Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout invited her family of political prodigals for koffie and koeksisters, and an opportunity to be on television. And came they did for their two minutes of Evita’s fame to urge voters to register. Except for the Pan Africanist Congress, who were grappling with how their acronym came to be synonymous with Previously Advantaged Communities.
Kleinboet Tony was there from the Disadvantaged Advantaged (DA); Kleinsus Patricia from the the Imminently Disadvantaged (ID) — if she doesn’t get voted back into Parliament — and kleinneef Dugmore from the Advantaged Neo-Comrades (ANC) came to represent those who once were comrades-in-arms and are now comrades in arms deals (among others). Then there were the cousins from the Neo-Neo-Plurals (NNP) who were removed from power first by voters and then by their allies, making them Evita’s cousins twice-removed.
The family gathering was terribly concerned that more than seven million potential voters were still unregistered. They bemoaned the apathy. They wrung their hands about the cynical youth. They castigated the people who were giving up the right to vote that had been hard-won with blood, sweat, tears and life itself.
At that moment, the laughter stopped. For me, anyway. Cynicism? One of the most cynical acts to have taken place in our nascent democracy is the passing of floor-crossing legislation that created bunny politicians who hopped and skipped in whichever direction the juiciest carrots were dangling from. Democracy? Please! What guarantees do voters have that when they vote this time, politicians won’t again simply pass legislation that will render their democratic votes meaningless?
As for apathy and lack of interest, for five years politicians and government officials show disregard for citizens who send letters, telephone, request meetings, beg, urge, plead with them to act. And they are met with shut ears, closed doors and utter contempt. When last did the minister of arts and culture or his officials meet with representatives of the arts community, for example? Not for lack of trying on the part of organised artists. And this is not unique to this sector. Now the politicians rail against the apathy of those to whom they have shown scant regard in the last while.
Yes, many have died in the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist democratic order based on respect for fundamental and universal human rights.
But this number pales into insignificance against the thousands of people — who once were voters, who once had great hopes for the future — who this democratically elected government has allowed to die through their callous policies and genocidal inaction on HIV/Aids.
The greatest threat to our parliamentary democracy is not the unregistered millions of potential voters, but the politicians who inhabit the House of Gain. They demand democratic participation of the people, but on their terms, creating a form of democracy in their self-serving image.
Bizarrely, some claim their track record of struggle for democracy as a basis now for subverting it. To render independent institutions lapdogs of the powerful. To play free elections on an unfair playing field.
But people — the people — have discovered, are discovering, that Parliament is not the be-all and end-all of democracy, where those who govern act as lords rather than servants, as rulers rather than as stewards.
It is outside of Parliament that people are organising themselves, taking responsibility, setting their agendas, doing something. They are using the courts, the media, the streets, their democratic, constitutional rights to protest, to offer alternatives, to act in their interests other than through Parliament, creating a different form of democracy.
And in the process, they greatly irritate the once-in-five-years parliamentary democrats.
Today, political parties use musicians to draw crowds to their electioneering rallies. Tomorrow musicians will continue to die paupers as the government fails to act on key recommendations in the report of the (government-appointed) music task team made years ago.
Today politicians will dance with Evita to get the voter cannon fodder to put them into Parliament.
Tomorrow they will hurl abuse at her for exercising her democratic right to freedom of expression. In the tenth year of our democracy, the struggle for democracy continues.