Cape Times: Heard mentality

http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5277313

Heard mentality

December 08, 2009 Edition 1

POLISH-BORN revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg put it very well. “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all,” she wrote.

“Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. ”

This most basic principle of democracy – respect for the views of those with whom one disagrees – is increasingly being ignored by political leaders and their supporters.

Freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion is protected in the bill of rights, which also states that every citizen “is free to make political choices, which include the right to form a political party, to participate in the activities of, or recruit members for, a political party, and to campaign for a political party or cause”.

But this week a meeting addressed by DA leader Helen Zille in Soshanguve was interrupted by political opponents who hurled bottles and stones at DA officials, wounding some, and set alight a tyre in front of the stage. Police intervened with rubber bullets.

The Soshanguve incident is part of an alarming trend.

Many political leaders have developed a habit of using ridicule, name-calling and, sometimes, even violence as substitutes for debate.

Instead of engaging in discussion with opponents it has become commonplace to label them as racist or to threaten them. Voters who did not vote for the “right” party are seen as needing “correction”; street protests which take place outside party political structures are swiftly quelled – like in Kennedy Road in KwaZulu-Natal – and personalities take the place of policies.

When leaders behave in this way it is not surprising that their supporters follow their example.

This sort of behaviour not only deprives the country of some very necessary debates; it also sets in motion a process which, if left unchecked, will lead straight back to the muzzling of political opponents and the end of free speech.