Some of their campaign posters may appear to be stupid, but there's real merit to the way in which our political parties are fighting for our hearts and minds.
THERE'S a war going on in Yugoslavia. As I write these words, bombs are whistling through the night sky, children are crying out in terror, refugees are stumbling blindly through the freezing night (some of them to collapse and never rise again), and military tacticians play and replay computer-generated scenarios to determine tomorrow's battle plan.
How was your weekend?
Like most South Africans — myself included — you probably ignored the war in the Balkans completely. If you were in Cape Town, you might have been one of 70 000 or so who went to Newlands for rugby. You might have been one of the millions who tuned in to the cricket World Cup live from the UK on TV. You may have worked. You may have visited a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple ...
Not that we are ignorant — we see the words and pictures on these pages and on our TV screens. Neither are we cruel and heartless bastards — because we've been deeply moved by those words and pictures. Nor are we lackeys of the New World Order — because we know Americans know jack about cricket or rugby.
What make us get off our butts and take action? In 1943, psychologist and sociologist Abraham Maslow suggested that actualisation was the driving force of human motivation. "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be."
However, before such spiritual goals could be satisfied, there were some nagging trivialities that needed to be taken care of. These Maslow categorised into five layers which he refereed to as the "hierarchy of needs".
Try to picture a pyramid with 5 layers.
- At the lowest level are physiological needs (hunger, thirst, shelter, sex).
- Next is our need to feel safe (security, protection from physical and emotional harm).
- Above this, we have social interaction (affection, belonging, acceptance, friendship).
- This is followed by esteem or ego (internally - self respect, autonomy, achievement; externally - status, recognition, attention).
- Only after we have built up this base can we concentrate on layer five (actualisation of our potential).
Where do the political parties fit in?
- The majority of the African National Congress' voter base is at the lowest level of this hierarchy. The basic needs of hunger and thirst and shelter are these people's most pressing concern — hence the focus on "a better life for all".
- The New National Party's voters already have these needs addressed. Their biggest concern is protecting those things, which is why they react viscerally to party promises to kill those who would take those things away (thieves, murderers, rapists).
- The African Christian Democratic Party, the Freedom Front, the Minority Front and several others try to mobilise around social interaction ("Christian", "Afrikaner" or "Indian" groupings form the rallying points).
- The Inkatha Freedom Party functions at the level of esteem — emphasis on hierarchical governance, respect for traditional values.
- And the Democratic Party functions at the level of actualisation — emphasis on development of the individual above all else (UDM? What UDM?).
They all cheat. The ANC's base of organised labour has had its needs catered to (via the Labour Relations and Employment Equity Acts) ahead of the more basic needs of job creation for the majority. The DP lacks numerical support at the level of actualisation and so has stooped to the level of the NNP, who in turn try to elevate themselves above the DP by calling them racist, and so on, and so on...
Maslow's hierarchy is dynamic; the musician may be absorbed in playing music but eventually becomes tired and hungry, so she has to stop. At the same time, a hungry man may be desperate for food but once he eats a good meal, the promise of food no longer motivates him.
This are things all parties should think about...