This is a blog response to this YouTube video. I mentioned before that I'm no political scholar or have any qualifications on societies in the global world but I do my research on things & do a little sociology research (the study of human societies). I don't think that South Africa, at least my part of South Africa, embraces Western values to the extent many around the world would think.
The list of Western values.
In South Africa, we frequently flirt with Marxist philosophies which are often seen as anti-Western. We also infuse our African customs with our modern world, African customs which may or may not agree with some Western values. Let me do a comparison of my world in southern KZN, South Africa to the list of these "Western values":
• Life (Right to life?): × I'm of the belief that all societies believe in the right to life, South African societies included. But when our murder death rate stats rival those of war zones, we have to question whether we really do value life. The level of crime & the paranoia we have for the safety of our lives indicates we do not respect human life.
• Individual liberty: × Growing up in my teens, I think people believed in individual liberty more than they do now. Now, there seems to be an expectation of how someone should be.
For example, in my teens, you could go sit at any public place without there being a reason to be there but now, there seems to be a "hidden hand" that seeks to do away with that. Perhaps, it's due to crime but that freedom is slowly eroding. As well as the belief that we need to be something some witch hoard believes & not what we as individuals want just seals the deal. Individual liberty is dying in my world.
• Pursuit of happiness: × We live in a land where black misery is common & the norm & black happiness is often related to fleeting, momentary activities & alcohol. So the idea of "the pursuit of happiness" in black societies in South Africa is allowed within a certain framework but outside that framework, it's resented by a large portion of a population.
• Liberal democracy: ✓ Democracy itself is questionable in South Africa with elections having missing ballot papers & people voting twice. There's secret ballot in South Africa which I've mentioned before could lead to a whole swath of corrupt practices. But on the whole, elections are relatively fair & standard in South Africa & not as corrupt as they could be considering we still embrace secret ballot voting. This is because in some countries election winners win an election by a percentage of 99% or 101%, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that kind of result simply means the election was rigged. Some elections in South Africa are corrupt but not as blatantly corrupt as some developing countries.
• Rule of law: ✓ Well, in recent times, the law seems to favour wealthier people & not common people you find on South Africa's streets. That being said, South Africa is not an anarchist society or society that uses martial law & you can still get arrested for murder & theft. High profile people can get arrested in South Africa also, so rule of law in South Africa is still "mostly" present.
• Natural-born human rights: × I'm guessing these natural born human rights are these which include several freedoms. Today, I see a move towards a more "witches council" type of society in my world. By this, I mean that we seem to be forced to do be something that we're not. So natural-born human rights are speculative in my world but I do not think common South Africans have any concept of them.
• Freedom of expression/speech: × There is indeed freedom of speech in South Africa but it is often resented when it criticises corrupt practices of our land & government so it's debatable. There are definitely some "holy cows" in South Africa's pop culture.
• Freedom of religion: ✓
Secular government: ✓ We do indeed have a secular government & South Africa allows freedom of religion. A concept, I believe in myself. But most black South Africans, myself included, do come from Christian backgrounds so our view of the world often does have a Christian bias.
• Privacy: × Privacy used to be respected in South Africa but our government has gotten increasingly more paranoid, especially during the Zuma presidency, so the concept privacy has gone out the window to some degree.
• Free trade: ✓ Free trade is common in South Africa so much so that our eagerness to trade often breaks some laws. So free trade is common in this land.
• Capitalism: × In my world, we do have a sort of capitalist world but the fortunes of some are resented & frowned upon. There's the running joke that a black person in an expensive car is setting themselves up to be investigated by the Hawks (South Africa's private investigations unit). So while we say we're a capitalist society, that capitalism is biased towards a certain demographic or even surname. So, to me, there's no capitalist society in South Africa.
• Humanism: × I had to look up what humanism is & read "rational ways to solve human problems" & immediately realised that South African society just doesn't have this. Perhaps, if we had separate ethnostates, we'd have that but currently, South Africans are definitely not "progressive human intellectuals" with the violence & drugs running in our veins.
• Science: × The Apartheid government was especially fond of science & progression through science. Apartheid South Africa was arguably one of the countries at the cutting edge of technology at the time. I suppose we could claim that we embrace science & technology in modern South Africa but we don't look for breakthroughs & progress our lives with our scientific advancements to the extent other countries do. We're still stuck in a way of life that has permeated through generations with little change in the way of internet systems for example. This is increasingly made more difficult because infrastructure keeps getting stolen & rarely checked for maintenance. Cellphone tower equipment, government electrical equipment & public transport infrastructure is constantly vandalized & stolen. When Kenya is producing over 80% of it's electricity from renewable energy, South Africa is still pushing coal (wet coal during loadshedding).
• Individualism: × We have a philosophy called "ubuntu" here in South Africa which virtually cancels the concept of individualism altogether. You can't be a soi disant individual without the say so of certain oppressive communities.
• Morality comes from a higher power: ✓ This is virtually a given in all lands including my own. In fact, all human societies originate from some sort of theocracy, Nguni societies included.
• Private property rights: × Recently, the South African parliament passed a law that the government has authority to repossess private properties should cause arise. Also, especially in our black societies, trespassing laws are seldom observed & trespassers are seldom prosecuted. It is a concept we are not familiar with even though in antiquity, we understood the concept of territories & boundaries of territories in African society.
Personally, I believe in all the above except my definition of privacy (especially around elections) may be less private & I do believe in a government that embraces Christian/Abrahamic laws because it may provide a better foundation than a secular one. And in our index here of seventeen Western values, South Africa embraces only six in my world & from my perspective. South Africa may be seen to be a Western-leaning country in Africa but a closer look shows we're not.