Hit and bit in Parliament: Are MPs partly to blame for school violence?

South African Parliament at President Ramaphosa’s inauguration, a far cry from the chaotic scenes the country has witnessed over the last days.

Photo Credit: Flicker/GovernmentZA

Over the weekend, as former President Thabo Mbeki celebrated his 80th birthday, (Happy birthday, Mr. President!). I couldn’t help thinking back to the time of his presidency – in particular how different parliament was at the time.

Over the last two weeks we have again seen the worst of South African parliamentarians.

It was absolute chaos in parliament.

The EFF, true to form, was clearly trying to grind proceedings to a halt – although having learnt from previous years, they now seemed to have a new strategy. Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu were participating online in the safety of their offices, from where they were presumably directing their frontline “soldiers” in the chamber.

The strategy was militaristic in style.

A few EFF members would come into the chamber, disrupt proceedings, get removed on instruction of the Speaker – only to be replaced by the next group and the next and the next.

What hadn’t changed was their behavior towards the parliamentary security staff who were again in the firing line. They were apparently hit and bitten, and I was told that one female security staff member’s braids were pulled out of her head by a MP - leaving her bleeding from the scalp.

Shocking!

Although the majority of the chaos was caused by the EFF, other parties and even party leaders lost their cool as well. There was shouting, insults and the bashing of desks. Online, a number of members insisted on continuously shouting, whether they were recognized by the Speaker or not. 

The chaos certainly reflected nothing of what the highest decision making forum in our country should look like.

In fact, when I texted one MP to ask if he was in the chamber he responded: “I don’t think so. This can’t be parliament!”

Whilst watching this on TV, I got a WhatsApp message with yet another video of three young girls beating up a teacher apparently for confiscating their phones in class earlier that day.

I say “yet another” since there have been a stream of videos on social media of pupils attacking teachers, bullying each other, or disrupting classes.

I looked up from the video to the chaotic scenes in parliament. Suddenly the penny dropped. Why are we shocked when young people imitate the scenes that they see all the time on their TV screens?  

These are meant to be the leaders of the country, so if they can scream and shout, defy authority, bite security officers and pull out women’s hair without any consequences, then why shouldn’t the schoolkids too?

For many of the MPs this is purely political theatre, but in reality, their (mis)behavior has far-reaching implications. Not only do their actions result in an increasing loss in trust of elected officials, but they also promote lawlessness amongst young people.

So, this can no longer continue.

The presiding officers in parliament, together with the whips of the various political parties, have to make changes to stop this.

Let me make a few suggestions:

At the moment it is impossible to hear anything going on in parliament when watching TV, since the online feed seems to override the microphones in the chamber. It is also clear that those who are participating online are misusing the medium to disrupt proceedings.

It would therefore make sense that the microphones of those participating online should be muted remotely until they are recognized by the Speaker, who would then unmute the relevant mic.  Like any other online group, the various participants would her attention by using the electronic hand function. 

Equally, the microphones in the chamber should be muted unless one is recognised by the Speaker. Members could indicate their desire to speak or raise a point of order by standing at a few designated microphones.

I am well aware that some would argue that this is a threat to freedom of speech. However, what we have at the moment is not freedom of speech but chaos. A small group of MPs are infringing on the rights of other MPs as well as we the citizens, who want our voices to be heard through our elected representatives.

In the event that a party is set on disrupting proceedings - by, for example, sending in group after group of MPs to create chaos - the whole party should be banned from participating in proceedings of that day. Since we have a party list system, not directly elected individual MPs, removing a party seems totally reasonable. 

However, the current system of fines and penalties is clearly useless. MPs misbehave with impunity and have no fear of any repercussions. It seems to me that parliament needs to find a way of punishing both the individual MP as well as the political party that the MP belongs to for disrupting proceedings or other offences. This should include hefty financial fines.

Given the shortage of political funding, fining in the political party, might finally convince the whips to get their members to behave.

President Ramaphosa reminded us over the weekend that President Mbeki said the following about leadership:

“The first thing that leadership needs to do is not to tell lies to itself, but to understand what the situation in the country is, what are the challenges, and indeed, why were we elected.”

The MPs should remind themselves of these words. We live in a country which is in many aspects on its knees. MPs were elected to improve the situation - not to create chaos.

So, it is time for them to stop behaving like a group of belligerent toddlers and do their jobs!