Voter Education in SA – no one knows what the hell is going on.

With everyone obsessed with Obama mania no one is actually considering how educated US citizens were when they went to the polls. Of course the campaign trail was most exciting and informative but also people got off their own complain trail and ACTUALLY attended events or spoke to people who did.

And what of us South Africa?

I was chatting to a member of local ANC branch in my area (he happens to be a friend, I happen to be mainly a DA/COPE supporter) and he – as a white South African male – was commenting on the fact that SO many people complain about the ANC, the government, the blah blah blah whatever but hardly anyone makes their way to their local ANC office to find out about branch meetings or local ANC leaders who they can voice their complaints to.

I don’t count myself out of this group, I complain too, but I try as far as possible not to make claims about ‘the state of democracy in South Africa’ (South Africans’ newest complaint phrase) without actually knowing a little bit about what I’m talking about. This same ANC friend of mine, an activist who’s confronted the government and SAPS a couple of times, also mentioned how if you actually call up the people in office (like, for a completely random example, Michael Kagiso of the ANC Tigane branch) and talk to them instead of just accepting what the media has to say about them you might be pleasantly surprised.

Voter education does require some hard work and some effort on the part of voters, but then this is the cost of democracy. So please, get educated. If you have access, Google it. If you’ve got a phone, call them. If you don’t have much, keep your ear to the ground – the campaign trail is hot and the politicans are, at least for this period, interested in you.

Get educated: History Matters Elections 2009 section

*Also, see my comment on ‘Political Parties in SA’.