REFLECTIONS ON BOURGEOIS MORALITY

by Mphutlane Wa Bofelo

This time around the schizophrenic, selective nature of bourgeois morality manifests

itself in the insistence that voting is an immutable civil right and in the same breath euphemistically brush off occurrences such as a presiding officer agreeing with party agents for election materials to be put at the house of a party agent or allegations of uncounted ballot papers being found in dustbins as isolated incidents. 

If a vote is a right, for the particular individual whose vote is not counted or is somehow stolen from the parties of their choice, this is not an isolated incident, but an abrogation of their right to vote for the party of their choice; and an indication of the failure of the relevant machineries set up by the state to ensure that every individual citizen who wish to exercise that right is able to do so. 

On the eve of the elections I heard some analysts on radio viciously attacking not exercising the right to vote, citing example of some country where it is obligatory for citizens to vote and a criminal offense not to do so; insinuating that South Africa should consider making voting compulsory. Yet the same analysts join the chorus that gloss over incidents that amount to failure of the state and its institutions to protect the right of citizens as isolated incidents. 

As a matter of fact the incident where a presiding officer is party to an agreement for election material to be placed at the house of a party agent amounts to collusion in a process that abets vote rigging. 

Contrast this liberal, apologetic reference of serious acts of attack of a civil right with the extremist reference to protestors who are engaged in radical acts of civil disobedience such as littering, barricades (etc) as criminals, and the portrayal of striking mine-workers as unpatriotic; while being silent about the inconsiderate owners and management of the exploitative mining companies. 

In terms of a bourgeois morality there is nothing wrong with having a mining mogul who is fingered as having had a word in influencing the fatal shooting of mineworkers by the police in cabinet but it is considered a big crime for poor people to reconnect water and electricity when government switch off their taps and electricity because they are unable to pay. 

It is true: capitalism is barbarism. Liberalism ke bofelekwane. Capitalism ke masepa. Socialism ke botho!!!

Declaring an activity or service a right makes it mandatory for the state and its relevant apparatuses to be accountable for ensuring that every citizen’s access and use of that right is not in any way affronted.