May the assaults on global democracy leave scars of overcoming, not defeat

I have a skew nose. It swerves to the left from about the middle, giving me remarkably different profile views.

If you look at me from the left, I resemble a Teutonic knight, with the kind of pointy protuberance that was in vogue in Prussia in the 1800s. Look at me from the right and look like someone who broke their nose in a surfing accident at Cape St Francis in grade 10, which in fact I am. I am not a Teutonic knight, as my ex-girlfriend will confirm.

I started with the body template of someone from northern Europe and have spent most of my life customising it, through a process of heavy use, injury, scarification and tattooing.

To use the time honoured nature-nurture dichotomy, the current state of my body combines the nature I was imbued with from the ancient, forested plains of Prussia with the nurture of cheap tattoos, gammy leg tendons and skew noses from face-planting into a surfboard in a 40-knot south-westerly.

However, in doing so, I have crafted a body that suits my needs. I am comfortable in my skin, my tattoos are acceptable to the people I hang around with, and I can still do a decent park run, as long as it’s flat.

WATCH: Mob storms US Capitol as Trump accused of ‘coup’

As I beheld the recent occupation of the United States Capitol building by a band of white supremacists protesting outgoing US President Donald Trump’s loss of their election, I couldn’t help thinking that there are parallels between bodies and countries.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to characterise the attempted coup in Washington as a broken nose for democracy. A punch in the face, certainly, and probably a couple of black eyes too. It is a shameful demonstration of racist white entitlement; a mob uprising by thugs dispatched to attack their nation’s headquarters via hate speech from the president himself.

The event will leave a scar. But as another old chestnut has it, every scar tells a story.

One hopes that American democracy, like the democracy of South Africa, and every other country on the good earth, is an evolving creation; that the body politic – like the human body – is constantly adapted and customised to suit the needs of those who must live in it.

One also hopes that this violent, fascist episode of childish pique by spoiled, privileged citizens unable to tolerate even incremental shifts towards true democracy will be a painful, but ultimately necessary stage of their country’s evolution.

The essential quest for society at large should be to eradicate poverty so that everyone can have equal opportunities, not to serve the interests of a small group of ignorant, bigoted bullies. This campaign for equality is often derailed, misinformed, misrepresented and sabotaged. But the quest continues.

Every time the journey loses its way, we reverse a little bit, choose a new route and head off towards that same destination. Let’s hope this latest misstep is just such a detour. At least we know now that this is not the right way. Electing a privileged, demagogue fascist is not the way to eradicate poverty and inequality.

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There will be wrong turns, detours and short lefts in every democracy. Perhaps they need to be explored in order for us to finally dismiss them. False choices are in fact a painful but necessary part of developing the roadmap to true democracy.

In the same way, we each develop a physical body that tells the story of our personal life journeys, complete with chubby bits, scars, adornments and modifications. What we end up with is the body that suits us, and one that tells the story of our journey until here.

This scar? It’s an operation I had. This is my hairstyle. This, the body I have built with my way of living. As a country and nation, one hopes we can also build the kind of vehicle that suits us, that serves our purpose.

The shock of the Washington invasion is known to many nations around the world. South Africa’s own 1993 World Trade Centre invasion was not terribly different. It was an assault by enemies of democracy. But it was a step on the ongoing road to freedom.

May these one day become scars of pride and overcoming, not scars of defeat; and may the face of national, and global, democracy one day have a skew nose and some scuffed eyebrows, but still a kind of rugged, functional beauty.

Hagen Engler.

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