The demise of democracy – News24
The unrestrained racism behind the calls for the expropriation of the countrys wealth including land indicates a growing impatience with the little that remains in our fragmented democratic dispensation.
South Africa is no stranger to the paradox of coveting to build a united, democratic, non-racial country, whilst slitting its citizens along its past racial lines, in the name of redressing the undefined imbalances of the past
However, democracy could not have featured prominently in the collective mind of the negotiators, when they engaged each other in an essentially self-interested industry of establishing a new constitution.
All participants had not experienced any other form of government, except racial segregation, and the tyrannical authority of various tribes.
Considering the vicious tactics that negotiators use to get their way in negotiations, it would be asinine to believe that the negotiators were in it for the people.
Negotiators do not shy away from attacking each others honesty whilst making use of dishonest tactics, such as feigning anger, or even threatening deadlocks, in order to get their way.
Therefore, whatever agreement the negotiators of our democracy reached at the negotiating table, their purpose could not have been to bequeath the people with the power to rule themselves, for themselves.
As, racism is considered to be the worst form of discrimination, which has resulted in the most horrific images of human sufferings, everyone needs to be aware of its new forms.
However, the past definition/s of race was too tenuous to base any legal certainty which is necessary for equitable application of a law. These were impracticable even when segregationist laws were in place, and now pose more danger to people who may not know what apartheid looked like.
The repeal of the laws that govern mixed marriages can have disastrous consequences for children born in such marriages.
The gateway to a new form of racism may have been left open by no other instrument than the constitutional equality clause.
By promising everyone a right to equality, and prohibiting discrimination on the stated grounds one of which is race whilst delegating the task of redressing the imbalances of the past to a winner by a simple majority, the constitution gave the new government too much of a space to redesign our society.
Surely, politics that had the potential of fragmenting our democracy along racial lines should not have been permitted, as they were bound to be exploited by those in power for their self-interest?
The eagerness with which our head of state leads this chorus, betrays a lack of faith in his pledge to uphold the constitution.
Any failure to abide by the oath of office by a head of state, has the effect of defrauding all citizens - without exception - of their hard-earned resources and time, used to effect these events, including the pomp and fanfare that accompanies them.
By rallying people along racial lines, for the purposes of effecting changes in the property clause/s of the constitution, the president contravenes the property clause, which protects property owners against arbitrary deprivation of their property, except in terms of law of general application, which law itself may not permit arbitrary deprivation of property.
Moreover, the reluctance of producers to invest time and money in the resulting uncertainty will threaten food security of everyone.
For this small return to a few cronies, the risks are too high for the whole nation.
As Nicola Machiavelli aptly puts it; desire always exceeds the power of attainment, with the result that men are ill-content with what they possess and their present state brings them little satisfaction. Hence arise the vicissitudes of their fortune.
Another useful quote from Machiavelli is that; all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavour to sanctify with the false title of honest gains.
Antonio Gramsci emphasises the hegemony of the ruling class that; once an ideology arises it alters profoundly the material reality and in fact becomes a partially autonomous feature of that reality
This means that even if this new form of racism were, miraculously, accomplished there is no guarantee that some form of racial categorisation would not be found for the objective of accessing and sustaining power.
The properties held by those who fit the so-called white capitalist bill, are too limited to satiate the glut of the undefined beneficiaries of these schemes, whilst the need for the votes of the people come at regular intervals.
Perhaps, the search for the true meaning of democracy should begin with the classical Greek, "demos" meaning people, and "kratia," meaning power.
Cyberneticists like Stafford Beer trace the origins of government or rule from kubernator- meaning governor.
Aristotle further categorised the numerous Greek city-states into three groupings, based on how many individuals ruled. His version of Democracy/polity was the rule by many, oligarchy or aristocracy, by few, and tyranny, by a single person
The rule by many is aimed at achieving equality according to number, not worth, so that majority decision may be final and must constitute justice, for they say that each of the citizens ought to have an equal sharewith the poor ending up more powerful than the rich.
The function of liberty is to live life as one likes, free of any social and other constraints.
These belong to an ideal world, not a real one, further rendering democracy no more than a pipe dream.
Defining democracy as the rule of people, by the people, and for the people, also has a hollow ring, which should unsettle even the most ardent advocate of this form of government (I think).
The principle involved is to govern and be governed in turn. As if this were attainable in a world where gaining power is the object of everyones endeavour.
A modern representative democracy is generally understood as formal equality, embodied primarily in the right to vote, which equality is according to number, not worth
This also sounds like a reverie, where competition is the norm, and not the exception.
Perhaps Paul Rahes polis is our solace; a moral community of men permanently united as a people by a common way of life and not a conspiracy of self-seeking individuals joined for mutual profit and protection in a temporary legal partnership that would be dissolved when it ceased to suit their interests
Paul Rahe also defines people as a multitudinous assemblage of rational beings united by concord regarding loved things held in common, so that a character of any given people can be discerned by investigating what it loves.
Probably this democracy was just a moment, whose fundamental vectors were similar to those of Athenian society, which were simply the needs for food, shelter, security, and conflict resolution and not much more than the accident of circumstance would distinguish the ancient Greek citizen from the modern bourgeois
And Polybius interpretation of the Golden Age of Athens as the beginning of its decline may be apt. This is feasible in a world of plenty as it was then.
Or, life itself could be such a big bore, without people coming into it, inventing vocabularies like democracy to justify plundering what others painfully piece together, only to die later, leaving the spoils to others to do the same again.
In this way democracy could have died whilst giving birth to dictatorship, and vice versa.
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The demise of democracy - News24