As many faults as Western liberal democracy might have,we simply do not want anything remotely resembling the alternative, argues ShimronShapiro.
Earlier this month, Helen Zille, the federal chairpersonof the DA, was interviewed on a local news programme about what she thoughtwould result if the DA left the government of national unity (GNU).
Zille correctly said the DA leaving GNU would be"the nuclear option", because of how much destruction it would resultin across the country, most importantly with US President-elect Donald Trumpcutting off the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
What she is referring to was a piece of legislation,already on the US congressional floor months ago, in the form of the "USSouth Africa Foreign Relations Review Bill", a bipartisan piece oflegislation which is still, as I write this, on Capitol Hill, being debated bythe various subcommittees, due to South Africa's clear siding, under former internationalrelations and cooperation minister Naledi Pandor's tenure, with countries whoare anti-Western dictatorships - another whose regime fell in Syria over theweekend.
The bill, however, is incorrectly seen as simply cuttingSA out of the AGOA Free Trade Deal. In fact, it goes dramatically further thanthat if you look at not only its very title but also the details therein.
It is a law completely re-evaluating the entirerelationship the US has with this country. Furthermore, as it was a bipartisanbill sponsored by Congressmen John James (Republican Party) and Jared Moskowitz(Democratic Party), it could, therefore, easily pass both Houses if it comes toa vote.
Shrinking economy
What that would do, is push an already 0% GDP economywhich South Africa is currently experiencing (in fact there were even signs ofnegative growth last quarter according to the latest figures) into deeprecession if not 1929 level economic depression, as our currency shoots to aminimum of R30 to the dollar and possibly worse, export jobs are lost in thehundreds of thousands and entire industries are damaged if not destroyed.
This level of adolescent arrogance, I'd expect from thesame old talking heads who love to speak to the media within the ANC (some ofwhom I've known since my SRC days, at Wits University). However, I do expectmore from the other more mature, somewhat smarter leaders above them.
As survey after survey has shown, South Africansare not on this pro-Russia/Iran anti-Western democraciescrusade, which Pandor, Gwede Mantashe, David Mabuza, Julius Malema, FloydShivambu, et al, are clearly on, as someone clearly, forgot to tell them the1980s and Cold War ended 35 years ago.
We definitely do not agree with their pro-tinpotdictatorships of Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, Zimbabwe and especially, thegovernment's pro-Hamas stance, who are nothing more than a bunch of anti-Semiticmaniacal lunatics (to be differentiated from pro-Palestinian, as Hamas doesn'tin fact give a hoot about the Palestinian people, as you see from its charterand use of human shields), in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
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South Africa is a constitutional democracy, and we usedto be proud of that fact. We are not and hopefully will never become asatellite state of Russia, but some extremist immature radicals believe maybethat wouldn't be such a bad thing. This is patently because they have neveropened up a real history book (Wikipedia doesn't really count - sorry Gen Z)and learned about how corrupt and evil communist regimes in every countrybecame.
Thankfully, people are finally starting to wake up tothat fact, as seen by the EFF's recent implosion. As an aside, everyone,whatever colour, creed, religion, prefers Western companies like WhatsApp toanything a Russian hacker could come up with as well as other Western companiessuch as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Waze, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Sony, Samsungand would not be too happy, if they were unable to use such services due tosanctions, whatever their thoughts might be on American/Israeli/EU policies.
Perks of liberal democracy
As many faults as Western liberal democracy might have,we simply do not want anything remotely resembling the alternative.
We like publicly disagreeing with our leaders and havinga free press, as do we like having a functioning independent judiciary, whichunlike in the above dictatorships, can and constantly does disagree with thegovernment's decisions on any issue, which comes before them and mostdefinitely do not want a police state which does not respect any of itscitizens human rights.
We need to realise how much of a sea-change from theprevious regime, Codesa, actually envisioned for our country, which was theopposite of the above-mentioned countries, yet which many in our country arenow thinking, is somehow attractive.
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So, to repeat, this beautiful yet crazy, chaotic to thepoint of almost out-of-control land we call South Africa, even with all itsmyriad problems, is still, thankfully, not at the edge of the precipice, as itwas in the days of Jacob Zuma or the July 2021 riots.
Furthermore, unless the MK Party, EFF and the simpletonwing of the ANC have their way, we won't, hopefully, get there again.
This is because there are enough South Africans who justwant to live a normal life, free from racism, guided by the principles ouramazing Constitution hoped we would live by, and for a short time in the 1990s,somehow did.
However, this will not happen again unless we activelyfight for that vision to be more than just a nice set of words written onpaper, but rather a tangible visible reality we can clearly see.
- Shimron Shapiro is aJohannesburg-based lawyer.
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