By Nikita Nkosi
I never thought I would be talking from this perspective, but I’m not sure what else you’re expecting. Our reality is that corrupt politicians reign and unscrupulous leaders retain power as they are re-elected at every election and the human race nears its deplorable end. The ones endowed with the cognitive capacity to alter this cycle or perhaps stop it are outnumbered by selfie’s-taking, picture-‘liking’, money-driven and extremely group-affiliated persons. The title of this opinion alludes to the evolution of democracy – defined as the gradual development of something. The need to develop democracy has lingered since its inception. However, this was suppressed and the man who advocated for its development, went on to get publicly executed by that very same system, an ironic fate.
Socrates was that man. Like many great minds before him and many thereafter, Socrates was killed by his society for thinking above them. In Book Six of The Republic, Plato describes Socrates falling into conversation with a character called Adeimantus and trying to get him to see the flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship. ‘If you are heading out on a journey by sea’, asked Socrates, ‘who would you ideally want to decide who oversaw the vessel?’ Just anyone or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring? ‘The latter of course’, answered Adeimantus. ‘So why then’, responded Socrates, ‘do we keep thinking that any old person should be fit to judge who should be a ruler of a country?’
Socrates’ point was that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any other skill it needs to be taught systematically to people. I align myself with this line of thinking. Socrates was to have first-hand, catastrophic experience of the foolishness of voters. In 399 BC, the philosopher was put on trial on trumped up charges of corrupting the youth of Athens. A jury of 500 Athenians was invited to weigh up the case and decided by a narrow margin that the philosopher was guilty. He was put to death by hemlock. This opinion’s call for the evolution of democracy is not a call for democracy to be available only to the elite, but rather to people from all walks of life who have critically rationalized their reasons for voting. The current system approaches democracy as a birth right, rather than a civic duty that only those trained and skilled in the art of voting should partake in. This opinion urges a paradigm shift from birth right democracy to intellectual democracy. A close scrutiny of most democratic elections since the early 1920s, reveals that the current version of democracy has been under the umbrella of demagoguery. Socrates asked us to imagine an election debate between two candidates, one who was like a doctor and the other who was like a sweet shop owner. The sweet shop owner would say of his rival: ‘Look, this man has worked many evils on you. He hurts you, gives you bitter potions and tells you not to eat and drink whatever you like. He’ll never serve you feast of many and variant pleasant things like I will’. The doctor’s probable response would be ‘I cause you trouble and go against your desires in order to help you’. The doctor will logically draw a negative reaction from the crowd. The last 100 years of democracy has seen humanity elect more sweet shop owners than doctors.
South Africa held its local government elections in November, a month before the writing of this opinion. The same party that has been ruling the country since the beginning of its democracy a quarter of a century ago, the African National Congress (ANC), won again. The country has poor service delivery, considering all the resources that are available to the state. Currently almost all local municipalities in South Africa take turns accessing the national electricity grid, a process called load shedding. They have been doing so for over seven years now. If I were to list all the big failures of the South African Government in this opinion, I would run out of electronic ink. Here are a few: More than 3 million citizens have no plumbed water and are living off water from rivers and ponds and the ANC has not built a major road since it was elected to office. Yet the party keeps getting re-elected. The ANC uses the fear and disdain of apartheid to win. It represents no rational policies, no plan, no infrastructural development, just fear. Hitler came from a birth right democracy and the next one will too. A shift to intellectual democracy is needed.
About the Author:
Nikita is an LLB graduate with a keen interest on human rights advocacy. He has previously participated in moot court competitions, including the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.