Follow my (corrupt) leader takes us down the low road

— Ismail Lagardien

THE daily grind of social life is shaped by several things, some of which we understand and can explain, and some of which remain befuddling. Among the things we know with some certainty is that social behaviour is conditioned as much by perception as it is by emulation. The two often go together.

We see our parents behave in particular ways and we emulate them. Teachers and community leaders act in particular ways and we emulate them. On the larger canvas of political economy, elected politicians, prelates, office bearers and leaders of large corporations and institutions say and do things and we look up to them.

We gather impressions, whether actual or perceived, and we often try to emulate them. Sometimes we do so without thinking about it.

Social psychologists may refer to subconscious mimicry or self-identification with others in a community or society as ways to endear oneself to those whom we consider important.

We curry favour with influential people, by mimicking them. We often do so unwittingly. All of this gives us a sense of belonging, of importance, or simply helps situate us in society. This mimicry and emulation is especially pronounced if we share perceived or actual affiliations and solidarity through political organisations or notions of racial, ethnic or religious exclusivity.

In global political economy, we began to take the emulative effect seriously after the collapse of the Soviet Union and when the Berlin Wall came down. Communities and societies began to see, or sense, what was possible and what could be achieved in discrete locations, and emulated uprisings and revolutions. One quite powerful, more recent example, comes from the uprisings and revolutions across much of the Arab world, that were inspired, as it were, by Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution in December 2010. People across the region saw what was possible when Tunisians took to the streets, and emulated them in Libya, Cairo and elsewhere in the Arab world.

The outcomes in both the immediate post-Cold War and the “Arab Spring” revolutions have been mixed, but what does seem clear is evidence of an emulative effect that inspired or encouraged behaviour across borders.

Within national society, emulation remains a powerful force for shaping social behaviour. Systematic research may have to be done, but what seems apparent is that general lawlessness and many criminal activities in SA can be explained, at least in part, by the emulative effect.

We see leaders who resort to crass behaviour, to cold mendacity, and who lie, deceive and accumulate fortunes in murky ways, apparently through very little innovation, inspiration or perspiration.

Decision makers in cornerstone institutions of our political economy, such as the public broadcaster, are accused of fraud and misleading the public and flagrantly refuse to be held accountable to the most basic laws of the country.

Although it is associated with a rather conservative trend in political economy, the rule of law — from the laws that direct traffic on our roads to those that hold us account- able in the offices we keep — is slaughtered on the altar of sacred beasts.

Transforming SA into a more just and equitable society has become a moneymaking machine. The taxi driver refuses to adhere to the rules of the road — and swears at you when you point out that he has run a red light. The school teacher who fails to do the one thing she has been entrusted with, to teach our children, is more concerned with personal pecuniary gain and running a small business on the side.

The Member of Parliament receives more than R1m a year but has not once participated in a debate, committee work or constituency work. The public servant, complacently paddling in a pool of hegemony, is barely able to string together a coherent sentence on paper, but that means very little; in the public service, no skills are required — just an unspoken oath of fealty.

In the private sector, the corporate executive will continue to conduct business as usual and feel sanctified because he has placed a few black faces on the board. Like a children’s colouring book, the shapes and the stories remain intact, just the colours change. Indeed, for as long as there is money to be made from the notion of transformation, “transformation” will be what we do for decades to come. How do we explain all of this? Well, one easy explanation for the cur- rent state of affairs (the stock response) is to assume that nothing has happened in the country between 1994 and now. Of course, to some people, nothing happened before 1994 (apartheid is a figment of our imagination) and yet to most of us it seems as if nothing happened after 1994.

At midnight on April 26 1994, we entered a dead zone of human activity and woke up on January 8 2015.

Whatever happened in this dead zone is imagined; no one can be held accountable for the state we’re in.

A more nuanced explanation is that we seem to have assumed some kind of moral high ground based on the belief that good people cannot be bad and bad people cannot can’t be good. Part of this is the permissibility of avarice, greed, incompetence, laziness, noncompliance, unaccountability, fraud, flinging faeces at political opponents, threatening Parliament with nudity, and general criminal behaviour.

These are all rendered permissible because our leaders themselves are hardly paragons of virtue. We emulate them.

Very few political leaders stand out as exemplars of excellence, piety and moral fortitude. Children are given the impression that money and power can be achieved with little effort. They emulate leaders. Communities get the impression that one can have power and influence without any accountability or consequences.

There are no quick and easy answers to all the problems that beset the country. What does require attention, nonetheless, is the way we conduct ourselves, lest we influence a next generation to ravage society, with little or no compunction, simply because of what happened before April 26 1994. We seem to be setting the bar of social conduct very low.

What seems apparent is that general lawlessness can be explained, at least in part, by the emulative effect

Lagardien is a political economist