African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Gwede Mantashe has accused University of South Africa (Unisa) principal and vice-chancellor Barney Pityana of refusing to be challenged about his views on Jacob Zuma.
Mantashe said he tried several times to meet Pityana, who ignored his overtures. He said this indicated that Pityana did not want to be influenced and was trapped in his thinking.
In a speech at the annual general meeting of the Law Society of South Africa this week, Pityana said the country was entering a new era shrouded in anxiety and uncertainty by the looming presidency of Zuma.
He commented that Zuma remained a flawed character. The ANC president has been indicted for serious crimes that involve corruption and dishonesty. ”So far he does not encourage confidence in his understanding of policy. Appearing as he does, making policy pronouncements on the hoof, depending on who he wishes to appease at any one moment.
”We have seen the leader flip-flop on crucial matters of policy, for example, the death penalty, the silence when his supporters mount a savage and uninformed attack on the judges — ostensibly with his consent — the dance of backtrack on the reform of the labour market.”
Pityana came under attack from Mantashe, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and its youth wing, the Young Communist League (YCL), as well as letter writers. The SACP said certain elements were trying to ingratiate themselves with leading personalities in the ANC.
The comments appeared to refer to Pityana’s remarks praising President Thabo Mbeki. He referred to Mbeki as among the best heads of state this continent has ever known.
The YCL said: ”The vice-chancellor should desist from these unwarranted insults and focus on transforming Unisa by broadening access for the previously disadvantaged students especially for those from the working class and poor backgrounds.”
Pityana this week refuted Mantashe’s comments, saying Mantashe had never requested such a meeting.
”Gwede Mantashe has never called my office to arrange such a meeting. I am aware that he spoke to some of my friends and said he wanted to meet with me, but that’s not arranging a meeting. No meeting has ever been refused,” he said.
Pityana said he had sent Mantashe the full text of his speech. ”My sense is that people picked on a bit they don’t like. I would rather people engaged with the whole speech.”
This is not the first time Pityana has raised concerns about Zuma. During Zuma’s rape trial in 2006, Pityana suggested that Zuma should resign as vice-chancellor of the University of Zululand.
”To resign would be to show that there is something of a shame associated with rape and with corruption. And that he is prepared to take moral responsibility, as opposed to legal culpability, for the offences for which he must stand trial,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Mail & Guardian.
So just who are the ‘clevers’?
For anyone who thought compelling public intellectualism had gone into hibernation, spring has come with a fecund bang thanks to Pityana, writes Charlotte Bauer.
Pityana’s speech to the Law Society this week contained several piercing views about the state of the ANC, but none as prescient as the one that critical thought in this country’s contemporary political life has the currency of a Zimbabwe dollar.
Pityana’s critique of Zuma’s ”flaws”, coupled with his view that Mbeki will go down in Afro-history as a great guy, excited a response from the Young Communist League that confirms Pityana’s very own concerns about the scorn for ”clevers” in the post-Polokwane era.
In an almost surreal press statement the young reds basically told the professor to shove his mortar board and shut up.
In a dizzying alliterative display, the YCL called Pityana a ”deplorable” person and described his remarks about JZ as ”disrespectful and dastardly”.
The mystery deepened when they said Pityana had been a lousy ”political leader” (was he ever a political leader?) and darkly claimed that during the lib-strug in exile he was merely a ”boarding academic and a political demagogue tourist”.
What could this mean? Did Pityana, during his time in the UK, perhaps take a package tour for clevers to Stratford-on-Avon, thus enabling him to quote from The Merchant of Venice in his inflamed ”vendetta” against Zuma?
Clearly the YCL knows less than it’s letting on, but that’s probably no surprise to the professor, who has more or less warned that being ”clever” is a fate worse than Eskom in the post-Polokwane age.