Zuma doesn’t understand true meaning of democracy

PRESIDENTJacob Zuma’s childlike explanation of what democracy means cannot be explained away by presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj. There is too much evidence over the past few years that Zuma does see democracy as domination by the majority.

Zuma told Parliament last week that a small trade union cannot have the same rights as a big, established one; just as the ANC as the majority party should have more rights than the opposition.

The ANC’s mentality of seeing state and party as one entity is an extension of this simplistic view. The “revolution” ANC leaders love to regularly mention has more to do with establishing ANC hegemony than fighting for justice and equality.

The ANC’s war of attrition against the judiciary and especially the Constitutional Court is clearly another product of the view that the party that gets the majority of the votes in an election should be untouchable.

Two years ago Zuma criticised the Constitutional Court judges and said the ANC was elected by the majority, while these judges were not elected by anyone. He has made similar remarks about the media and journalists not being elected by the people.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is a key Cosatu union, and Cosatu is part of the ruling Tripartite Alliance. Of course it is going to get better treatment than non-ANC unions – they’re part of the majority.

In 2006 the Transport and Allied Workers Union, also a Cosatu union, supported a strike of security guards that lasted three months. It was an extremely violent strike during which at least 60 people were killed, most likely by some of the striking workers.

There was no deployment of the defence force then, no ban on marches, no disarming of strikers and no police shootings.

Similarly, violent and destructive strikes by Cosatu unions, like the Municipal Workers’ Union, have been handled with kid gloves by the ANC government. The striking platinum mine workers have rejected NUM and some have joined the smaller Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union. They can’t have the same rights as the “majority”, now can they?

The same mentality is behind the ANC’s attempts to rewrite history, editing out the black consciousness movement, the PAC, Azapo and leaders like Robert Sobukwe – even Steve Biko.

The two top leaders of the South African Communist Party, Blade Nzimande and Jeremy Cronin, regularly pepper their statements with the phrase “anti-majoritarianism”.

Opposing or questioning the ANC majority, of which the tiny SACP is a part, is tantamount to rejecting the will of the majority, and that is undemocratic.

I see this skewed view of democracy reflected by ordinary ANC supporters on a daily basis in social and other media – sometimes even by opinion formers and commentators. We are the majority, so go jump in the lake.

We don’t have a long tradition of proper democracy in our country. One can understand that people who have been oppressed and humiliated would fall for the simplistic view that democracy means that the will of the party that received more than 50 percent of the vote should dominate in all spheres.

But it is the job of all political leaders, parties and institutions to educate the public and explain concepts like tolerance, freedom of speech, the role of political opposition and of civil society, the rule of law, the sovereignty of the courts and the distinction between ruling party and state.

Before 1990 the ANC spent all its energies on fighting the apartheid regime, and under the influence of their old patrons in Moscow had a dim view of multiparty democracy and individual freedoms anyway.

Very little such leadership and education took place after the Mandela era. Most supporters of the pre1990 National Party also believed that they had more rights because most white South Africans voted for them. They were also not educated in the true nature of democracy, and were also intolerant of other views and enforced their own.

After 1994 they suddenly discovered that minorities are supposed to be protected in a true democracy. And now far too many white South Africans have little regard for the wishes of the majority, demanding to again have their way because that is what a democracy means; even resisting efforts to redress the imbalances and injustices of the past as demanded by our constitution.

That is an equally flawed and dangerous view of democracy.

The constitution the elected representatives of the people of SA negotiated, and which became law in 1996, is still the last word on democracy SA-style.

It proposes a fine balance of recognising the will of the majority while making sure the rights of all kinds of minorities are not trampled on, and it prescribes a proper division of powers and checks and balances.

President Zuma should take time off fighting his opponents in the ANC and study the constitution.