Understanding subtleties and intensities in social power and cultural politics became a persistent idea I have pursued during a historical moment of a dawn of a “new South Africa” in 1994.
Witnessing developments emerging from unanticipated social integration could not allay my anxiety and suspicion about a glaring lack of commitment to reconciliation and building of one South African nation on the part of some sections of conservative white communities and tribalised disadvantaged groups.
These integration phenomena included a promotion of complex non-racial and multi-cultural processes in schools and sports in particular.
Much of the persistent internal dialogues on my part came to the surface when a situational television drama-series titled The Line, would be played as a supplementary lesson during classes or tutorials.
It depicted deadly encounters of state-sponsored violent attacks on ANC supporters by IFP recruits who were trained by a notorious SAP counter-insurgency unit in Caprivi in South West Africa, a former colony of the apartheid government.
A reader who thinks that these lessons were taught in political science classes would be forgiven; they were taught in first year sociology and English classes during the transitional period where one attended school in compliance with then president Nelson Mandela’s call for activists to “go back to school” in 1994.
A towering black consciousness scholar: a peer to Steve Biko, Harry Nengwekhulu, Barney Pityana and Strini Moodley, and a former Robben Island prisoner - Prof Saths Cooper - would also come in as a guest-facilitator in a social psychology class and contribute to shaping students’ imagination of how a vision of a “new and better South Africa” could possibly work.
He introduced himself to a curious bunch of students that we were as a founding executive council member of a unified Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) whose primary focus was on “mental liberation” and a “national psyche during a liberation struggle” during that period.
It is precisely from reflecting on these valuable teachings, humanist ideas and developmental questions that one constantly ponders over who have we truly become and how have we become a citizenry that is perpetually crying for an absent or deceased leadership whilst we have so many talented and resourceful persons in our midst.
What we witness as a grossly unfortunate, downward social development and self-destructive psyche playing out on social media includes, but is not limited to;
- Foul language with blatant insults for dissenting views;
- Generally unAfrican and anti-humanist psyche;
- Anti-intellectual posture and low self-esteem turned into cocky behavioural tendencies;
- A lack of respect, compassion and empathy for the next person;
- Weaponisation of everything, including access to public services and service delivery;
- Children-insensitive, vulgar and cavalier social behaviour;
- Sexist male-chauvinism;
- Unprecedented levels of self-righteousness and arrogance;
- Regression back to pre-20th century tribalism;
- Re-racialisation of South African citizens;
- Sickening calls for re-balkanisation through a re-enactment of backward social fragmentation policies of self-determination on the basis of some racial and tribal groups self-governing themselves in provinces of the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal; and
- Unsanctioned pronouncements on issues of state security, foreign policy and national sovereignty.
“The politics of representation is the cultural and political struggle over how images, media, and language depict social groups. It shows how power structures shape these portrayals, particularly for marginalised communities like women and minorities, influencing real-world political power and societal identity” Stuart Hall, 2012
The concept of politics of representation excessively playing out on social media in increasingly disrespectful rather than developmental ways is quite concerning as it limits the freedoms of others. Entitlement to say anything anyhow to anybody anywhere has been allowed to increasingly take root without any measure of restraint, regulation and penalties for liability imposed by the state.
In a newspaper article titled “Government needs to assert some control over AI generated information on social media” (DD, May 28) I challenged our democratic government and the state to, at least;
- Register their constitutional presence by also protecting the rights of the undermined and insulted citizens on social media;
- Assert the political authority of government and the state to create and maintain a balance between the interests of those who are overly excited when exercising their democratic rights and those whose interests are dwarfed or submersed by exaggerated levels of excitement during a democratic showdown; and
- Regulate social media platforms, even if it is a universally accepted principle that government and the state cannot police everything citizens and non-citizens can and cannot do in our shores.
The suggestion above will not amount to censorship or dictatorship, but it will inculcate a greater sense of responsibility for own actions, instill a sense of pride and national identity, promote greater levels of patriotism and respect among fellow compatriots, and defeat a disrespectful western culture of democracy in favour of African re-awakening through a left-leaning leadership dictatorship that engages in long-term policy choices that are based on solidarity economy instead.
Mike Ntutela writes in his personal capacity
