似乎就是透露出南非日益加剧的内部分裂。祖马的“民族之矛”的崛起主要依靠祖鲁人（南非最大的民族）的集中支持，而新成立的“爱国联盟”则迅速将自己定位为“有色人”利益的平台。

鉴于南非充满悲剧的历史，这些情况令人极为不安。虽然南非“种族投票”现象仍在显现过程中，但不同族群分别投“各自”的党派，意味着每场政治斗争实际上都变成了种族群体之间的斗争，这对任何民主国家来说都是巨大的危险。未来可能还会有更多像祖马这样不择手段的政客利用和扩大分歧来谋取私利。

如果这样的趋势不得到扭转，可能发生的悲惨结局历历在目。黎巴嫩的“宗教投票”导致了数十年的内乱和社会崩溃，而波斯尼亚的国家统一再次受到了塞尔维亚分离主义的威胁。当然，也有相反的例子，比如加拿大法语区和英语区之间最终实现了相对和睦，这似乎归功于经济的繁荣和妥协的意愿。

在南非，走向选举的彻底“巴尔干化”政治格局唯一所缺的重要环节就是更多迎合各大黑人族群的政党，特别是迎合科萨民族的政党。

科萨人是仅次于祖鲁人的南非第二大民族，他们长期是非国大的政治根基，曼德拉等许多非国大元老都是科萨人，因此“科萨民族主义政党”尚不存在。但随着非国大未来疲于四处“救火”，从而忽视科萨族关心的问题，这也可能存在变数。

不论如何，非国大一直都有跨党派合作的传统，主动为主要反对党议员提供内阁席位。而大多数反对党则不太一样，它们经常强调拒绝与某些其他政党合作。

南非曾被誉为“彩虹之国”，是种族和解的象征；如果连南非都可能走上黎巴嫩甚至南斯拉夫的老路，这不仅对所有热爱南非的人来说是灾难性的，也会对多元、多种族民主国家可以成功的理想来说极为可怕。

英文原文：

Thirty
years after apartheid, Nelson Mandela’s political heirs are in for a
rude awakening. The African National Congress (ANC) he led won barely 40
per cent in South Africa’s general election, a veritable collapse in
support after garnering just 57.5 per cent of votes in 2019, a record
low then.

The
ANC has mainly lost support among young people. An AtlasIntel poll just
before the election showed the ANC had the support of over half of
those surveyed who were over 60 years but just 27 per cent of those aged
16-24 (16-18 years old can register but not yet vote).

The
younger generation “understandably didn’t go through the struggle era,
so they don’t feel the loyalties to the ANC”, said ANC member of
parliament Yunus Carrim.

The
changing youth vote is a familiar headache for many political parties,
including in the West. Ahead of Poland’s election last year, which
unseated the Law and Justice (PiS) party after eight years, exit polls
showed that while older voters supported establishment parties, young
women increasingly favoured the far-left, while young men flirted with
the far-right, even openly misogynistic parties.

The
Israel-Hamas war has further radicalised young people, with elite
college campuses in the United States erupting into confrontations
between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protesters. Ahead of the November
presidential elections, Joe Biden is facing pressure to stop supporting
Israel or face the wrath of young voters.

Opinion
polls show that young people are broadly dissatisfied with Western
institutions and society, and pushing for more radical changes.

In
South Africa, opinion polls point to a slightly different picture: the
discontent is general and unconfined to any demographic group. It’s not
hard to see why.

Aside
from older issues of corruption and “state capture” as well as the
challenges of being stuck in the so-called middle-income trap, in recent
years, South Africa has also seen rising food prices, extremely high
unemployment and frequent rolling blackouts. The post-Covid hit to the
popularity of most incumbent governments is likely to have affected the
ANC too.

The
country’s largest opposition party, Democratic Alliance, has also seen
an erosion of local support after being challenged by the upstart
Patriotic Alliance. The former, which prides itself on being a
“non-racial” party, has been accused by the latter of taking its
minority supporters for granted, in particular the community previously
classified as “coloured” under the apartheid regime (as opposed to
“whites”, “blacks” and “Indians”).

This
has international parallels: the US Democratic Party is panicking over
the possibility that Latino and black voters might abandon it en masse.

Another
major reason for ANC’s defeat was the sudden political re-emergence of
Jacob Zuma, whose new party, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), won 14.6 per cent of
the vote. Many suspect the return of the former president, who still
faces corruption charges, is aimed at taking his fight for justice into
the court of public opinion.

Comparisons
with Donald Trump abound, not least because when Zuma was taken into
custody in 2021, his supporters launched the worst riots South Africa
had seen since apartheid.

For
all its shortcomings, the ANC would say – and even critics from the
West would agree – that it has managed the monumental task of leading a
divided country out of the shadow of apartheid to form a united and
dynamic multiracial democracy.

Sadly,
this might no longer be the case. The real election story may be of
growing divisions. The rise of Zuma’s party, MK, is based on
concentrated support among the Zulus, the largest ethnic group in South
Africa, while the upstart Patriotic Alliance is swiftly positioning
itself as a platform for minority interests.

Given
South Africa’s painful history, these are extremely troubling
developments. While the trend of ethnic polarised voting in South Africa
is still emerging, the sorting of demographic groups into parties means
that each political battle also becomes a de facto fight between ethnic
groups – a danger for any democracy. There might yet be more
unscrupulous politicians like Zuma to exploit and enlarge divisions for
personal gain.

We’ve
seen where this could lead, if unchecked. Religious-political
polarisation in Lebanon led to decades of civil strife and societal
dysfunction, while Bosnia is once again threatened by Serbian
separatism. There are counter examples, to be sure, such as the eventual
amity between French and English-speaking Canadians, where the answer
seems to lie in prosperity and a willingness to compromise.

In
South Africa, the only major piece missing for a truly Balkanised
political landscape is the formation of more parties catering to black
ethnic groups, in particular a Xhosa nationalist party.

Xhosas,
the second largest ethnic group after the Zulus, are the support base
of the ANC, with Mandela and many ANC elders hailing from the grouping,
so a Xhosa nationalist party doesn’t exist. But it’s entirely plausible
that this could change as the ANC tries to put out political fires
everywhere and fails to centre on Xhosa issues.

For
all its faults, the ANC has always worked across the aisle, offering
leading opposition MPs seats in the cabinet. The same cannot be said of
most opposition parties, which emphasise their refusal to work with
certain others.

If
South Africa, the country once hailed as the “rainbow nation” and a
symbol of racial reconciliation, finds itself going down the path of
Lebanon and even Yugoslavia, it would not just be catastrophic to
everyone who loves South Africa but also ominous for the idea of
diverse, multiracial democracies.