South Africa

Many have looked back at the horrors people committed during the dark days of Aparthed and asked - how? How could otherwise normal people lower themselves to treat others in such a horrendous manner, how could so-called "god-fearing" people become real life Jekyll and Hyde's and perpetrate the most cruel and degrading acts on other human beings? I'm not just talking of monsters like Eugene de Kock or that animal Ferdi Barnard but also some of the men and women who served in the SADF, SAP and other "security" forces. For sure not all were involved in crushing the mass democratic movements but there was definitely a substantial proportion who were either directly or indirectly complicit. What got me really thinking about this was a post on SouthAfrica.com (pretty long but bear with me) : 

 

"Picture this: It’s an imaginary country somewhere in Africa. The year is 2004. The govt of the day, the ANC is representative of a majority black population. It then degenerates into tyranny. It (ANC govt) suddenly introduces compulsory military service. It clearly states that any black young man who refuses to go to military service will land in jail. Okay, me, my brothers and neighbours in the township join in. We are forced to do all the military drills, we learn to salute, are brainwashed and made to believe a white man is sub-human (a pig) and that we blacks are the supreme, chosen race of God. We are armed and sent to kick, torture, shoot and kill white people that are protesting against our fascist communist order. And we go on do it with zeal, utmost efficiency, dedication to duty – with no mutiny or desertion. We serve loyally until our day of discharge. All this against our will and conscience. We bear our own children, they follow the same routine – serve military service, against their will and conscience, without mutiny, a la us.

Now allow me to ask the following questions: if we were to be true to ourselves and loyal to our conscience, would we go the full mile of our military training, get all the orders right and be religiously disciplined, whilst acting out of compulsion? And pass the baton of this state instigated tyranny to our offspring? All in the name of a govt that is self-serving, parochial, criminal and benefiting us zilch? Would that ANC govt pride itself of effectiveness and absolutely entrust its future sustainability in the hands of young men it has forced and will continue to force into military service - against their will? Would the ANC hoodwink, swindle and survive successive generations of voters that it cons, swindles, uses and abuses for its own ends – all with nothing in it for them? Can a young man act savagely and visit cruelty on another race in the name of a govt that is forcing him into a war that he is not even prepared to fight? Can all the forced young men’s parents continue to vote the ANC into power – yet its actions are unpopular and criminal? Why can't all the parents of those young men that are incarcerated for refusing compulsory military service not take legal action against the state? If not legal action, then some formal protest, demonstrations and seek international publicity to illustrate that the cause the govt is fighting is as unjust, not representative of their attitude and morally repulsive as to necessitate the use of young men to defend it against their will? Why wouldn’t radical anti-govt forces form a populist movement, ably supported by ex-political prisoners (ie those that refused military conscription), campaign vigorously in the majority disenchanted voting community that is gatvol with these govt goons, & win the very next election (before 4 decades of terror pass)? If history were to judge all the voters that participate in this criminal electoral process that props and sustains the devilish system, must they be allowed to refuse joint and several liability, alongside their govt, for the criminal genocide?

As a black man, I believe, a la Steve Biko that, is better to die for an idea that will live, than live for an idea that will die. I also believe that if any government degenerates into tyranny, its laws cease to be binding on its citizenry.

 

The man asks a good question indeed, if as many now claim, they "had never really supported apartheid anyway", how did the apartheid machinery manage to function with such efficiency for so long? A big answer for me is to be found in the White South African psyche. To understand this let us look at a famous (infamous?) experiment conducted by a Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram:

 

"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

 

In fact on Thomas Blass of the University of MaryLand (who is also the author of a biography of Milgram, called The Man who shocked the World) performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment (done at various times since, in the US and elsewhere). He found that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between 61% and 66%, regardless of time or location.

 

Most interestingly, a Milgrim experiment was conducted in South Africa and the study found EIGHTY-EIGHT percent compliance. This showed South Africans were well above the average in following orders even when it went against their consciences or involved morally questionable conduct...

 

The link between this experiment and Apartheid's enforcers is quite apparent. Given orders by the ultimate authority (the State) and convinced the means served the end, many people did not find any contradication in attending church on Sundays and creating havoc in South Africa's townships during the week.

 

Of course these reasons are by no means comprehensive, but I do believe they add to the debate that is (or unfortunately isn't?) going on in our Country.