Recent weeks have seen much dismay around the behavior of South Africa's government. For it has tabled legislation to restrict access to government information, publicly endorsed a proposed media tribunal answerable to the ANC-dominated Parliament, detained a journalist, and snatched mining rights from two companies. Taken on a case by case basis these developments have done much damage to the reputation of the country. Taken as a whole they suggest that South Africa is beginning to display some of the early attributes of a totalitarian regime.
Political theorists have long sought to define the nature of totalitarian regimes. A 1956 book Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (New York: Praeger) identifies six characteristics that defined totalitarian governments. The six are as follows:
1. A driving ideology
2. A single dominant party
3. A terroristic police
4. A monopoly on communications
5. A monopoly on the possession of arms
6. A centrally controlled economy
South Africa's Government is coming to display elements of each of these six defining characteristics, although clearly not to the extent that was evident in more extreme case studies of totalitarian dictatorships such as Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar, the Soviet Union, and Zimbabwe.
On the first point of a central driving ideology the ANC, by its own admission, is guided by the principles of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The philosophy underlying the NDR is that in order to correct historical imbalances the State needs to assume control of wealth and redistribute it from formerly advantaged to previously disadvantaged groups. In order to do this successfully the ruling ANC needs to exercise direct control over all levers of power in both the public and the private sector - an attribute of any totalitarian system. The practice of ‘deploying cadres' to all manner of institutions across South Africa is one example of the NDR at work.
On the second point, South African politics continues to be dominated by the ANC, which governs with a very large majority both at a national level and across eight of South Africa's nine provinces. There is little to indicate that this majority, admittedly acquired at the ballot box, will be broken in the near future.