Beware of identity politics

We are left with a couple of weeks to go before the most eagerly awaited general elections since the dawn of democracy, takes place.

Never has there been such a high contestation rate and interest since 1994, when all the major parties who entered the race genuinely believed they could win the polls.

Back then, no one knew the electoral strength of each party and whether the people would turn out in huge numbers to vote.

It was still a novel idea to actually go out and vote in what we called ‘one man, one vote’ and not the bastardised versions of democracy with which the apartheid government tried to browbeat us.

We came from a history of puppet municipal councilors who were foisted upon black townships prior to 1994, the doomed Tricameral parliament that tried to break up generic black votes along racial lines and the absolute nonsense which was the homeland system based on tribal lines.

The road to what we have now was paved by a lot of sacrifices of people right across racial lines.

We had, especially in the 1980s, a melting pot of different peoples coming from all sectors of our society, united and speaking in one voice.

This nonracial character of our political struggle has to a large degree been denuded and we are seeing political parties made up, mainly, of certain racial groups.

No-one seems bothered or sees this as a big threat to our democracy.

Certain racial groupings that saw themselves as an integral part of the struggle for freedom do have a certain sense of being sidelined and this has led many to being disillusioned and staying at home, disengaged from the body politic.

They have a genuine case too. This has rendered some vulnerable to race baiters who see an opportunity for them to be relevant by exploiting this disillusionment. The dangerous part about it is that they are also exploiting the racial divide the apartheid government tried so hard to create.

This has been the number one failure of our democracy, we failed to make efforts to counter and ultimately defeat it.

We still have apartheid spatial planning which we have not made a priority to dismantle. I have not come across any attempt to address this in any of the party manifestos. This fear by the minorities within the black section of the population whether real or imagined is an issue that needs to be addressed lest it poisons our body politic forever.

Remember, perception is reality in politics, you cannot just ignore it and hope that facts will prove you right.

I do not know whether the 26 days left before we vote is enough time for any of the major parties to address this issue.

I suppose, all we can do is to talk about it with a hope that people will be aware of it and not allow it to sway them one way or the other.

Nothing good ever comes out of identity politics, especially the artificial basis of it which we have had in our country.