South Africa’s Imperilled Democracy What Went Wrong?

By Sipho Dimba

Anyone who wants to invest in a country needs to understand the political and other dynamics that may have an impact on his or her investment.

This book will assist the reader in understanding the origin of the issues which threaten South Africa’s democracy.

The reader will come to understand:

Why traditional leaders still consider themselves as legitimate owners of land.

How the cult-like figure of Nelson Mandela was created.

The beginning of attempts to capture leaders of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and how money and power now divide the ANC and threaten democracy.

The ultimate goal of this book is to conscientize both the leaders and the led, across the racial divide, about the need to free themselves from the enmity of a divided past in order to work together for the good of the country and to attract local and foreign investment.

Lessons about South Africa’s democracy are lessons for the world!

About the Author:

At present, Sipho Dimba is a practising attorney with an additional qualification in accountancy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sipho Dimba
• Release date: Jun 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005018375

Book preview

South Africa’s Imperilled Democracy

South Africa’s Imperilled Democracy

What went wrong?

Sipho Dimba

Copyright © 2021 Emmanuel Dimba

Published by Emmanuel Dimba Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Emmanuel Dimba using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Francois Rabe for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.org

E-mail: [e-mail]

Emmanuel Dimba

[e-mail]

Preface

SOUTH AFRICA is regarded, if not respected, as a country that is the epitome of a democratic state in a continent where dictators and lifetime rulers often violate the rights of their countries’ citizens and treat them with impunity.

South Africa’s celebrated democracy faces a number of serious threats that, if not urgently addressed, may plunge the country into anarchy.

Adversity brought about by – amongst others – the coronavirus pandemic necessitates that, going forward, the citizens of South Africa – across the racial divide – take steps to work together in order to survive the hardship that lies ahead.

For South Africans to collaborate, there are some uncomfortable truths that they have to deal with. Some are not of their generation’s making, but of generations that lived centuries ago.

There are also good teachings which older generations came up with and which South Africans have abandoned. These have to be revived for the good of all.

Welcome to the world of telling it like it is!

Sipho Dimba

...2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Bigger Picture

2. Traditional Rule

3. Ubuntu

4. Religion and Land Ownership

5. The Origin of Government

6. The Struggle Against, and the Fall of Apartheid

7. The Making of an Icon – Nelson Mandela

8. Chief Albert Luthuli and The Freedom Charter

9. Who Liberated South Africa?

10. Apartheid as a Concept

11. Business

12. South Africa’s Democracy is in Danger!

13. Change Must Come!

Endnotes

1

The bigger picture

The year 2020 will go down in history as the year in which Covid-19, better known as the coronavirus pandemic, aggressively attacked the entire world by killing thousands of people in many countries, forced the grounding of aeroplanes, the shutdown of workplaces, closure of schools, suspension of sporting activities, and drawing a loud outcry in some countries for – of all things – the suspension of tobacco and liquor sales. The impact of the pandemic in people’s lives, businesses and the economy, going forward, is undoubtedly going to be huge, adverse and quite demanding.

Covid-19, which is said to have originated in November 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, belongs to a family of viruses that cause respiratory infections. Its name originates from its visual makeup – viewed under the microscope, the pathogen is said to be surrounded by spikes, or coronas. Who takes the crown – the coronavirus or the monarchs? Battle for the crown, anyone?

The grinding of the economy to a halt in some sectors of the country has already resulted in a rise in unemployment. This is likely to lead to a rise in more protest, crime, famine, and other diseases.

Human beings learn from their good and bad experiences. Covid-19 has taught the world some lessons too. The lockdown itself afforded many people an opportunity to reconnect with nature, to contemplate, ask questions, and make resolutions about their future.

Covid-19 has made it obvious that in life it does not help to be a coward. After living for a long time in inhumane conditions, one may be killed by something so small that you cannot even see it with the naked eye – just like the coronavirus.

The period of lockdown afforded me the time to look back at my younger years and the environment in which I grew up, the struggle against apartheid and the dawn of South Africa’s democracy. It also afforded me an opportunity to imagine – from the perspective of the offspring of general workers – how poor South Africans were to write their own testament about their liberation, as the Jews did when they came out of Egyptian slavery.

Having taken liberty down memory lane, and based on years of observation, there are reasonable grounds to believe that South Africa’s so-called democracy faces threats from different angles.

If well understood, this discussion can help the people of South Africa realise that across the racial divide, they need each other and can live peacefully, side by side, Black and White, without holding grudges about the events of the past. Other nations can draw some lessons from South Africa’s democracy, mistakes made and how to self-correct – just like the New Testament perfecting the Old Testament.

As already stated, South Africa’s democracy is in danger. The challenge is that the people who put it in danger are the powerful ones, the very same people who are expected to come up with solutions to problems that they themselves have created.

Jails are full of petty criminals while big-time crooks occupy positions of power and control the public discourse. The powerful choke those that speak up against injustice, fearing that the latter would ‘muddy the mind of the well-behaved’. A well-behaved being is one who, when told to jump, asks how high and not why.

In South Africa, the coronavirus struck at a time when there was evidence of divided factions within the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). If the ruling party is a house divided, with comrades fighting each other for positions of power, it raises the question of how it can best deal with the challenges visited upon the country by the coronavirus pandemic.

There still exists confusion as to how Black people lost land to Whites during colonialism and apartheid, and why they only got a vote when a Black-dominated government took over from the apartheid regime. How did it happen that land was taken from kings, but political power fell into the hands of commoners? This discussion seeks to decipher that conundrum.

How will the people of South Africa face the difficulty caused by the coronavirus if there are problems that remain unresolved and questions unanswered, some originating from changes in the way of life the indigenous people find themselves living, after the arrival of Whites and Indians? Does the majority of Black people understand and appreciate the transition from kingdoms to the system of an elected government?

Some still say the land belong to the kings! Others ask how those kings came to acquire their ownership. Such questions have to be addressed with respect and honesty.

Going forward, undoubtedly there are many things South Africans have to discuss and which are not sincerely talked about, if at all. Some public office bearers seem to be more preoccupied with self-preservation and self-enrichment than working for the well-being of society at large.

In South Africa, some Black people joined the struggle for reclaiming ‘their’ land, which was taken by Whites through rifles and canons. Perhaps I should say it was a struggle that some thought was for taking back control of the land.

Eventually the apartheid government lost power. Instead of getting back what they had lost – land – Black people were given ‘the right to vote for the government of their choice, which is based on the will of the majority’. This was a system that did not exist within Black societies prior to the arrival of Whites.

Have you ever asked yourself, "How did this happen? Were people struggling for a vote, or land, or both, or even more than that? How many understood precisely what the struggle was about, and for? How did Nelson Mandela come to be known as the father of a democratic South Africa?"

Having elected the ‘government of the will of the majority’, some people got hungrier than before. The level of unemployment rose. The use of drugs in communities got out of hand. Crime accompanied by violence that sends shiver down your spine, increased. Foreigners come and go as they please, some of them committing horrible crimes that were unprecedented in the country.

Cities and towns are dirty and in a state of dilapidation. Some buildings in urban areas are ‘hijacked’ by people who collect rent for themselves, without the authority of their owners. Some people relieve themselves on pavements in urban areas. Rural areas remain largely under-developed.

In some instances, infrastructure put in place by the Black-dominated government is vandalised by politically-connected people so that government work can be given to the same politically-connected to repair the damage caused deliberately. At times, businesses hire thugs to vandalise infrastructure and sell government property as scrap. There is chaos, and lawlessness is getting out of hand.

Is that the kind of freedom that people were struggling for? How do those who lost members of their families to the struggle feel when they see the kind of freedom that their loved ones paid for with their lives? Did those struggle heroes and heroines die in order for politicians in government and their families, as well as their circle of friends, to live like kings and queens on one side while the masses live in sheer poverty on the other?

These prevailing problems and questions create a need for the people of South Africa, irrespective of their colour, language, gender and race, to come together and talk about the injustice of the past and present and chart a way forward – not because they love each other, but because they love their country, which they have a duty to protect and develop, in good times and in bad.

For the nation to cooperate going forward, there are issues that should be laid bare and resolved in order for race groups to understand and respect each other and live in harmony.

Crime, land disputes and economic war threaten South Africa’s democracy. To be able to deal with the threats, one has to establish where in the new dispensation things went wrong.

Different interest groups claim to be the legitimate owners of the land. The claims of ownership often arise from archaic methods of acquiring land, such as conquest and appropriation. Shouldn’t a system of land sharing be simplified to benefit everyone?

Some say that in order to know where you are going, you have to know where you came from and where you are presently. It is for that reason that in this discussion I look at traditional rule and how land was shared under that system, as well as the dominant thinking behind the arrangement – known as Ubuntu.

The discussion about government is intended to draw parallels from the theories of the origin of government and the evolution of traditional rule in South Africa. In other parts of the world, elected governments emerged because people have had enough of the unfettered powers of monarchs. Were South Africans fed up with their monarchs when an elected government was introduced?

Religion is part of this discussion, because its theme is, arguably, justice, yet religion has contributed to killings, land wars and suffering. Also, many South Africans are religious.

In the struggle against apartheid and its fall, it is explained how some people boarded a struggle wagon which, with the benefit of hindsight, they now realise took them to a different destination than originally intended.

The question of how Nelson Mandela became a cult-like figure and came to be regarded as the father of South Africa’s liberation, if it ever was liberated in the first place, is answered.

The authority of Chief Albert Luthuli is used to explain how it happened that Black people lost their land but ended up with a vote, and how Black chiefs took themselves out of the political game.

Without being emotional and partisan, a brief look at what could have motivated the architects of apartheid to come up with such a system is explored. Could there have been good intentions in apartheid? If so, what went wrong? How did apartheid relate to nature and religion?

Having looked at the bigger picture, threats that could plunge the country into civil war or civil disobedience, or both, are investigated. Without trying to provide an exhaustive list, some suggestions for