Give democracy a chance

If we don’t learn to use our democratic rights to hold the government to account, we will lose our democratic freedoms as well.

Here’s a radical idea: let’s give democracy a try. Yes, of course we have a democratic system in place, and a government elected by the people, but in fact we have democracy in name only. South Africans appear not to have realised—although they may be starting to do so—that the act of voting is something is simply a means to achieve an end, not an end in itself.

Since 1994, we have allowed a dangerous pattern to take hold, one that seems to be democracy but actually is not. The people dutifully turn up to vote on election day, mainly for the ANC, and then when they experience poor service delivery and the other rotten fruits of corruption, they riot and burn to make their voices heard. Four years later, the cycle begins again: vote ANC and then barricade a road in order to get some attention from the officials you elected—all the while complaining, “Democracy has failed us. Democracy doesn’t work.”

Some argue that the rebuke delivered in the recent local government elections is an indication that the tide is turning, but in truth it was a very small one when one considers the extent of the corruption, the dire record of failed service delivery, and the hijacking of the machinery of the state that has gone on. On any rational basis, the ANC should have been struggling for political survival.

The truth is that democracy, especially when practised in our large societies, is a blunt tool. Citizens cannot afford the luxury of just turning up to vote at regular intervals, and of voting as they always do. It is necessary to vote out the people who are not delivering, and then undertake at least some of the tedious between-election work of holding officials to account via civil society structures, pestering MPs and councillors, convening meetings and the like.

If we don’t accept this work—and, make no mistake, it is work and it’s far from exciting—then we will get… well, what we have now. Already the belief that democracy has somehow failed has taken root. The fact that many of the promises of 1994 have not been fully realised is has come to be ascribed to a failure of the democratic process. But we need to own up to the fact that the problem is one that the electorate created, and that only it can solve—governing cannot be outsourced totally because, as history and our own experience tell us, power really does corrupt even the best people

The people have failed to govern

This unacknowledged failure of the electorate to exercise its prerogative has bred a country furious with desperation and rage, to whom violent destruction seems, if not the answer, at least an answer.

Democracy’s resulting crisis of legitimacy has impelled us to the lip of the precipice. The crisis that currently tearing apart the tertiary education system offers us a foretaste of what a post-democratic order would be like. However valid their reasons for dissatisfaction about inadequate and inefficient funding, the protesting students are showing us how a militant and unscrupulous minority can impose its will on the majority, even though its actions spell disaster for the very people they purport to be supporting.

Once the public universities collapse, as it now seems likely some will, then the middle class, into which the leaders of the current student movement certainly fall, will abandon them in favour of private or international institutions, and route out of poverty offered by education will recede further into the distance for the poor.

Let’s make the point again: because democracy is considered to have failed to achieve results, the notion that every citizen has a voice that should be heard and considered can be overridden with impunity. Even though the reporting of the protests has been generally poor, one can discern a persistent theme of how those who dare to voice disagreement or even a plea for thought, are effectively silenced.

Just who is being held to account?

To add insult to injury, the state—the holder of the national purse strings and the elected servant of the people—is not held accountable for its failures in this regard, and suffers no fear that a subsequent election will unseat it. Just as the frustrated and ineffectual electorate turns on the soft targets it can physically reach, so the students are turning on the very institutions they desire to join. At this point, it seems impossible to understand the irrationality of the actions that damage the very tools needed to escape the trap of poverty and dependency—schools, libraries and universities.

Democracy, as I have said, is a blunt instrument. It is far from a perfect political system but, as EM Forster recognised it at least deserves two cheers. Forster contended that democracy was less hateful than other forms of government because it starts from the assumption that the individual is important, and it allows criticism. Of course, in the end, the will of the majority will prevail, which is frequently not the best option, but at least alternative voices are valued and have the opportunity to persuade. The downside, as we have seen, is that it requires energy and thought to be made to deliver results.

Make no mistake: we are in a crisis. But we will not achieve a solution unless we accept that it is one for which we, the voters, are primarily responsible. If we don’t take steps to make democracy work, and be seen to work—something that will require some courage and decisiveness—we will soon find that the alternatives are far, far worse.