Millions of South Africans feared expressing their views in the face of the "thugocrats" who dominated the communities where they lived, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille said on Sunday.

Writing in her weekly online newsletter, she said that the FIFA 2010 world cup had given South Africans a great confidence boost and a glimpse of what it could be as a nation.

But there was another South Africa just beyond the reach of the fanparks, fan-jols and stadiums.

"It is a South Africa in the grip of feudal authoritarianism," she said.

"There are millions of South Africans who fear speaking their mind, taking their own decisions, or expressing a view if this contradicts the dominant position of 'the collective'.

"Ironically, this 'collective' generally consists of a small clique of self-appointed individuals who assume a mantle of legitimacy by describing themselves as 'the community'."

These people set themselves up as gatekeepers over all those living in a defined geographic area, prohibiting any alternate channels of communication, and claiming to represent the collective will, she said.

"And they did not hesitate to use intimidation and violence to impose their views."

These self-appointed spokespersons were sometimes given fancy titles, such as "community liaison officers", an "Orwellian" description of people who were more often involved in preventing individuals from expressing divergent opinions.

Although she did not name them, she made reference to an incident when members of the African National Congress Youth League destroyed the open toilets in Khayelitsha and condemned what she said was the South African Human Rights Commission's recent decision to recognise a group of "thugocrats" as the legitimate spokespersons for the Makhaza community in Khayelitsha.

Zille said that this came after these "bully-boys" had intimidated people and destroyed toilet enclosures against the wishes of the people themselves.

Zille said this sort of behaviour was the foundation of the closed, crony society that resulted in endemic corruption and eventually a criminal state.