Skip to main content

Embracing Dictatorship


Dictatorships do not come as once off events, they are a gradual process. The story of the proverbial frog in a cooking pot explains the gradualism associated with how a dictatorship settles in. My grandfather was the first person to tell me the story.


Later in life, and after reading more about the cold bloodedness of frogs, I understood why the frog enjoyed the water temperature until it started cooking it. I also understood why the frog was trusting to the one cooking it, because, and indeed, the frog was taken out of cold water and the frog needed some warmth. 


In the theory of dictatorship we learn that dictatorships are easily embraced in societies 

  1. whose propaganda machinery has ONLY ONE narrative 
  2. whose history includes a media hyped socialisation to justify the erosion of rights by the powers that be, mostly the 'establishment'.
  3. whose leadership has an abundance of benevolence and social approval to an opiate and/or personality cult level
  4. that are blindly believing in a dishonest cognitive elite hellbent on preserving its social and economic (generally ill-gotten) status
  5. that have legal mechanisms to suppress political activity to levels where even PRAYING becomes illegal, and political activity can be insurrectory.
  6. that have a thieving business community that benefits from a constrained free political activity environment; a slavey context 
  7. that have a colluding business community to a dictatorship, as long as its ideological bottom lines are balance sheet friendly

When the above sneak into a society, it is the elite that are first to be targeted to collude. They are softly enrolled into an agenda, generally incentivised with fear of a system collapse and a change in class livelihoods. Lately the moods of the investor community as rated by Moody and others is the new benchmark to define rules of total enrolment to what 'they' approve.


I just hope as citizens we are not frogs in a cooking pot. I hope we are aware that the water temperature is rising and we may soon be unable to take the heat. I hope we are not in training to accept human rights violations irrespective of WHO's RIGHTS are violated. I just hope these restrictions are GENUINELY HONEST and are not HERDING us into a NARRATIVE.


The COVID19 restrictions, notwithstanding that they are generic public health response mechanisms, should not be allowed into a normality. I want to really believe RESTRICTIONS are not avoiding to have the VIEWS of society known on the 'NONSENSE' that is going on around the former President by THOSE SUPPORTING HIM and THOSE THAT DO NOT. 


We are a maturing democracy, we must not fear OUR VIEWS as a society on all matters. Difference creates opportunities for breakthroughs. If we are unable to call wrong wrong and right right, we might be colluding in the concretising rule of law dictatorship or anarchy based dictatorship. Both must be rejected.


🤷🏽‍♂️A ndzo ti vulavulela

🤷🏽‍♂️Be ngisho nje


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The revolution can't breathe; it is incomplete.

Only some political revolutions get to be completed. Because all revolutions end up with a settlement by elites and incumbents, they have become an outcome of historical moment-defined interests and less about the actual revolution. This settlement often involves a power-sharing agreement among the ruling elites and the incumbent government, which may not fully address the revolutionary goals. When the new power relations change, the new shape they take almost always comes with new challenges. As the quest for political power surpasses that of pursuing social and economic justice, alliances formed on the principles of a national revolution suffocate.    The ANC-led tripartite alliance's National Democratic Revolution is incomplete. The transfer of the totality of the power it sought to achieve still needs to be completed. While political power is arguably transferred, the checks and balances which the settlement has entrenched in the constitutional order have made the transfer...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ngcaweni and Mathebula conversation. On criticism as Love and disagreeing respectfully.

Busani Ngcaweni wrote about criticism and Love as a rendition to comrades and Comrades. His rendition triggered a rejoinder amplification of its validity by introducing  a dimension of disagreeing respectfully. This is a developing conversation and could trigger other rejoinders. The decision to think about issues is an event. Thinking is a process in a continuum of idea generation. Enjoy our first grins and bites; see our teeth. Busani Ngcaweni writes,   I have realised that criticism is neither hatred, dislike, embarrassment, nor disapproval. Instead, it is an expression of Love, hope, and elevated expectation—hope that others can surpass our own limitations and expectation that humanity might achieve greater heights through others.   It is often through others that we project what we aspire to refine and overcome. When I criticise you, I do not declare my superiority but believe you can exceed my efforts and improve.   Thus, when we engage in critici...
Post a Comment
Read more

The ANC succession era begins.

  The journey towards the 16th of December 2027 ANC National Elective Conference begins in December 2024 at the four influential regions of Limpopo Province. With a 74% outcome at the 2024 National and Provincial elections, which might have arguably saved the ANC from garnering the 40% saving grace outcome, Limpopo is poised to dictate the cadence of who ultimately succeeds Cyril Ramaphosa, the outgoing ANC President.  The ANC faces one of its existential resilience-defining sub-national conferences since announcing its inarguably illusive and ambitious renewal programme. Never has it faced a conference with weakened national voter support, an emboldened opposition complex that now has a potential alternative to itself in the MK Party-led progressive caucus and an ascending substrate of the liberal order defending influential leaders within its ranks. The ideological contest between the left and right within the ANC threatens the disintegration of its electora...
Post a Comment
Read more