“Some amongst us” (a presidential signature-phrase) who, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, dashed for cover when police fired purple rain at protesters, and rubber bullets and tear gas at funerals and marches in the 1980s, will vouch that he was not a media creation.
Some amongst us, who saw how Tutu bridged the gap between the church and the political struggle, braving the anger of the “don’t mix religion and politics” crowd, will know that his history cannot be rewritten to suit a party agenda.
Some amongst us, who counted ourselves combatants in the fight against apartheid, know the shameful character of the propaganda war emanating from inside the African National Congress against Tutu. There are many such people amongst us, and we span black and white, “elite” and working class.
The ANC last week penned a venomous, though intellectually feeble, attack on Tutu. Somewhere between its muddle of 19th-century racist, colonial theory (the beloved source material of some amongst us) and the rantings of an unknown Business Day columnist, its thesis is basically this: that Tutu and other unmentioned “icons” (though Nelson Mandela is not mentioned, he is clearly implied) are the creations of a white “elite” assisted by black opinion-makers.
These icons, the claim goes, have become the cat’s paws of an elite that seeks to challenge the ANC’s right to govern and set the national agenda. The secondary purpose of the document, turgidly titled The Sociology of the Public Discourse in Democratic South Africa — Part II, is to vilify and question Tutu’s bona fides, from denying his role in the struggle to insisting that the real heroes can only come from the ANC.
The document bears out Tutu’s original complaint: that the ANC no longer debates and is shot through with sycophancy. The document merely reiterates, more viciously, President Thabo Mbeki’s online column about the archbishop.
In power for 10 years and voted in on majorities that grow ever larger, the ANC is growing smaller in spirit. The party has, paradoxically, grown less confident in power, believing that it is the target of threats and destabilisation and that its right to govern is constantly being challenged.
The ANC is comfortably established in office. Neither the armed forces, nor the opposition, nor other powerful social interests — business, labour and civil society — aim to unseat our rulers through coups or plots. Through the ballot box, perhaps, but that is quite in order in a multi-party democracy.
In true democracies the cacophony of diverse voices and a combative media are healthy; policy debate is essential fodder for a vibrant society. It is the glittering prize won by the election of 1994.
Neither blind nor visible
Justice must be blind, which means treating all people — pauper, parliamentarian or prime minister’s son — as equally accountable under the law. And it must be seen to be done, otherwise it will not inspire confidence.
In the Travelgate scandal, justice is in danger of failing on both counts. This is so because of the secretive nature of the plea bargain negotiations between the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the legal representatives of the 40 MPs implicated, and the impression that a lenient deal has been offered to the MPs because of who they are.
Impressions, of course, may be wrong. Plea bargaining should be sparingly used because it diminishes public oversight, but it can advance the cause of justice. When lighter punishment is agreed to by the state in exchange for a guilty plea by the accused, prosecutorial risk is minimised and resources spared in an overburdened justice system.
More importantly, part of the deal is often that the accused turns state witness against other suspects; a useful mechanism to prise open a hard case. This was the NPA’s excuse for what appeared to be an embarrassingly light sentence agreed with Mark Thatcher.
It is hard to see how that excuse can hold water in Travelgate — the NPA offered a deal to all 40 MPs. If all agree — and indications are that the ruling party majority of the suspects will, represented as they are by a single set of party-appointed lawyers — who will they testify against? The seven travel agents already arrested?
The plea offer smacks of special treatment for a privileged group of VIPs. Let us not forget the thousands of petty crime suspects who languish in our jails, often for months, awaiting not a fancy plea bargain, but the simple opportunity of a day in court.
How has that other institution built on trust, Parliament, done in the Travelgate case? It reported the crime. But since then it has procrastinated and equivocated, raised protocol hurdles and abrogating responsibility to political parties.
At least 40 present and former public representatives have allegedly defrauded Parliament and the public of significant amounts of money. In the response of various authorities, all the public can see is the flaunting of kid gloves. It is not a good way to build trust in public institutions.