Demo-Crazy (Records of private anarchy)

                                                                  

  I will not vote tomorrow!

If we look around at our many media, we will see spin. Ample spin telling you the many things that voting is. But how much news do we have telling us what voting isn’t. Find me a primary or high school that teaches about any other political system besides democracy. I am not a proponent of mass scale democracy. The numbers in this country just aren’t conducive for representation through some ancient Athenian political system.

I can argue that the ANC, majorly funded by the ex Soviet Union and China throughout it’s long history, is nothing more than a traitor of many parties that thought that better would come from a free South Africa. The rife populism that drove it to success during the struggle and won it an election in 1994 has become a vile weapon that threatens to pollute what is supposed to be a valid competition of elites. This South Africa is smothered in factionalism. We have the wealthy white upper echelons still holding our economic policies by the groin. White elites have not lost much since 1our economic policies by the groin. White elites have not lost much since 1994 and loss is fair, people of ZA. Loss needs to happen because loss happened then. WE don’t need repatriation. We need less moguls controlling power and telling us it’s for our benefit. The Tokyo Sexwale’s need not run for power. Power is theirs already. So we are left with the Holomisas and the Lekotas who are battling it out. Notice the differing strategies for differing classes of our country. Notice how they milk both racial and unifying nationalist strategies, vying for every kind of South African. I will not be manipulated!
Not while I still can think. While the people in charge of the State apparatus would have us think that a government is a group of people, anyone who knows their political science knows that a government is a vehicle, controlled by people. When politicians in power can’t separate the state from their own private lives then they are lost in the apparatus of power.

Our MEC’s and MP’s aren’t stupid, people. Just over-empowered. And the spin is this: “Voting empowers you.” We’re expected to believe that we have some divine ability to alter the actions of those in power. Our only ability in the voting booth is to decide who goes where. In this convoluted climate, we are so far from articulate competitors for power it scares me. I cannot vote because I cannot invest my volition onto any of these competitors for power. If it isn’t the DA’s opposition gospel and negativity then it is the Nationalist rhetoric of the IFP and ANC attempting to unite a people that want more than just unity. Call me a heretic but what kind of populous votes an ex convict into power? Yes I’m talking about Nelson Mandela. Give me revolution and reinvention but any policy review post-Mandela will tell you that failure was a frequent visitor in the polity of the ANC. We can be better. We can educate our people and have real debates and have representatives that want to do their jobs. Power is not the object politicians should seek. But the war is blind and so are the ones fighting it. When rumours of political conspiracy overshadow the hundreds of people crowded outside a dysfunctional Home Affairs office, i will not vote. When Chris Hani’s face is supposed to motivate me to vote for a party, I will not. When “Stop Zuma” is supposed to motivate me into another party, i will not be motivated. When a fork-tongued leader such as Mangosuthu Buthelezi is “the man you can trust” then I will distrust. Because we are being manipulated to be some kind of South Africa. A South Africa that satisfies this illusion that they have in their heads. Then there are the “If you don’t vote you can’t complain” proponents.

As if the vote will alter our policy framework. Riddle me this: how much interaction between the voting public has there been before 2 years ago. What influence have the voting majority had on this country’s direction? Riddle me, people, because I riddle you. This is not voter apathy. This is the direct product of this country’s ideologies and actions. No global meltdown will alter the polity of this country. The ones who own the banks will still own them after tomorrow. The mines? Same. The banks and holdings companies? Same. The tenders that keep the market flowing will still move.
What do the votes mean when they are cast for inane purposes? Why be blinded by the SABC sensationalism and hype of an age that should know better.

I choose not to vote. This isn’t democratic heresy. Silence is a voice that speaks different things. I won’t cast an X tomorrow but I will upload this to anyone and everyone in my mailing list. Because there is a big conspiracy and those deepest in it, barely even know their in. There is no freedom of speech when my 5 year old nephew can’t even afford schools, yet the parliament of this great land can afford to fly it’s MPs business class to lands far from our own. It’s barely and ANC issue. When we vote, we’re using the wrong kind of voice. There are more pressures to apply, more media than our biased national broadcaster.
Enjoy the public holiday, South Africa. What a gesture indeed.

Written on April 2009