The sudden upsurge in right-wing Afrikaner mobilisation and the purge of Somali traders from Port Elizabeth’s Motherwell township both underscore how far South Africa still has to travel in dealing with diversity and xenophobia to stem inter-group hatred and find the holy grail of non-racialism. Both developments must be tackled in the same way: through firm leadership and effective policing.
This week we shed light on the shadowy far-right network, the Suidlanders, who set out last week to spread alarm and despondency by claiming in an internet and cellphone SMS campaign that Nelson Mandela was dead, and that his death was being concealed by the authorities. Behind the scaremongering apparently lies the same mythology, inspired by 19th-century “seer” Nicolaas van Rensburg, which inspired the Boeremag to plant bombs and plan assassinations in 2002.
North West University vice-chancellor Theuns Eloff points out that such people comprise perhaps 2% of the Afrikaans community. But as the Boeremag and the pre-1994 election bombers showed, a small band of fanatics in the grip of apocalyptic fantasies can be very dangerous. They have repeatedly shown that they are not deterred by the Constitution and democracy, which enshrine equal rights for all; they cannot countenance that Afrikaners no longer hold the levers of state power.
At one level, this is a policing issue — and we can all be grateful that the far right seems incapable of conspiring in secret and is easily penetrated by state agents. Those who plan unconstitutional resistance to a democratically elected government must expect to feel the full force of the law.
But there is also an important role for the vast mass of Afrikaners who recognise, like Jan Smuts and Koos de la Rey at the end of the South African Anglo-Boer War, that further armed resistance is both futile and destructive of Afrikaner interests. There should be no covert sympathy for violence-prone radicals, and no attempt to romanticise them — all responsible citizens should see this as a law and order issue. And Afrikaans community leaders should preach a gospel of realism.
Leadership and policing are also at issue in the ongoing persecution of Somali shop-owners in the black townships of the Western and Eastern Cape. There should be no mincing of words about this: the destruction of dozens of Somali businesses and the hounding of their owners from Motherwell, apparently with police connivance, is a national disgrace that should be unequivocally denounced by every level of leadership. The Cabinet paved the way last week by rejecting violence against Somalis and urging people not to take the law into their own hands. But closer to the ground — for example, among leading figures in the Western Cape government — the tendency has been to deny a pattern of anti-Somali violence and make excuses for the perpetrators. It is profoundly worrying that police did little, if anything, to protect the Motherwell traders, while using loudhailers to call for all Somalis to flee the township “for their own safety”. Police personnel were also reportedly seen carrying goods from looted shops.
In effective policing lies the real test of the government’s bona fides. It must ensure that the men and women in blue perform their constitutional duty of protecting South African residents against crime — whoever the victim might be. They must do so not only in the service of law and order but also of solidarity and Pan-Africanism.
Seen to be done
The appearance, or rather, the non-appearance of Judge John Nkola Motata in open court on Tuesday graphically illustrates how inconsistent the administration of justice can be.
In a new year splash, it was reported that Motata had crashed his ÂJaguar into a suburban wall. He claimed to have taken tea with a colleague, though the owners of the wall claim he was on like a scone and obstreperous to boot.
Motata faces drunk-driving charges.
Legal pundits say it is “normal” for the prosecutor and the accused (or their representatives) to arrange that a postponement application be heard in chambers. It is not a question of whether it is “normal”, but of whether it is right.
We say it is not. Few people appear in court because they had nothing better to do. The excuse that certain people have more pressing arrangements than others, and therefore need to have their hearings expedited, simply does not wash. Neither do we buy the view that Motata’s appearance in open court would undermine the dignity of the Bench.
To say in one breath that all are equal before the law and, in the next, claim that special provisions will be made for a certain category of accused is a blatant contradiction. Nothing could damage the reputation of the judiciary more than even a hint of special treatment for high-ups.
The losers are not Motata or the nosy media. It is justice, and the vital principle that justice should be seen to be done.