Walt Disney could not have dreamed up a better plot: King Thabo of Mzansi is getting on in years and will have to abdicate soon. Viceroy Jacob, a man of great charm and greed, starts openly to preen himself for the throne — as, secretly, does Notary Kgalema.
The king, who does not like to be reminded of his own mortality, decides to chop off the viceroy’s head. He dispatches Scorpio, his most trusted knight.
But times have changed. Scorpio is constrained by due process and summary execution is not an option. Viceroy Jacob uses the respite to mount a challenge at a meeting of the general council of the realm. No clear winner emerges.
Intrigue and conspiracy become the order of the day. Commoners grow restless. Emissaries of foreign states report that Mzansi represents a trade risk.
A heavy cloud descends on the land. As confusion grows, wise men and women counsel that only the Blinding Light of Truth can penetrate the darkness and save the kingdom from certain destruction.
Casper the Friendly Spook swoops in to find the Light and save the day. His first stop is Notary Kgalema, who points him to Mickey Mouse. Mickey hands Casper a toy torch made in China.
The torch fails to penetrate the murk, but it gives Casper the power to interpret the darkness howsoever he chooses. He informs King Thabo that his most trusted advisers and knights, Scorpio included, are to blame for the trouble. Thabo is furious and orders Red Riding Kasrils to chop off Casper’s head.
Because of the need for due process, Red produces a report. It is scathing of Casper and implicates Notary Kgalema. Kgalema, however, convinces a meeting of the executive council of the realm that another report is needed, as Red cannot be trusted. The commoners grow more confused and restless. The cloud becomes more impenetrable. The foreign emissaries’ latest reports conclude: “In Mzansi, Mickey Mouse rules.”
The moral of the story? The silly games of our politicians have done enough damage already.
Vigorous contestation for position is a desirable part of democracy. But when that contestation exceeds the bounds of democracy, as it has of late, the institutions of state — the security apparatus and judiciary among others — should act independently, each within its constitutional mandate, to guarantee democracy.
It has been worrying to hear accusations, albeit that they emanate from factions, that the Scorpions or the police have been deployed in support of this camp or that. Even more worrying is the very clear evidence that the National Intelligence Agency joined the factional fray.
Spies operate under a special dispensation: unlike other guardians of the democratic order, they are shielded from the public gaze. They are under an exceptional obligation to remain neutral. When a spy agency departs from this obligation, the very reason for its existence is undermined.
For now, the spooks have lost their right to cover. Only a full, open and patently impartial judicial commission can restore the trust — and knock Mickey off his throne.
The other book
It was one of Christianity’s earliest intellectuals, St Thomas Aquinas, who warned: “Beware the man of one book.”
And so labelling as “medieval” the views of the likes of the African Christian Democratic Party, which idiotically jumped to the conclusion that the tragic murder of a four-year-old child must be blamed on the sexual orientation of his murderers, is an insult to the likes of Aquinas and other thinking people of faith.
How South Africa’s religious right, purporting to be acting in the name of what they themselves say is a benevolent and merciful God, can, at the same time, lord it over those of a different sexual orientation beggars belief.
They have hijacked the tragedy that was Jandré Botha’s murder at the hands of his mother and her lesbian lover and turned it into a gay-bashing opportunity.
These hypocrites seem to think that their reason for existence is to stand against the Constitution. Their only pronouncements of any weight are against abortion and homosexuality and for the death penalty. When last did you hear this God-squad speak up, as is their religious duty, against hunger and disease, or even against child abuse in general?
If they had paid attention to more than one book, they would have realised we have a Constitution that stresses the best interests of the child in any matter that affects that child. When you have 140 000 new orphans every year and only about 3 000 adoptions, it cannot be in the interest of the child to reduce the pool of potential parents on the basis of bigotry.
They are hell-bent on looking for the specks in other people’s eyes while ignoring the log in greater society’s eye — domestic violence. Little Jandré was the victim of endemic levels of domestic violence and child abuse; a victim of cruel parents. Tragic. Full stop.