The hip-hop world has a term “(player) hater”; this refers to one who gets by on hate, malice and envy. A hater doesn’t aspire to be as rich/famous as the object of his envy, the “player”, but rather to bring his nemesis down to his level and, if he can’t, drag his name and reputation through the dirt as a sort of spiteful release/resolution. What does this have to do with anything? Well, latterly our political landscape is littered with haters of all kinds. And I find that sad, for surely our political intellectual capital cannot be so depleted?
Quick question first-up: when trying to win favour with a desired member of the opposite sex, what’s likely to be more successful: denigrating all the other guys/ladies at the bar, or making a great case for oneself? Or another one, at a job interview, do you try persuade the company why you are best suited for the job, or do you ask for the other candidates’ CVs and go through them, rubbishing all that they have put forward? Hell, when you get to the pearly gates, are you going to try to get in by presenting yourself as virtuous, or by making everyone else seem more heathen than ye?
Now lets apply this to politics, if a party is campaigning for the vote and a mandate from the electorate, are they better off putting their case on the table or using every opportunity to rubbish and point out others’ shortcomings without making a clear case for their alternative? I am no political expert or anything expert really, so my reasoning here could be very flawed, but it makes sense to me so I am comfortable running with it unless persuaded otherwise. The thing is I have always believed this: if you want to present yourself as a better choice than another person/organisation/team, the logical thing to do is to present your credentials and let them speak for themselves. Right?
Going around shouting your rivals names from the rooftops only ever does one thing and that is to reinforce not only their existence in people’s consciousness but that somehow you only exist as a sort of “anti-them” and not in your own right. Mudslinging has never been a trait that I find myself attracted to. Especially when the target of your mud is doing a darn good job of shooting themselves in the foot on a daily basis.
So if, as in our political context, you have a dominant ruling party and many small so-called opposition parties, making that party the focal point of most of your public pronouncements only serves to inform me that yes, they are in power and they dictate the terms, both in Parliament and in the public discourse. Now why would I want to align myself to an organisation that refrains from expressing its won identity and chooses instead to discuss the merits of another? The worst is doing this in an election year, when surely the focus should be on winning people over to your side and getting yourself established in the electorate’s minds as a legitimate leading organisation.
For example go to any news website and search for any of Helen Zille/ Shikota/ Lekota/ Mbhazima/ Holomisa and most of the results will invariably relate to the ANC in one way or the other. This is in an election year nogal! What gives people? Surely these parties do have their own identity, which we would want to buy into? So why do they not put their best foot forward instead of pointing at the emperor’s nudity from behind podiums?
Would it be too much to ask our opposition to release one press statement that doesn’t mention the ANC at all? Don’t just knock ANC policies. I know they are flawed, everyone does, so give me alternatives then — a better way — and spell it out too. But if I have no alternatives, why not go for what’s kept the country running (however shambolically) for 15 years? The myth about the devil you know didn’t arise out of thin air you know.
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