If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I wouldn’t like to place a bet on things, in South Africa, improving anytime soon.
My recent thoughts are that SA probably resembles post Roman Britain, it’s got the infrastructure, it’s probably got a smattering of educated ‘native’ people , who in theory, know how it all works, but ultimately it isn’t enough, the fledgling state/society lacks the cultural sophistication to pick up where the previous culture (for all it’s faults) left off.
Democracy does not “work” anywhere. It could never work.
However, it will degenerate even faster among people with recent hunter-gatherer ancestry, than among the descendants of northern Europeans that invented and perfected it.
It is degenerating in America, too; this degeneration was always inevitable. It is inherent in the nature of popular government. The more “popular” (democratic) the government, and the more incapable the constituents, the faster this out-of-balance wheel spins, until it flies apart.
And that is perfectly true. Democracy is based on liberalism, which few believe in, especially those who aren’t of northwest European ancestry and male. Liberalism and leftism (universalist equitarianism) and tribalism have been in conflict since liberalism was invented, and it has just about been defeated.
James Hartley
10 months ago
First things first, free and fair elections were held without significant violence and with a wide range of options available.
The next best option would be for the ANC to enter a coalition with the DA, thus representing a significant proportion of the electorate. Sadly this won’t happen.
the worst option is an ANC led coalition with the racist, Marxist, far left kleptocracy, this is far more likely and should presage the break up of the rainbow nation, which was always largely illusionary.
My father said it would take 25 years, he was wrong on that as SA limps on, but its integrity as a functioning state is hanging by a thread.
I remember speaking to friends in Zim back in the 90s about voting for Mugabe, their justification was “better the devil you know”. Which is fine, until the devil turns out to be, well, the devil.
Between the ANC, EFF and MKP, South Africa is about to pick its poison.
To the extent that “democracy” everywhere is a charade, the South Africans are miming it pretty well.
However, it ought to be obvious what monster is lurking behind the curtain. The veil will be thrown off shortly.
Kinda almost by definition, democracy is capable of redefining itself. I don’t think we’ve seen that ye, much, in the world; we have seen changes in voting system and in decentralisation/secession/regionalisation. And we haven’t talked about the role of the AU in perhaps managing some forms of change.
So I think we have to give more time and patience to the process, and admit that we don’t have much in the way of good precedents or believable advice, but we have to encourage the long and tedious process of talking, negotiation, and not just step back. It’s not interference, it’s just humanity.
William Cameron
10 months ago
This was the best and richest country in Africa. Now look at it.
Viva universalism!
Hatred of hierarchy, especially any race-based hierarchy, doomed South Africa, as it has doomed America. The fact that one “experiment” blows up faster than the other is a quantitative, not a qualitative difference.
Enlighten me. Would you, yourself, be in the upper caste of your ideal “race-based hierarchy”?
Angus Douglas
10 months ago
Great piece, but KZN is not the most fought over patch. The prize for South Africa’s most fought over patch goes to the Eastern Cape frontier area, around the Fish River, which saw 9 Frontier Wars in the 19th century.
If nothing else, SA should be applauded for running a free election and having a ruling party that accepts defeat. A good example for some of its fellow BRICS nations.
Yes, I suppose as long as there is voting, there is “democracy.” And “democracy” is all we really care about.
They hold elections in North Korea too, you know. That the deception is more apparent in places like North Korea than in the United States should not deceive the perspicacious among us — if there yet are any among us.
Are you seriously suggesting South Africa’s election was a sham? Why then didn’t the ANC win? A peaceful election where the ruling party accepts not winning a majority? And it is a sham?
CP Pienaar
10 months ago
I am wondering why so few comments. Then it struck me- we are waking up from a very deep and bad dream, starting to smell the coffee. I am left without words..
42 Million could register as voters, only 27 million did of which 17 million casted a vote.. 40% of the possible voters have enough trust and confidence in democracy to cast a vote- the rest stayed home. It took 30 years of ANC rule to cause major destruction to the hope many possible voters had that democracy will improve their lives. This is also reflected in the number of voters that jumped ship to the MKP.
The Multi Party Coalition (MPC) what Brian refer to as the Liberals (?) could only get 31% of the votes. Same as previous election. The deck of the Titanic is re-arranged.
The very, very confused ANC and their completely incapable leadership- has one of two roads to take- the high road (forgive the pun) option where ANC ( moderates) joins up with MPC to form a Government of National Unity- verse2 or the low road option where ANC (not so moderates) teams up with the MKP and EFF to destroy what is left… In neither of these choices will the ANC continue to exists in its current form. They have truly sien hulle gatte.
The fantastic news however is that the ANC members that do not make the list of the first 73 members for Parlement are 79 Bheki Cele, 83 Thandi Modise and 86 Naledi Pandor.. chaos at Shell House!
Adam McIntyre
10 months ago
The idea that democracy could have ever worked in a place like South Africa is preposterous.
It is as preposterous as America’s nation-building in Iraq or Afghanistan, which was also always doomed.
The seminal mistake of progressives and other universalist types since the beginning has been to insist upon, without evidence, the tabula rasa view of humanity that suggests all social constructs are purely social and have nothing to do with biology.
This ridiculous view, that a continent that (below the Sahara) never invented the wheel and cannot build structures taller than two stories are “just the same as us” since we are all “one humanity,” and that therefore, with proper inculcation, “democracy” or anything else created by White northern Europeans could work just as well with the African indigenous, is the cause of all SA’s troubles.
Apartheid was the only way to keep order. There will eventually be genocides in South Africa, and the blood will be on the hands of the universalists that would prefer disorder to hierarchy.
Are you serious? This reads like a parody.
You may be interested to know that on almost every measure, South Africa improved by leaps and bounds on measures like GDP, life expectancy, and crime, immediately after the demise of apartheid. Life expectancy was then hit by HIV/AIDS after 2000 and that is partly what was Mbeki’s downfall – his failure to embrace ARVs. SA now has the largest ARV programme in the world.
The country managed to get Zuma out of the Presidency without significant violence and within a decade – i.e. democratically. He is currently facing prosecution for his arms deal crimes, which he has been able to keep at bay with the Stalingrad tactics of his (white) lawyer. Zuma’s state capture was aided and abetted by companies like Bain and Mckinsey and a family from India (the Guptas) were the masterminds.
Apartheid the only way to keep order? I despair.
Gordon Beattie
10 months ago
A superb article, A very tragic situation.
But I would say that the architect of the ANC’s decline was Mbeki. Zuma should have been in the dock with Shaik. And then both of them could have served their time together
Andrew Wise
10 months ago
The unfortunate truth is democracy as we like to imagine it, only works where there’s a diversity of political opinions against a background of a common ethnic / religious population.
It doesn’t work where the voters are naturally split across tribal, ethnic or religious lines.
It doesn’t work in Northern Ireland, It doesn’t work in Zimbabwe and no doubt countless other nations I’m less knowledgeable about.
It doesn’t work where one group of voters can never win an election.
South Africa has always been tribal, it would be ironic if it’s ultimate fate was to disintegrate into tribal countries in a form of modern day apartheid!
Chipoko
10 months ago
That South Africa is a disaster of a nation and deteriorating comes as zero surprise. The Continent’s destruction commenced with the independence of Ghana in 1957. Since then the formula for destruction has been implemented with remorseless progress, ending with the release of South Africa from its colonial shackles.
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Article needs a bit of spell-checking
Jean Redpath
10 months ago
Pottinger says: “mixed-race people deserted the traditional parties to support “brown” and “first nation” parties”
This is totally incorrect. There is no way the DA could have won the Western Cape with 55% of the vote without strong support from this community, who make up 60% of the population there.
In addition, they are the majority in the Northern Cape, where the ANC got 49% and the DA 21% – both traditional parties.
As to the secessionist angle, explicitly secessionist parties were on the ballot paper and received poor support in both Western Cape and KZN.
Election results have always swung wildly in KZN, and IFP-ANC coalitions are common.
The National Freedom Party (NFP), an offshoot of the IFP, with a single seat (IFP+ANC+DA = 40 seats, MK+EFF = 39 seats, NFP=1 seat), will determine whether there is stalemate.
What seems most likely in KZN is an IFP-led government, and that Pappas of the DA will have a role in it. However, this is closely tied to what happens at national level, and also in Gauteng, where ANC+DA = majority but ANC+EFF does not.
The parties are likely negotiating all these together.
Martin Smith
10 months ago
A good piece but serious errors, especially the ‘analysis’ of the Coloured vote which in fact substantially supported DA in Western Cape and ANC and DA in Northern Cape.
Martin M
10 months ago
Socialist and redistributive voters trumped free market ones two-to-one.
That is the problem, not just with South Africa, but with Africa generally. The continent is not going to move ahead unless it abandons socialism.
If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I wouldn’t like to place a bet on things, in South Africa, improving anytime soon.
My recent thoughts are that SA probably resembles post Roman Britain, it’s got the infrastructure, it’s probably got a smattering of educated ‘native’ people , who in theory, know how it all works, but ultimately it isn’t enough, the fledgling state/society lacks the cultural sophistication to pick up where the previous culture (for all it’s faults) left off.
Try “ever”.
Democracy does not “work” anywhere. It could never work.
However, it will degenerate even faster among people with recent hunter-gatherer ancestry, than among the descendants of northern Europeans that invented and perfected it.
It is degenerating in America, too; this degeneration was always inevitable. It is inherent in the nature of popular government. The more “popular” (democratic) the government, and the more incapable the constituents, the faster this out-of-balance wheel spins, until it flies apart.
Your thesis, under these “race-realist” euphemisms, is that democracy is stupid but is even stupider in a country of blacks?
And that is perfectly true. Democracy is based on liberalism, which few believe in, especially those who aren’t of northwest European ancestry and male. Liberalism and leftism (universalist equitarianism) and tribalism have been in conflict since liberalism was invented, and it has just about been defeated.
First things first, free and fair elections were held without significant violence and with a wide range of options available.
The next best option would be for the ANC to enter a coalition with the DA, thus representing a significant proportion of the electorate. Sadly this won’t happen.
the worst option is an ANC led coalition with the racist, Marxist, far left kleptocracy, this is far more likely and should presage the break up of the rainbow nation, which was always largely illusionary.
My father said it would take 25 years, he was wrong on that as SA limps on, but its integrity as a functioning state is hanging by a thread.
I remember speaking to friends in Zim back in the 90s about voting for Mugabe, their justification was “better the devil you know”. Which is fine, until the devil turns out to be, well, the devil.
Between the ANC, EFF and MKP, South Africa is about to pick its poison.
To the extent that “democracy” everywhere is a charade, the South Africans are miming it pretty well.
However, it ought to be obvious what monster is lurking behind the curtain. The veil will be thrown off shortly.
“My father said it would take 25 years, he was wrong on that as SA limps on”
As Adam Smith once said, “There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation.”
This kinf of abtract wishfull thinking usually leads to a shitty future.
Kinda almost by definition, democracy is capable of redefining itself. I don’t think we’ve seen that ye, much, in the world; we have seen changes in voting system and in decentralisation/secession/regionalisation. And we haven’t talked about the role of the AU in perhaps managing some forms of change.
So I think we have to give more time and patience to the process, and admit that we don’t have much in the way of good precedents or believable advice, but we have to encourage the long and tedious process of talking, negotiation, and not just step back. It’s not interference, it’s just humanity.
This was the best and richest country in Africa. Now look at it.
Viva universalism!
Hatred of hierarchy, especially any race-based hierarchy, doomed South Africa, as it has doomed America. The fact that one “experiment” blows up faster than the other is a quantitative, not a qualitative difference.
Enlighten me. Would you, yourself, be in the upper caste of your ideal “race-based hierarchy”?
Great piece, but KZN is not the most fought over patch. The prize for South Africa’s most fought over patch goes to the Eastern Cape frontier area, around the Fish River, which saw 9 Frontier Wars in the 19th century.
(28) How the Elections Broke Our Ideologies – by Angus Douglas (substack.com) Not sure you are allowed to do this, but here is a supporting article to this brilliant piece by Pottinger.
If nothing else, SA should be applauded for running a free election and having a ruling party that accepts defeat. A good example for some of its fellow BRICS nations.
Yes, I suppose as long as there is voting, there is “democracy.” And “democracy” is all we really care about.
They hold elections in North Korea too, you know. That the deception is more apparent in places like North Korea than in the United States should not deceive the perspicacious among us — if there yet are any among us.
Are you seriously suggesting South Africa’s election was a sham? Why then didn’t the ANC win? A peaceful election where the ruling party accepts not winning a majority? And it is a sham?
I am wondering why so few comments. Then it struck me- we are waking up from a very deep and bad dream, starting to smell the coffee. I am left without words..
42 Million could register as voters, only 27 million did of which 17 million casted a vote.. 40% of the possible voters have enough trust and confidence in democracy to cast a vote- the rest stayed home. It took 30 years of ANC rule to cause major destruction to the hope many possible voters had that democracy will improve their lives. This is also reflected in the number of voters that jumped ship to the MKP.
The Multi Party Coalition (MPC) what Brian refer to as the Liberals (?) could only get 31% of the votes. Same as previous election. The deck of the Titanic is re-arranged.
The very, very confused ANC and their completely incapable leadership- has one of two roads to take- the high road (forgive the pun) option where ANC ( moderates) joins up with MPC to form a Government of National Unity- verse2 or the low road option where ANC (not so moderates) teams up with the MKP and EFF to destroy what is left… In neither of these choices will the ANC continue to exists in its current form. They have truly sien hulle gatte.
The fantastic news however is that the ANC members that do not make the list of the first 73 members for Parlement are 79 Bheki Cele, 83 Thandi Modise and 86 Naledi Pandor.. chaos at Shell House!
The idea that democracy could have ever worked in a place like South Africa is preposterous.
It is as preposterous as America’s nation-building in Iraq or Afghanistan, which was also always doomed.
The seminal mistake of progressives and other universalist types since the beginning has been to insist upon, without evidence, the tabula rasa view of humanity that suggests all social constructs are purely social and have nothing to do with biology.
This ridiculous view, that a continent that (below the Sahara) never invented the wheel and cannot build structures taller than two stories are “just the same as us” since we are all “one humanity,” and that therefore, with proper inculcation, “democracy” or anything else created by White northern Europeans could work just as well with the African indigenous, is the cause of all SA’s troubles.
Apartheid was the only way to keep order. There will eventually be genocides in South Africa, and the blood will be on the hands of the universalists that would prefer disorder to hierarchy.
Are you serious? This reads like a parody.
You may be interested to know that on almost every measure, South Africa improved by leaps and bounds on measures like GDP, life expectancy, and crime, immediately after the demise of apartheid. Life expectancy was then hit by HIV/AIDS after 2000 and that is partly what was Mbeki’s downfall – his failure to embrace ARVs. SA now has the largest ARV programme in the world.
The country managed to get Zuma out of the Presidency without significant violence and within a decade – i.e. democratically. He is currently facing prosecution for his arms deal crimes, which he has been able to keep at bay with the Stalingrad tactics of his (white) lawyer. Zuma’s state capture was aided and abetted by companies like Bain and Mckinsey and a family from India (the Guptas) were the masterminds.
Apartheid the only way to keep order? I despair.
A superb article, A very tragic situation.
But I would say that the architect of the ANC’s decline was Mbeki. Zuma should have been in the dock with Shaik. And then both of them could have served their time together
The unfortunate truth is democracy as we like to imagine it, only works where there’s a diversity of political opinions against a background of a common ethnic / religious population.
It doesn’t work where the voters are naturally split across tribal, ethnic or religious lines.
It doesn’t work in Northern Ireland, It doesn’t work in Zimbabwe and no doubt countless other nations I’m less knowledgeable about.
It doesn’t work where one group of voters can never win an election.
South Africa has always been tribal, it would be ironic if it’s ultimate fate was to disintegrate into tribal countries in a form of modern day apartheid!
That South Africa is a disaster of a nation and deteriorating comes as zero surprise. The Continent’s destruction commenced with the independence of Ghana in 1957. Since then the formula for destruction has been implemented with remorseless progress, ending with the release of South Africa from its colonial shackles.
Article needs a bit of spell-checking
Pottinger says: “mixed-race people deserted the traditional parties to support “brown” and “first nation” parties”
This is totally incorrect. There is no way the DA could have won the Western Cape with 55% of the vote without strong support from this community, who make up 60% of the population there.
In addition, they are the majority in the Northern Cape, where the ANC got 49% and the DA 21% – both traditional parties.
As to the secessionist angle, explicitly secessionist parties were on the ballot paper and received poor support in both Western Cape and KZN.
Election results have always swung wildly in KZN, and IFP-ANC coalitions are common.
The National Freedom Party (NFP), an offshoot of the IFP, with a single seat (IFP+ANC+DA = 40 seats, MK+EFF = 39 seats, NFP=1 seat), will determine whether there is stalemate.
What seems most likely in KZN is an IFP-led government, and that Pappas of the DA will have a role in it. However, this is closely tied to what happens at national level, and also in Gauteng, where ANC+DA = majority but ANC+EFF does not.
The parties are likely negotiating all these together.
A good piece but serious errors, especially the ‘analysis’ of the Coloured vote which in fact substantially supported DA in Western Cape and ANC and DA in Northern Cape.
Socialist and redistributive voters trumped free market ones two-to-one.
That is the problem, not just with South Africa, but with Africa generally. The continent is not going to move ahead unless it abandons socialism.