MAKHUDU SEFARA | We can’t allow the spectre of violence to undermine South Africa’s democratic freedoms

In an ideal world, members of the DA should be able to go to an ANC manifesto launch anywhere in the country without lurking as undercover operatives, but openly showing up as peaceful observers wearing their own party’s regalia.

Theoretically, they should be able to dance — or even toyi-toyi — with ANC members, take pictures together, listen to ANC leaders when they address the crowd and applaud where appropriate.

That, right there, is what freedom is. It is what the struggle was about — our ability to express ourselves freely without fear of aggression.

ANC members should be able to attend PAC and MK Party rallies in KwaZulu-Natal, just as the ANC in Limpopo should be able to convene a provincial rally on the same weekend, in the same region, as the EFF celebrates its birthday. That would be freedom on display, democracy at work.

Yes, mock me as naïve, ahistorical and idealistic. Yet what is the value of freedom if we must walk on eggshells and ask for permission to breathe?

Why must the DA, or any party, be a prisoner to fear because the likelihood of violence creates undeclared no-go areas?

Though wrong, it is understandable how the whole country can be held hostage to fear.

This is why many immediately thought the DA’s decision to send undercover observers to the ANC manifesto launch last weekend was political recklessness. It was also the reason the ANC felt this manoeuvre must be reported to the Electoral Commission of South Africa.

The fear of what could happen is real. Our political history is written in blood. Just thinking differently, or choosing a different political home, has cost many people their lives.

I have spent hours in Khumalo Street in Thokoza on the East Rand, where trucks and tractors pulling trailers were used to pick up dead bodies during the height of so-called black-on-black violence in the early 1990s.

There’s a hostel off Khumalo Street called Mshay’azafe (literally, “beat him to death”), where many killed or were killed for no real reason. They simply held different political views. That was enough to be set alight in broad daylight.

Now, our violent past should not continue to hang over us. If we remain fearful, if we allow ourselves to think our freedoms must be curtailed so that we don’t provoke others, then we validate violence as a political tool to regulate conduct.

Put differently, if we don’t challenge our propensity for violent conduct, we give in to what is termed “heckler’s veto”. Philosopher Karl Popper argued that society’s tolerance of something — in this case violence — without placing limits on it makes that society susceptible to destruction. In our situation, if we continue to tiptoe on eggshells because we fear potential violence, we allow intimidation to become the norm. Freedom is compromised. Democratic spaces shrink, instead of expanding.

Some will argue that in politics, as in life, there are trade-offs. They will remind us that constitutional freedoms themselves have limits. This, they say, means the DA and others cannot assert their rights at all costs and ignore volatile reality. They will remind us that if the so-called undercover agents had been outed and attacked — or even killed — the decision to send the poor souls into hostile territory would rightly have been seen as reckless provocation.

There’s a tension between a person’s safety and democratic defiance

There’s a tension between a person’s safety and democratic defiance. Utilitarian philosophers say the utility of actions would, in this case, be a matter of how avoiding bloodshed leads to the greatest good for the greatest number. This ties in with the views of Thomas Hobbes, who believed political actors must operate based on the world as it is (volatile and dangerous) rather than how it ought to be.

On the other hand, deontologists argue that democratic freedoms must be exercised and defended; to surrender a right out of fear is to compromise moral integrity, which was the basis of the struggle for freedom and democracy in our country. Did hundreds or thousands of South Africans endure prison, torture and/or a life in exile in pursuit of freedom simply for us to now tiptoe around others’ proclivity to kill? It seems utterly outrageous.

In the end, April 27 1994 would simply have been a mirage if freedom fighters had deferred to fear.

If the youth of 1976 and the women of 1956 argued then that they grew up in a world that was racist, volatile and unjust and therefore it was pointless to march against the regime, where would we be today? Ditto the anti-pass marchers in Sharpeville.

The DA was wrong to send clandestine operatives to an ANC rally — it should have been more open. Importantly, the party’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille, should have been in the forefront. Sending juniors is no different from President Donald Trump abandoning Air Force One in Turkey to avoid a possible attack on it — but allowing others, including journalists, to remain on the plane as unwitting decoys.

The ANC, too, should welcome Zille to their rallies and use the occasion to school her on how and why the ANC, even at its weakest, is still double the size of the pretender to the throne.

This is how we, as a society, say thank you to the courage of the women of 1956, the youth of 1976 and the anti-pass heroes of 1960.

We can’t tell the world we are free and yet remain in chains for fear of potential violence. Democracy should ensure the protection of all. Our history of violence must not become the cave in which we perpetually dwell.