What is the difference between democracy, demo(n)cracy and oligarchy?
We are talking about possible South African manifestations of the above in our politics and economic structures, but need to take a quick walk into the past.
Greek philosopher Plato referred to democracy as a demo(n)cracy. Yes, I can hear the cries of utter disgust but bear with me.
His teacher, the great Socrates, profound questioner of all home-brew ideologies, philosophies, theologies, was ordered to death by the democratic system of the time. Later Plato would describe this tragedy, the simplistic trial of Socrates, as “a doctor persecuted by a pastry chef and judged by a jury of children”.
How did democracy come about? Historically, it always was a power game going this way and then again that way, the elite keeping political power in-house for a very long time and therewith sine qua non, economic power and the accumulation of assets.
Gradually, democratic elements crept in as the elite realised that the common people were becoming restless to such a risky point that they needed to establish a synthesis-system to ensure the weight of ongoing benefits still to be coming their way. So, in the Athens government all landowners – men – could appear in parliament to personally voice their views. No women, no slaves, no landless people. And the upper echelon kept manipulating the less sophisticated with boundless flair.
The new democrats were angry, naively wild and they, being human, instinctively sought immediate gratification.
From antiquity to modern times there were always people who deem their political philosophies, their understanding of practical society to be in tune with the will of metaphysical gods. Or perhaps with pragmatic devils.
They, the so-called aristocracy, the rulers, the manipulators of ordinary people, the wise guys, the powers of the West, or the East or the whole fandango, have forever manoeuvred to grab power and then to protect their assets, to suffering people’s detriment.
Too harsh? Sounds like one-sided propaganda? It is obvious, taking evolutionistic history running through our veins and our brains too. It still easily boils down to the haves that will forever, if not checked, be looking down at the have-nots.
Our blood carries a very subjective and selfish message to our brains and we tend to use any which way to have an advantage in life. The affluent part of society want to eternally continue in their comfortable cubes, having materialistic orgies of many sorts and they only feel a very superficial compassion for the suffering masses.
Times and tides eventually change and then when a new kind of freedom is tasted, new preferential leaders quickly become drunk from this elixir. New biased power structures take shape, greed starts to seep in and the less powerful, and especially the powerless people, will once again gradually be fading from tinted perceptions.
Plato prophesised that democracy forever would have waves of bullies and brutes taking the steering and then turning the boat this or that way. Away from the demos, the commoners.
I realise that I could well be hanged, but I want to be devil’s advocate regarding this fundamental issue, for the sake of the masses massacred through ongoing centuries, and that are queueing again to be taken for a donkey ride.
All successful regimes through many centuries ruled for decades and a day, perhaps centuries, but they all came to a fall. Not the US, nor China, nor India, will have their way forever. They – it takes time, waiting for their supreme innings – will join the ranks of the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, the Incas, who all faded into oblivion.
Why did ancient regimes go under? Why will contemporary politi cal powers follow suit? They went, will go under, because they did not take their people along on an equitable journey, creating a humane society. They became greedy, misused the assets in their countries to the disadvantage of their people, losing their trust, and did not remain sharp about the myriad ways of the world that is inherently like a washing machine in tumbling overdrive.
The great societies of the past did not look deep enough into the collective soul, the void, did not pay attention to the way that all tides eventually flow in to wash all simplistic theories and actions terminally away.
So. It is the 21st century. This is South Africa. The land, the soil, the rivers, our country that we, after all sad subjective warmongering, love shore to shore. The valleys, the hills, the winds, the grass fields.
The majority, after centuries of neglect, came to democratic power. Democracy, our beautiful dream of an equitable society. The leaders of the most successful political party, bedded in historical pain, had a vision to steer this country to moral coastlines. They were giants that led and the vision was of a country that would be smiling on all her people. Not only the winning party’s loyal members. To rectify the wrongs of the past. To rule in a way that we all could be healed and eventually prosper.
Then reality struck. Many in the ranks, like people from the ancient times to the present, do not know that we are primitively conditioned to our home-brew views and sadly, to the lure of instant gratification and personal enrichment.
Some previously disadvantaged people soon prospered as the business environment spread some spoils around so that they could go on with a lucrative lifestyle still built on the effective exclusion of the have-nots.
All people are gullible, not realising that real truth, a moral handling of life, is an adopted child. Sadly so, and it will remain until you start to sense the essence of this strangeness, the otherness of others not to be sly enemies but mere conditioned people too.
The darkness in the underbelly of democracy must be overcome to take commoners out of their suffering and into a new daybreak.
But history is in agony. Locally, internationally. It senses, in fact it fears, a likely future. Because it knows the addictive ways of the past. How an unscrutinised, instinctive, knee-jerk, political dispensation, even with good intentions, will bring new hardships on. We have to make the unbearable bearable.
The problem is that we deem democracy to be simply and simplistically the answer. We so yearn for some kind of divine leadership that we tend to overestimate the machinery we adhere to, to accomplish this longed-for state of general well-being. It takes severe ethical grinding to get to that.
It should not be about the mere weight of subjective votes. Too easily we vote for men and women immersed in dogmatic, fundamentalist thinking, or even conmen, con-women, that either do not understand the vast range of inherent complexities in a 21st-century context, or are from the start into it for the personal spoils.
And voters are not one and all objective scientists, balanced legal minds, politicians tested for their emotional intelligence, court clowns to play devil’s advocate, wise people from far-off little villages, balanced listeners and empathetic human beings. But we vote.
Let me put it bluntly too you. The earth is dying. It is suffocating. It does not know any more how to continue growing green, to laugh rain in abundance, spraying healthy layers of oxygen anymore.
The masses of people have grown to such size as to suffocate the future. We are capitalistically conditioned to buy petrol-guzzling vehicles gassing the atmosphere, we plan energy provisions in the future that will harm the land and its people in many ways. The earth cannot take it anymore. It will suffocate if we don’t change our ways dramatically.
We cannot play primitive party politics any longer. We need real, thoughtful democracy now. Not shallow ideologies. We need to provide work and shelter to helpless people. To safeguard our forests. To provide 21st-century education to our children.
But, how on earth do you convey this to a man like Donald the Trump and locally to Jacob Zuma and his cronies, that we cannot merely play Nero-like short-sightedly on violins any longer?
We need to practice long-term thinking, basing politics on that. We have a time bomb ticking. Bring in politicians with a moral approach. Men and women with grounded ethics in all their practices. Bring them in. This would be real democracy. Simplistic democratic procedures might procure short-term advantages, but shallow thinking will sink and not save humanity.
Time will tell. History is ticking. Will it shame us all?