Picture-perfect: that’s democracy for you (and me)

DEMOCRACY is a funny thing; it sometimes looks better on a placard or a bumper sticker than it does in real life. I suppose many of us, at some time of our lives, have marched shouting the slogans of democracy. “Equal rights for all! One man one vote! The people shall govern!” We shouted them until we were hoarse and the cops sprayed us with purple dye and tear gas, so the slogan changed to “the purple shall govern!”

Somebody far cleverer than me once said: “Democracy is a terrible way to govern, but it’s the best we have.”

I think one of the problems is that most people don’t actually want to govern. They just want to be able to get on with life, earning a living, having a decent place to live and being able to to feed and raise a happy family.

So in come the politicians who say: “Let us represent you and we will provide all you want.”

And the politicians provide themselves with big black cars, luxury watches and single malt whisky and the poor people continue to starve while the new rich folk say democracy is wonderful.

I hasten to say this is not a uniquely South African scenario.

I read in the Cape Argus (so it must be true) that in Washington DC – capital city of the Home of Democracy and Land of the Free – huge “encampments” and tent cities have sprung up and homelessness has increased by 34% since 2009.

The average rent in Washington is the equivalent of R16 000 a month and thousands of families can no longer afford this, so they end up on the streets homeless – in temperatures as low as -23°C.

When I drive along Baden Powell Drive and look across the many thousands of informal homes stretching for kilometre after kilometre across the Cape Flats, I feel a deep sense of pity when I think of the relative comfort in which I live.

But I also feel proud in a strange way, because I know many of the people who live there have come to the city with big dreams, owning nothing, just like the poor masses who arrived at America’s Ellis Island, and they have built homes out of nothing and they are surviving in tough conditions (Okay, -23°C, but pretty tough).

I believe that one day many of those people will work their way out of the informal settlements. Taxi drivers will become fleet owners, bricklayers will become building contractors, street traders will become international businessmen and backyard mechanics will own motor franchises.

It now remains to see whether a new team of politicians will be able to make it possible for these dreams of democracy to come true.

Last Laugh

After a few drinks, three guys at the bar started bragging about how they never allowed their wives to dominate them. One chap stayed very quiet, so the others asked him: “And what about you?”

“Well,” he said, “only last night my wife came crawling to me on her hands and knees.”

“Really? And what did she say? “She said: ‘come out from under that bed and fight like a man’.”