The Hopes and Fears of South Africans Ahead of the Elections

Kamva Matuis, 21

OkayAfrica: How do you feel about voting for the first time?

Kamva Matuis: Excited, uneasy, and very much alive for some reason. I actually ‘feel’ South African. The South African story revolves around the main election; everyone knows [about] the main election. So it feels like part of being South African is being politically aware, or knowing about that one election. And it's interesting now that I get to be part of another election that, weirdly, could become one of those elections.

But also, you are of the generation that's very much divorced from the weight of apartheid.

I wouldn't say divorced. I think a lot of young South Africans, as much as we don't know the legend that hardcore apartheid has been fed to us as. We have a lot of qualms about ways in which a racialized world polices us and we relate to that in the ways that we move. We know that. We live in a world where you very much know that you’re Black, or you very much know that you’re a certain race, position, class. I wouldn't say we're fully divorced, because then when you ask yourself, ‘Why is the world like this?’ You’re sent towards apartheid. So maybe distant, but I wouldn't say divorced.

Why was it important for you to register your voice?

Maybe I'm getting sentimental with it, but I think it's also the myth of what voting is. When you're becoming a citizen, exercising your main right gives you a stake towards South Africa. At the same time, it's like it's always been like that. I was five in 2007. Maybe that's when I gained consciousness, the time when things were always the lesser of two evils. That’s the time of load shedding, the time we were always reminded that it was shit. I don't think we grew up with this whole messianic figure that a lot of people had in the form of Mandela, or maybe a Mbeki of sorts. I don't think we ever had that. And a lot of people may think that maybe Julius Malema is that for the youth, but I think that it’s a simple reading.

Are you hopeful?

I'm hopeful because it's a very contested election. It feels like our electoral system is designed for that. I don't think it is designed so that one party is that mega power, to the point where the affairs of the party then become the affairs of the country. So because it's so contested, maybe we're going to have a representation of multiple voices that make South Africa, and maybe instead of conflict, that can lead to better solutions.

Bantu Mahlangu, 32

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing South Africa today?

Bantu Mahlangu: Belief, honesty, trust, you know? [The country] is becoming a place where we don't even know which direction to take, or how to go forward. Even with the elections coming up, some of us are struggling to figure out as to who we want to put in power because, you know, there's no one we can trust. There's no one we can believe in, and there's no one we can have faith in. As a South African citizen, I believe in doing things myself most of the time. That's simply because my country, my government, has taught me that they’re not going to do anything for me. I think that's one of the biggest challenges that our country faces.

Are there any issues that you would like the in-coming government to focus on sorting out?

The new government needs to look a lot into the arts and how it can play a big role in shaping or molding a country, or influencing people a certain way — feeding people the right information. At the end of the day, that's how you speak to your country. If they can get that aspect of communication between the society and the government, there could be a difference. Our government needs to be honest and be open so we can trust and believe in them.

Deshnee Subramany, 37

Where were you during the first democratic elections?

Deshnee Subramany: I was six years old at the time. I remember being terrified of the news. I later realized this was because of how violent the early ‘90s were. I remember my grandfather putting on his suit and hat to vote. He always wore a suit but that day in particular felt like he was dressing for an occasion. It was also my grandmother's birthday on that day, and they went to vote together. I don't remember much more, which is a heartbreaking pity.

Why are you voting in the forthcoming elections?

I've been thinking a lot about why when someone tells people to vote, I get defensive. I've realized it's because we are the people who have to turn the tide, and the reality of that is scary. It's all well and good to say you should ‘get the ANC out of power,’ but then vote for who? And do we trust them? I'm at a point now where I have to do something no one in my family thought they could do, and I have to do it or I'll be living for five years with the result of a decision I didn't have the courage to partake in.

Oratile Modise, 28

What changes do you want to see after these elections?

Oratile Modise: I think that Mandela let us down by saying that this was a free country, because everyone felt free to come and go as they pleased. I don’t have a problem with foreigners; they’re okay, as long as they enter the country through legal means. When you observe today, many companies are owned by foreign people. We are managed by people who don’t have the correct documents in our workplaces. Those people look down upon us because we [South Africans] don’t take ourselves seriously; we can’t stand up for ourselves. I need us to change our mindset. I also need our leaders to put South Africa first. Some foreigners are okay, but why aren’t we considered before them? We, the people of this country, need to fight for these things. Not with violence, but with a change in mentality; with good strategies.

Andrew Miller, 50

Where were you during the first democratic elections?

Andrew Miller: I was at home in Joburg in 1994 for the elections. I'll always remember this sense of the fear, the existential fear of white life in South Africa at the time; this sense that we could go, at any second, over the cliff — that we had always been taught about, you know? I remember that being an extremely powerful thing in the suburbs, around the braai (Afrikaans for barbecue), you know, in the context of white, apartheid, South African life.

Are there cultural or social changes you are particularly proud of or concerned about?

We often lose sight of just how profound the changes have been in the last 30 years, especially in suburban South African life. You see such profound changes in terms of just the cross-cultural nature of our existence, and often how thoughtless that is. If you look back 30 years, it was obviously a very, very different environment. And I think many of the fearful white South Africans could never have dreamed of the environment that we now live in, in the suburbs, and the grace and ease with which we were ushered into the new South Africa by our Black compatriots.

In terms of concerns, working class life, the gulf between the haves and the have-nots just seems to grow and grow and grow. And the pain and the anger of working class South Africa is something that never goes away. It only seems to ever increase, and is a cause for concern at every possible level of existence, from the spiritual to the practical.

Are you hopeful about the future?

I am hopeful about the future. I'm also worried about the future. I think the two things can exist at the same time in an individual's heart, and I think for many South Africans, they do exist at the same time. I think we've got lots to base our hope on. But the creeping collapse of the infrastructure of life in South Africa is the huge fear factor, because it could well indicate a rate of progression that really starts to eat away at the foundation of the country, the socio-economic foundation, the ability of people to participate in a life, to participate in work, to put effort in and get reward out.