A closer look
South Africa is experiencing a welcome lull this week, after the frenzy of the election campaign and before Jacob Zuma’s inauguration jamboree.
Most of us are focused on what will happen next—projecting into the blank space around our president elect our wishes, realistic or otherwise. And yet our lead story looks back into the heart of the storm that washed us up on the shores of Zumaland.
Readers might, then, be justified in asking why we are devoting so much space to Ivor Powell’s extraordinary, unhappy, story at a time like this.
Perhaps, after all, Jacob Zuma in power will be a very different man from Jacob Zuma under siege. Certainly, we would like to think that in his first 100 days he will show some of the healing ability that Barak Obama has made his signature.
But the fact is that we cannot move forward unless we address thoroughly how we got here and some of the truly frightening forces that have been at work on the commanding heights of our society.
The very deep and broad politicisation of the intelligence and security services represents one of the most serious, and least understood, threats to our constitutional order.
The saga of the hoax emails, the surveillance of Saki Macozoma, and the dismissal of Billy Masetlha had already begun to make that clear by 2005.
The story of Powell and the Special Browse “Mole” consolidated report demonstrates how thoroughly the defining political battle of the decade has been fought in the secret world and how completely state institutions have been compromised on both sides.
Powell’s account provides fresh confirmation that then Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy was acting in a problematic fashion, insisting that work on the report continue even after he had been told by Vusi Pikoli to cease and desist.
Put in its proper context, too, Powell’s story suggests that the machinations of the NIA and crime intelligence were instrumental in making available the tape recordings that delivered the coup de grâce to the prosecution of Zuma. And it leaves serious unanswered questions about what really went on in the campaign to anoint him president.
The war in the wilderness of mirrors, hidden from scrutiny by layers of secrecy, has had a defining effect on the range of democratic choices available to South Africans, and on the functioning of our institutions.
Some of the generals in that war are likely to ascend to positions of even greater power in the coming months, and there is little to suggest that they will not continue to prosecute agendas that have more to do with the success of particular political projects than with the security of the state.
Powell’s is a tale of a single man caught up in a remorseless process, but beyond its human drama, what it teaches us is that the case for far-reaching intelligence reform has never been more urgent. That means it is a story we have to keep telling, however much we might like to avert our eyes.
Lessons in transformation
The explosive Crain Soudien report on transformation, social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in universities represents a critical moment in the post-apartheid narrative of South Africa’s public higher education system.
It also serves as a poignant reminder that universities as a microcosm of society reflect how we behave towards each other in our everyday lives.
This is why the report makes it clear that tackling discrimination spawns has to be a joint project. In this endeavour universities cannot shy away from their special obligation to work for the good of society.
To its credit the university sector has, from the outset, supported the work of the Soudien committee, which Education Minister Naledi Pandor established last year.
But only in the next few months as the higher education system and its leaders engage with the far-reaching recommendations in the report, will their true colours be revealed.
Notwithstanding concerns about the process—and it had its shortcomings—the Soudien report provides a glimpse into the dark side of our university system. Discrimination clearly continues and, more importantly, it is affecting the core activities of universities: how students learn, what they learn, how successful they are, who teaches them, where they live and how they interact with each other.
This is why university leaders cannot be complacent.
In fact, exceptional leadership will be in demand to find a balance between institutional autonomy and enhanced accountability, which the government can bring about by using its subsidies to punish failures and reward successes in the pursuit of genuine transformation.
How the carrot-and-stick approach is applied, in essence chipping away at the all-important autonomy of universities, will depend on how proactively the higher education sector deals with the report.
It is sad to acknowledge that something as terrible as the Reitz race video sparked this transformation health check in the sector.
Universities can either use their rich repository of resources—policies and people—to get back on the transformation track or face the consequences of another Reitz when it happens.
