According to a recent study, a large and growing proportion of South Africans would agree to live in a dictatorship if it meant an end to the country’s most pressing problems. In related news, a large and growing proportion of South Africans are setting themselves up for a world of hurt.
On Wednesday, the Independent Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), citing research by Afrobarometer and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, revealed that almost a quarter of us (25.3%) would be in favour of abolishing democratic freedoms in return for the guarantee that our basic human rights would be protected.
This is a hefty increase from the 2018 iteration of the same survey, when 20.9% of respondents said they’d be willing to give up the right to vote in return for basics such as safety, good schooling and health care, which itself was an increase from the 15% recorded in 2011.
The reasons for this trend are fairly obvious. As I wrote two years ago in this column, an increasing number of South Africans have started mistaking the ANC’s inability to run the country for an inherent problem with democracy in general, and are deciding it’s time to throw all sorts of babies out with the ANC’s foul-smelling bathwater.
Likewise, constant claims by the ANC and EFF that they are leftists, instead of capitalist ethnic nationalists, has driven others into the arms of openly right-wing parties, where dictatorial tendencies are often seen as more acceptable or even desirable.
Whatever the reason, however, the results are depressingly uniform. Every week on social media I encounter South Africans of all races, and from across a fairly broad socioeconomic spectrum, heaping praise on Singapore (where the state may legally spy on citizens and freedom of speech is severely curtailed) and Rwanda, ruled by one man for the last 22 years, and where opposition politicians and investigative journalists regularly disappear or are tortured.
Anyone who says they want a dictatorship, even a benevolent one, is merely announcing publicly that they don’t know anything about history, politics or human nature.
And this is to say nothing of the South Africans who proudly support the tyrannical Vladimir Putin, or who loudly rushed to the defence of Donald Trump when he tried to overturn a democratic election in the US.
Of course, I understand the superficial appeal of a benevolent dictator. As an undergraduate, I think I was also a fan of this idea. But if you think about it for half a minute, you quickly see its major flaws.
The first is that “benevolent” means different things to different people.
For example, many South Africans believe the most heinous crimes should be punished by death. Many others believe the death penalty is not a deterrent, and invites the state to abuse it, as is the case in China where it is easy to bump off business rivals by getting them accused of corruption.
How does a dictator stay benevolent in the eyes of the whole public after making a ruling in this case?
The greatest danger in sacrificing the checks and balances of democracy in favour of quick and easy wins, however, is that you are putting your future in the hands of a leader who, by definition, doesn’t care what you think and doesn’t think you are able to make your own decisions, and who, by definition, can’t be replaced once they prove to be unsuited to the job.
Again, I get it. We feel entirely at the mercy of bad people with knives. But it is infinitely worse to be at the mercy of bad people with armies, secret police and torture chambers.
“Ah,” you say, “but I’m a law-abiding citizen. I would never do anything that would require me to be arrested and tortured. I could reap the benefits of a dictatorship without suffering any of the nastier side-effects.”
Fair enough. But what happens when your dictator decides it’s in the country’s best interests to move the goalposts? What happens when he decides your religion should be banned, or that you should convert to his? What happens when he decides you’re not allowed to own guns, or access the internet, or that your daughters should be married to local elders when they turn 15?
Who are you going to appeal to? The constitution, which he changes depending on his mood? The media, which he controls? The police in their soundproof waterboarding cellars?
No. Anyone who says they want a dictatorship, even a benevolent one, is merely announcing publicly that they don’t know anything about history, politics or human nature.
The only solution to SA’s crisis is democracy. It will be messy, and noisy, and often deeply unsatisfying, but it’s the only way we fix what the ANC has broken, and begin to wrestle the country and its future away from the bad men with knives.
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