What kind of politics do we need?

A caring and humane society requires a political system that is based on principles of freedom, fairness, justice and equality

The past decade has witnessed a degeneration of politics across the spectrum, with social media, notwithstanding its use, becoming the worst platform for corrosive politics.

The quality of our political discourse has become incompatible with the vision of a humane and caring society.

We seem to have been at war instead of having decent and thoughtful conversations about what is in the common interest.

The sharp rise in recent years in court cases on political matters is a manifestation of the failure of politics.

There is probably no other time since the dawn of democracy when South Africans have needed one another more than they do right now.

We are at a crossroad – there is no way to avoid the hard choices that will have to be made.

The economic and social challenges are immense.

Strangely, this is the time we are witnessing the kind of politics that seeks to set us apart.

We are made to believe that people who hold different ideas and with whom we disagree are not worthy, and deserve nothing else but scorn and obliteration.

In a democratic society, leadership across the political spectrum and in all sectors of society must be aware that language matters.

Leaders must set the example.

They carry the responsibility to call on all of us to embrace political differences and disagreements in our search for what is in the national interest.

Politics of the struggle for freedom has always been informed by principles, including equality, justice and liberty, and rooted in values of generosity, courage and love for common humanity – the antithesis of the politics of domination and subjugation of the “other”, which is rooted in greed, fear and hatred.

The generation of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Elias Motsoaledi, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki and many more led the struggle for freedom on the basis of the foregoing principles and values, and knew that the standard for politics – the politics of greed, fear and hatred as set by colonialism and racism – could not be the benchmark for the politics of a new society.

It is said that you cannot dehumanise the “other” and be left human, so that generation of leaders knew that freedom was not only for the formerly oppressed – the oppressor also had to be given a chance to transform in pursuit of reconciliation, peace, cooperation and the common good.

Yes, even after so many years of humiliation and indignity, that generation of leaders remained compassionate, yet truthful, firm and steadfast on matters of principle.

They knew that, after liberation, those who had fought for freedom had the main responsibility of leading all South Africans in the cause of building a new society – the South Africa that we want, a truly humane society.

Contrary to the character of that generation of leaders, what we have witnessed is a re-emergence of the politics of greed, fear and hatred in a society that has become more fractious and divided since the attainment of political freedom.

Those forces, who had been on the receiving end of subjugation and had taken it upon themselves to wage a struggle for freedom, are today deeply divided on what matters and does not matter.

After 1994, many seem to have drifted away from the value system that has always driven the conduct of these forces in the fight for freedom.

Some who joined later were not inducted, coached and mentored, and therefore simply do not understand.

In his book Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? and writing in the context of US politics, Michael Sandel talks about an impoverished discourse that lurches from one news cycle to the next, preoccupied with the scandalous, sensational and trivial.

Closer to home, this must ring a bell.

What we are witnessing in our political discourse, in addition to what Sandel has observed in the US context, is politics of hostility and anger, fear, hatred, vengeance, name calling, personal and counterattacks, and the venomous and the outright vulgar.

It is striking how many stagger around, obsessed with daily events, but choosing what would best serve their purpose and missing the underlying processes – systemic and structural rigidities.

Increasingly, political debate is characterised by people who neither listen to nor hear one another.

Participants often engage in indecent knee-jerk reactions without really having applied their minds.

In the book The Consciousness Revolution, which focuses on the importance of dialogue, Ervin László states that participants in a dialogue must understand that what is being said is important to discuss – that there is something to be understood that is not yet properly understood.

“They must realise that it is more important to understand the viewpoint of others than defend their own. If one can get beyond fondling one’s own ego and understand that there is something to be achieved through dialogue, then there will be openness, more willingness to put aside petty concerns about ‘whose point is it anyway?’ Focusing on the issue is what should count,” he writes.

If we do not understand what the problems are and what the solutions should be, we are lost in darkness and we will fail.

There is growing disregard for objective reality – the facts – when it does not serve the purpose.

We need to restore the love of intellectualism.

It’s hard to pinpoint a time since 1994 when there was such a dire need for the return to real politics – politics of equality, equity, justice and liberty and how these principles apply to particular situations in consolidating democracy, social and economic transformation, culture and technology.

The kind of politics that is injected with morality, which teaches that human beings have an inherent dignity worthy of respect.

The maxim do unto others as you would have them do unto you, cuts across different religious traditions.

Our social contract, the Constitution, is clear on what should be our shared values and principles.

Because we have become engulfed by politics of preoccupation with the scandalous, sensational and trivial, if I may borrow from Sandel, it is extremely worrying how we are distracted from debating what really matters.

Leaders who are bent on making statements and sending messages that polarise us, causing divisions instead of uniting us, can only be doing so in pursuit of self-preservation, which has nothing to do with what is in the common good.

We need to reject such politics and reach out to one another, pull together as a civil society.

This was demonstrated in a time of need – the scourge of gender-based violence in which the rape and brutal murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana became the last straw, enough is enough.

This clearly demonstrates the power of civil society, which is capable of driving leadership across the political spectrum to work together to find solutions.

Civil action saw a joint sitting of Parliament and government announcing an emergency action plan with additional funding to deal decisively with gender-based violence.

Yes, implementation.

The vision of a caring and humane society requires a certain kind of politics, one that is based on principles of freedom, fairness, justice and equality; and has values that include compassion, truthfulness, solidarity and sacrifice.

We cannot hope for a new society, but we can behave and conduct ourselves in ways that are an antithesis to the society we’re living in now.

Tsengiwe is former chief commissioner of the International Trade Administration Commission of SA