The South African 2024 elections are playing out like a hostage-taking situation. Voters, especially the poorest, are hostages in a system that engages them with manifestos, T-shirts and promises made by political parties and their politicians.
They will drive them in their cars to the voting station on election day, hostages to the party and its system on which they are dependent for their survival. One wrong vote and they are wiped off the privileges and protections list.
Their vote does not allow them to escape the system that impoverished them. Their vote makes them dependent on the system and the party. They will never have an independent voice again. Should they find their voice one day, it will only be heard once they have left the party and its system.
Elections are not about voting for greater freedoms, but about voting not to be killed, booted out, having your house burnt down or your family killed or the system embarrassing you to the point that you take your own life – killed by your hostage-takers.
The only thing they didn’t do was pull the trigger. They never do.
Hostage-takers appear kind to those who do not know the truth of their hostage-taking. They believe that these are good people who want to help them. People like Donald Trump and many other secular-political and religious-political leaders, past and present, have perfected voter hostage-taking to the point that hostages delusionally give up their freedoms and assets to support their hostage-takers.
The 2024 South African election is the ultimate hostage-taking story. Manifestos are read that the hostages don’t understand much of. All they hear is “Put your X here. We promise not to hurt you. Your family will be safe” and “This is for your own good.”
Where are the deep freedoms and robust respect foundational to a great democracy? When you are taught to hate, insult, and campaign like enemies and issue threats of violence with your words, then you are a hostage-taker. When you break your promises to the people you took hostage with those same promises, you are their hostage-taker, not their leader.
Read the awful brutalities between the lines. When words like “war on” and “voetsek” and other expletivefilled insults are abundant in the public political discourse, then we have allowed for the inevitable next step to be violence. Or murder. I have seen enough political killings in my lifetime to know its signs. The first political killing I saw, other than during the riots of 1976 and 1980, was in 1982 when someone shouted “impimpi” and “sell-out” in a crowded hall and then pointed.
Twelve minutes later, there was a lifeless body on the ground. Politicians know that people attach value to their words, but more especially to their inflammatory statements. South Africa is now being overrun by political ambition and opportunism that is deeply buried in populism. Take people hostage, tell them it is for their own good, instil fear of the other in them and then unleash them to fulfil your words.
We are on the edge of a cliff. We don’t have a stronger democratic culture after 30 years, but a stronger vengeful culture. Reckless political leadership prone to careless and irresponsible statements across all parties has raised a hypnotised and zombified set of hostages who have no moral compass, independent thinking ability or conscience. They will lie, kill, and steal to please their hostage-takers, so that they and their families may not be booted out, starved and eventually killed themselves.
Before you vote on May 29, check whether you are being held hostage. If your answer is “yes”, see someone who can help you. If your answer is “no”, go with the person who said “yes” to see someone who can help you both. The politics of hostage-taking is here.
* Lorenzo A. Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Do you have something on your mind; or want to comment on the big stories of the day? We would love to hear from you. Please send your letters to [email protected].
All letters to be considered for publication, must contain full names, addresses and contact details (not for publication)