You have to be some kind of messed-up political party to wake up one morning before the elections and decide: hey, you know what would be fun? Let’s run on an anti-human rights platform. And then let’s think of a catchy, simple slogan that everyone can understand. Something like, "The constitution? We spit on it."
The ACDP is that very party.
ACDP, surprisingly, is not the acronym for the Against Constitutional Democracy Party, but instead stands for African Christian Democratic Party, and I’m here to tell you it embodies the worst stereotypes of all those terms. It’s like the party decided to put together a grab-bag of reactionary, conservative, mean-spirited ideologies to sell in the R10 store of cheap ideas.
I can’t decide what metaphor works best for this. Is it like a packet of lickspittle all-sorts of the most abysmal flavours of bigotry? Or is it like a handy to-do list downloaded from Populist Idiots Monthly?
It says a lot that the first thing you see on the ACDP website is an image of an ivermectin packet, with the words: "This is a great victory for the ACDP and the people of SA. Ivermectin, as a safe and effective treatment, will be available for all those who are in need of it."
But peddling snake oil is, of course, the very essence of for-profit religions, so we shouldn’t be surprised.
And the ACDP happily posts anti-vaccination lies on social media, like: "SA’s first nurse to accept a Covid ‘vaccine’, has since died. Government and the hysterical ‘vax everyone’ group will refuse to link it to the vax even when it’s clear. This is not an isolated instance & judging from what’s happening in other countries, SA’s truth remains hidden."
Let’s take a look at the ACDP’s values. These pearls of prejudice are listed on a graphic that, ostensibly, allows you to see the opinion of different political parties on a variety of issues, many of which don’t actually exist outside the febrile rantings of the ACDP’s pastors-for-profit marketing wing. The ACDP optimistically describes these as "your" values.
The first is the stock in trade of all fundamentalist religions forced to belong to secular democracies that privilege the diversity of human experience over the dictates of myopic religions: "Acknowledges God in the party constitution."
I shudder to think what a democracy would look like if mishandled by a party that believes gods should dictate our existence. But I don’t have to imagine it, as the litany of "issues" that follow do a pretty good job of delineating that.
There’s the standby of the patriarch with a quiveringly erect switch, cut from the tree of Old Testament morality: the "right of parents to discipline their children".
According to the ACDP, this is an issue on which only COPE agrees with it. The DA, ANC and EFF all don’t believe parents have a right to discipline their children. Lies, of course. What the ACDP believes in is the right to physically abuse your child under the guise of discipline.
Corporal punishment’s dancing partner in the waltz is next on the list: "Content of education to be decided by parents." The party that has "done its own research" on vaccines wants us to let its parents decide what their children should learn. Good grief. Was the medieval age really that good for business? Are we going to remove that pesky evolution theory from the syllabus on the principle that it hasn’t been tested for long-term effects?
Next up are the usual four donkeys of the apocalypse: marriage, abortion, prostitution and pornography. Predictably, the ACDP "promotes biblical marriage". What is biblical marriage, you ask? Issue number 10 on the list might give you the clue: unlike the other political parties, the ACDP "opposed the proposal that civil servants must perform same-sex marriages or lose their jobs".
For our beloved divine heterosexuals, the Bible must trump our constitution.
It’s like the ACDP decided to put together a grabbag of reactionary, conservative, mean- spirited ideologies to sell in the R10 store of cheap ideas
The ACDP is, of course, "against abortion", "against legalising prostitution", and "against legalising pornography".
Leaving aside the respective (or lack of, I would venture) merits of each of those positions, it’s pretty clear that this is a catch-all for that old standby of conservative religions, the policing of women’s bodies by god-kissed men who know better.
And when you’re trying to control how people think about sexuality and freedom, you are of course in the camp that "opposes comprehensive sexual education in schools".
God forbid (yes, "literally") that children should be given the tools to understand how reactionary the ACDP’s attitudes to sexuality, abortion and identity are.
And as you’ll have guessed, the ACDP also embraces that paradox so beloved of fundamentalist religions, and that is so perfectly embodied by the Republican Party in the US, for whom the ACDP seems to exist as some sort of stunted mini-me. Being pro-life, to use the spin, means you’re also fervently pro-death. Yes, the ACDP supports the "death penalty for capital crimes".
It’s become such a trite, inane gibe, deployed uncritically by many, that we’ve almost stopped noticing how fundamentally deep is the hypocrisy to which it points. But it’s worth remembering just how shaky the religious argument for the sanctity of life is when you also believe in the old eye-for-an-eye maxim.
And, of course, though the ACDP is happy to let the state decide if someone should live or die when it comes to the death penalty, it won’t let you have that control over your own life. Another hot-button issue it has embraced is its opposition to legalising assisted suicide.
There have been other parties dipping their politicking toes into the muddied waters of populism and prejudice, of course. One could, for instance, devote a column or two to the pro-vigilantism marketing video of Angus McKenzie, a DA ward councillor candidate in Cape Town.
It features some unlikely-looking action heroics to a (paid for, I’m sure) localised mix of the Ghostbusters theme tune, and includes our hero taking out a criminal in what I thought was a slow-motion shot, but turns out to just be very slow moving action.
As Chester Missing puts it in a very funny video analysis: "Now he’s doing vigilante justice, that’s the DA’s angle."
I recommend reading the Daily Maverick’s full analysis, including a faux-film review: "The array of characters in his 98-second skit includes a gunman, another man sprawled on the ground, McKenzie as a punching politician to the rescue, cheering residents and, in between the action, a scene involving an unflushing toilet."
Well, the scene actually features a man defecating and then not bothering to wipe, which is probably the most apt metaphor for how some politicians approach local government.
There’s also the GOOD party’s awkward attempt at paternalism and fisticuffs via its "Aunty Pat" de Lille and "not-Uncle" Brett Herron boxing posters, which combine the awkwardness of an estranged family’s annual gathering with a sort of WWE amateur pastiche.
But none of these is even close to the sweeping denunciation of our constitutional freedoms, and blatant denial of human rights, that is the ACDP’s list of their core beliefs.
If it were true that Satan works in hidden and devious ways to foist evil upon the world, one would be inclined to see this list of reactionary issues as one of his greatest triumphs. I can’t tell you what party you should vote for, but I can tell you that this is one you shouldn’t.
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