Choosing Each Other in an Age of Political Noise

Human nature, institutions, and the space between collapse and hope

The disillusionment with media and politics in South Africa seems to be created by the constant tussle between “doomsday” and utopian promises that are never fulfilled. As politicians promise to be better than the last government that promised to be better, and the media constantly claim state failure while blowing perspective out of proportion, there seems to be no middle ground for reality.

Listening to and reading about the Commission of Enquiry and the Ad Hoc Committee, it has been pretty hard to draw a clear story. The more witnesses who provide their understanding of the rot in the criminal justice system, judiciary, and police system, the more complex the picture becomes. There are two very telling stories: one about people and the other about crime.

The first is about people. There is an over-exaggeration of what is simply human nature, which is to be political even in non-political spaces. Cops working their way through the police system and aspiring to be National Commissioner are likely to have friends, allies, and enemies for no other reason than that they are competing with others who aspire to have the same role and, even more so, believe they can do it better.

Furthermore, within those environments, camps begin to develop. People team up and factions form so that they may be beneficiaries of the success of their friend or ally. This is true in any space where people are competing for positions, whether it be school, corporates, or McDonald’s. There will forever be the very innate human reactions of jealousy, competition, and tribalism that occur in these environments. That is normal and human.

So when it comes to writing about the cops and outlining the allegations they baselessly accuse each other with, there is something rather human and normal in the fact that they all have their own motivations, camps, and people they consider friend and foe. Not all of it can be about being ill-fitted, immoral individuals, but rather a human response to environments that replicate villages of ancient times.

However, to the second point: corruption and crime. There is a sad reality that there are major concerns and problems regarding the relationships some criminals have developed with certain people within the criminal justice system. But it cannot be everyone.

Hearing about whistleblowers and people who have had to keep their identity anonymous to ensure that what they have to say does not harm them or their family is a huge risk. It more deeply displays that they are people who are moral, upstanding, and willing to aid the process of moving forward toward a more just country.

Even then, when they try everything in their power to remain anonymous, Marius van der Merwe, a former EMPD officer known to the Commission as “Witness D,” still lost his life in early December last year in the pursuit of justice. People continue to try, and this is probably only the beginning of a long struggle with ourselves, with the institutions that be, and with the painfully slow toll it takes to see justice truly play out.

Not everyone who is spoken about in the commission, not every allegation made, and not every word in the commission is fact. Until the report comes out and the information is made public, and everyone can truly make sense of what has been fact and what has been fiction, it will all remain allegations and processes yet to be concluded. Absent time, it will continue to feel as though doomsday is near.

With constant twenty-four-hour news cycles and pressure for news to compete with social media, the sentiment began to parallel social media and became negative. The world always had to be ending, politics forever had to be on the brink, and suddenly news broke by the minute, never the hour or the week. Suddenly, there was little time for stories to be told well or for space to understand what the objective events were, separate from opinion. However, that does not always sell, and media for many is a business rather than a necessity for society.

There is probably a reality that is less clear and not as well put together as the narratives presented on our screens. There are probably cops who are moral and principled and who simply appreciate their job and the symbolism it represents to themselves, their community, and society. There are probably cops who have engaged with criminals and are obstructing justice. However, this should not push us to give up on the system entirely, even when they are the ones who dominate headlines, newsfeeds, and timelines.

Similarly, in politics, there is a need to truly ask politicians deeper questions about how they intend to actually implement the policies they claim to aspire to implement in South Africa. The pressure to prioritise rhetoric that lacks clear planning, research, or even idealisation continues to threaten belief in politics as a whole.

Already, only a quarter of the population participates in politics if you count cast ballots: 16,290,760 people out of the 63 million who make up South Africa. Even within that, with a voter turnout of only 58.64%, concerns have been raised about what democracy means absent participation. This raises the question of what the future holds and what young South Africans will choose when asked what they intend to do with their future. Will they choose to attempt to strengthen democracy or turn to an alternative, as they continue to see politicians live lives filled with wealth while the majority remain in a world of poverty that remains unchanged?

The question will be interesting. Across the continent, youth continue to choose the alternative. Kenya and Madagascar bore witness to youth protests as conditions remained unchanged and government responses to expression and protest were violence and oppression. Ibrahim Traoré continues to be both an ideal and a mystery for young contemporaries who ask who represents the future of Africa’s leadership and voice as the world faces the revolution of technology with AI, changing geopolitics, and stagnating economics. The future is uncertain for us all.

However, I do believe that this is the most human thing of all. No matter how hard humanity tries to become more certain about the world through policy, speeches, international regulations, and agreements, it is often a false sense of certainty. Sometimes, we are not as safe as we believe and not as close as we perceive ourselves to be with countries we thought were allies. Sometimes, our enemies may actually be our allies; we simply misunderstood the relationship or had poor communication. To be willing to work together through change is to accept that there are no guarantees. The only thing we may truly know is that it will never be the same.

Whether it be politics, media, or podcasts, I think we all need to remind ourselves that it is probably never that bad, but also never that good. It is somewhere in the middle. Joy can be felt in the presence of pain. Pain can be the catalyst for some of life’s greatest joys, and within it all, there is always hope for a brighter tomorrow.

There will forever be things that pull us apart and things that bring us together. It is time that, as a whole, South Africa chooses each other. Away from headlines, speeches, and politics, and toward understanding what our story truly is. Hopefully, that journey will open a door that allows us to set our sights on our shared reality—the one we feel, see, and live together.