South Africans too distracted by political soap operas to deserve actual democracy

The political game in South Africa, with all the alliances, coalitions and internal party politics is extremely complex. Throw in an increase of middle management incompetence and there should be no surprise at how the functional systems of yesteryear, racism aside, just feel like there’s no recovery on the books.

If you were to ask me when I was in high school whether I thought I’d ever be writing for a national publication, there would have been no doubt. It just seemed like everything was in place to make opportunities possible.

If you had asked me, however, whether I would be writing in the dark on the power offered by my inverter, drinking bottled water, while waiting on quotes to replace my burst tyre, I’d tell you that’s hardly a dream come true.

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In the 1990s, we had so much hope for the future but today, we’re fighting over whether the way to go is pushing for equality, equity, or equal opportunity with significant numbers of people unable to spell the words, let alone know the differences. And we’ve just accepted that it’s okay to allow those at the top to win us over with rhetoric that hardly makes sense.

Transformation, anti-neo-liberal, neo-liberal, communism, Marxism, dignity, etc. We can hardly have conversations about any of those or even begin to understand what they mean, but they’re applied in nearly every speech.

With the World Bank data showing that more than 1 in 10 South Africans are illiterate, how can we expect that portion of the population to engage in our political discourse?

Let’s not get one another wrong. This is no diss to the illiterate, and if you are offended on their behalf, take solace in knowing they won’t be reading this.

This is also not an argument that there are prerequisite qualifications to engage in democracy.

This is an argument that in order to engage in a democracy, you need to have a democracy that is engageable. Ours doesn’t seem to be that way.

If you’re all about the ruling party, unless you know the right people, you’re not getting much bang for your buck. If you’re all about an opposition party, they’re going to be getting into bed with somebody you didn’t vote for and the compromises will begin.

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What’s most intriguing is that we kind of just accept it and think, ‘okay cool, as long as I get my say every five years, I’m happy’.

Show me a happy marriage in which one person is only allowed to make a decision once every five years. Bring me an advertiser that will invest in 10 commercials up front, but only let them flight five years apart. Tell me you’ll be smiling if you’re told that cancelling your DSTV contract would take five years.

Sure, you have your ward meetings but let’s get real. Your investment into our democracy is hardly well placed any longer.

We’ve all fallen for it. We’re all complicit. We’re all way more invested in who’s to blame rather than how we can fix things.

Go ahead, name some strategies from the National Development Plan. Tell me your favoured plan to fix Eskom, strengthen the Rand, end water scarcity, ensure teachers actually show up to class…

I’m guessing you can’t even mention a plan, let alone a favoured one.

Fine. It’s not like we should expect every voting citizen to know every possible policy of every party, although that would be ideal.

What’s concerning is that despite not being able to engage with all of that, you can probably tell me who sided with Cyril and who with NDZ. You can probably share an opinion on Steenhuizen’s roadkill gaffe. You’d probably even be able to tell me which of Juju’s DJ sets are your favourite.

None of these, however, are good enough to properly engage in democracy.

Who cares who wins between Cyril and NDZ? It’s not like their party will be any less useless to the majority of South Africans.

Who cares about how many mayoral seats the DA gets? Who cares if the EFF ejected yet another fighter from its ranks for breaking rank?

Those are not the things that keep our parks open and clean, keep our tap water drinkable and keep our lights on.

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We can’t function if we get sucked into the political battles of our leadership. Where we can function is where we demand more than talk from our leadership.

Frankly, if they could spend as little as 10% of the energy they expend trying to gain power, on things that actually positively impact every day South Africans, we’d probably have the best democracy in the world.

Think of what could happen if all that strategic thinking actually went to a good place.