When leaders stand up and speak on our behalf, who is this ‘our’?

The insinuations went further to indicate that the “us” in terms of the interpretation hold a higher privilege than others and therefore do not warrant expression before those at the bottom.

While I take issue with the logic, it is not my primary gripe. Nor is the confusingly hypocritical statement of “you do not speak on behalf of us”. What irks me is the political game of controlling narratives regardless of the contesting ideas.

In debating, half of what goes into winning is how you frame the debate, set out the rules and define the motion. In political discourse, it’s no different, except at the end you have to deal with actual consequences … consequences which may be dire if we allow a conversation to be monopolised. Worryingly, shutting people out of the conversation seems to be the tactic appealing to all sides these days, and followed to its natural conclusion, there may be a rather particular difficulty.

Certainly, when making statements, they favour some considerations at the expense of others. Thabo Mbeki gave us a great example of this when, as president in 2004, he claimed that crime was not a problem to most citizens. Thing is, one expects people who try to champion certain causes to make statements that support their cause. That is how ideas are placed in the heat of the debate.

One also expects that one will disagree with an argument that does not fit within their narrative, and this is where it gets dicey … to disagree with an argument is not the same as disputing its validity, and that is where we find ourselves now.

Wealthy people who concern themselves with the economy are apparently socially incompetent to comment on the plight of the poor, but the same does not seem to hold for the poor in instances of wealth redistribution. At first glance, this may seem like a great equaliser to ensure balance in the economy, but obviously that has not been the result. Even if it were, the notion is philosophically inconsistent, as wealth is not the only political differentiator between people. Throw race, age, education and a bunch of other identifiers into the mix and apply the same logic and you’ll find that the only person who can speak on your behalf is, well, you.

No way the ginger from Benoni has my problems, so they can’t understand my problems, so they can’t speak for me … so I need somebody like me with my background to adequately represent me.

That’s increasingly becoming the narrative we face coupled with the idea that the rich can’t speak for the poor, black can’t speak for white and and and…

The problem with that other than the practicality is that it’s exceptionally self-indulgent; as if to say that because nobody can represent me other than somebody like me, then I want somebody like me in power even if my belief is that they inevitably can’t represent you … so take this middle finger and give me, and only me, my representation.

In framing our discourse this way and allowing it to fester, we’ve committed a bad social gaffe. Yeah the rich haven’t been fantastic to the poor and yeah there are pockets of racial hatred and yeah we have our serious differences that manifest in conflict on so many social levels.

And yes it’s important to engage with those and admit fault where it exists.

What we have recently cultivated though is the acceptance of barriers to block voices, not because the voices are saying unacceptable things but because the voices are speaking with unaccepted accents.

When Thabo Mbeki claimed that crime was not a problem for citizens, nobody asked him which citizens and made him justify any proportion of representation. They straight up went and asked the citizenry en masse.

Today it seems that we’re so caught up in how to divvy up who represents us and for what reason and whether that representation is valid that little else gets done.

Frankly I don’t care who champions my concerns but I would appreciate some effort in determining what my concerns actually are. For all the petitions, there are opposing petitions. For all the evidence, there is opposing evidence. For all the opinions, there are opposing opinions … and here we are quibbling over “who is this ‘us’ that you speak of? Because you don’t represent ‘us’” (in the third sentence “it is clearly rather I who represents us” is implied).

If it is important to you to fight over people invoking ”we” and you simply cannot bring yourself to think, actually, not me but maybe some others, who am I to tell you you’re wrong?

What I do know is that, while you’re discussing that, I’m watching the stats, our rights are being violated with little explanation, the economy is hurting, the curve is not flattening and, oh, even if you have full control of the narrative, you’d be hard pressed to tell me that I can’t claim that we are dying … and that holds true regardless of my wealth, colour and the fact that I was born in Bloemfontein.

Yet we’re only approaching 300 deaths in South Africa. Why would my invocation of “we” be any less assertive when representing the thousands of people in “end the lockdown” groups?

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.