(Published in MTimes of 31 May 2019)
Inspired by her father who was very much involved in social work and community development, and the likes of Edward Said and Noam Chomsky - the intellectuals who denounce all forms of injustice - and obeying to some kind of call to join the political fray to transform the human condition and think of the greater good, Sheila Bunwaree emerges from the lot as a politician with new ideas and the guts to see them through,imbued as she is with the enthusiasm and the naivety of the new adherent. (Interview in Mtimes of the 24thMay).
Prof Bunwaree, who has been for years in the sole company of the academics before creating her own ‘Parti Justice Sociale’, comes from a milieu that does not usually give rise to good politicians, given the politics of the mainstream parties.
Such political candidates from the academia tend to have strong convictions, but are often abstract and not good at the realpolitik that day-to-day politics imposes.Politics is about compromise and our dear Professor cannot afford to compromise on principles, philosophical position, intellectual thoughts, and/or scientific truths. Most of them cannot afford to lose credibility by changing their stance. Our Professor cannot deny that her brief stint with Muvma Liberater does tend to prove the point.
As regards her position on smart cities, the incestuous relationship between government and big business, the small planters, IPPs and the energy sector, the fishing community, the environment, etc., one can easily see that she would have been more at ease in a leftist or eco-socialist party like Resitans ek Alternativ or Lalit. Being a fervent new adherent, with the right baggage stuffed with the Pickettys, Sens, Saids and Chomskys of the contemporary world, she is being sent to the forefront - the barricades - to reconnect with an increasingly dismissive public.
What is unfortunately and unacceptable is that once in power, these mainstream political parties not only let us down, but connive with the unaccountable elite with its own agenda and vested interests to smother our calls and attempts for change. Finally they turn out to be more of the same – the same arrogance, the same me-know-everything attitude, the same cronyism, same lack of boldness and newness in reforms and policy initiatives. It usually does not take long for such enthusiastic reformers like Prof Bunwaree to see their ideals battered by the realities of politics and to realise how quickly the mainstream parties jettison the all-too-common hermetic language of academia in favour of the potent slogans that appeal to the gut, not the head.
I do not know whether Prof Bunwaree’s study of some of our political parties in the course of her research project for the Electoral Institute of South Africa did reveal that her newly adopted party has become a victim of the very ills that it was supposed to fight and eradicate. Indeed , its recent internal elections for the Comité Central and Bureau Politique opened an ugly vein of animosity and divisive politics and revealed its underbelly. Lots of people did not like what they saw, including the choice of the leader’s lieutenants -- not on the basis of their honesty or competence but for their pliability and loyalty.
Yes, Professor, these mainstream political parties constantly disappoint us and we tend to lose faith in all parties, and ultimately in democracy.
