Reconciliation an urgent priority
OUR democracy is facing threats we have not witnessed in our recorded history. We were warned by many on numerous occasions of the mortal danger that demagogues posed to our democracy.
We witnessed carnage on an epic scale, that will be embedded in our collective memories and recorded in history books for generations to come. The war for truth is now to preserve our democracy.
Over the past 27 years, two unwritten norms have preserved our rainbow nation’s political system.
They were mutual toleration, in which parties accept each other as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, in which politicians exercise restraint in using their institutional powers.
The fiery, looting carnage completely destroyed that sacred accord, in an earth-shattering volcanic inferno. The role played by those seeking regime change will shame their names for as long as we endure as a republic.
It seems hyperbolic to call those trembling days a coup attempt, and yet it qualifies. They attempted to ignite a conflagration that would have been difficult to extinguish. An anguished nation watched in fiery 3D, the grisly results of terrifying treachery.
In this brutal and destructive looting tsunami, the guardrails of our democracy were weakened. Faceless forces exploited a deadly pandemic using stealth, deception and false slogans, in a brazen and well-choreographed attempt to alter the balance of political power.
The one week of savage looting will be an unforgettable requiem to our broken democracy. Fascism poses the greatest threat to our threedecade-old democracy. We came perilously close to totalitarianism, and we are still far from being out of the woods.
As law enforcement struggled to maintain order, we grimly witnessed how our hard-worn democracy was nearly extinguished by force of arms.
A democracy such as ours is vulnerable to a fascist takeover because fascists threaten civil war when they lose influence and elections. They rely on a tight coterie of corrupt loyalists to take over the government and impose control. Fascists promote a mythology of both victimhood and invincibility to justify their excesses.
In their brutal attack on our democracy, the masterminds of the insurrection have demonstrated a continual disrespect for the rule of law, the Constitution and the country’s democratic norms and rules.
Most of our leaders have contributed to the incoherent and disintegrative leadership that permeates our politics, resulting in ideological intransigence that promotes partisanship and obstructs reason, co-operation and compromise.
What our nation had to witness in a week of unprecedented defiance, has no parallel in our history. It was used to generate hate, dehumanise, fuel the emotional fires and precipitate individual action, including not just protests but violence, to beat down the opposition.
Our politics used to rest on mutual respect. Now it’s blood sport. Our culture is a sea of vulgarity, crudity, and obscene imagery.
Seven days of mayhem saw insurgents desecrate our constitutional system. We survived this onslaught and its seemingly never-ending, bizarre aftermath.
Reconstruction and reconciliation must be our most urgent priority. FAROUK ARAIE | GAUTENG