The enemy within
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian (November 7), ANC veteran Zola Skweyiya not only bemoans the formation of the Shikota party, but wonders why it was formed in the first place. A closer perusal of his interview sufficiently provides the core reason why the ANC should not be entrusted with the lives of almost 50-million people and why there is a need for a political alternative.
That the ANC has grown incredibly narcissistic over the years is further demonstrated by Skweyiya’s omission of issues of national importance such as crime, unemployment and housing in his presentation of possible ills eating at the fibre of his beleaguered party.
A modern-day ruling party should not be too preoccupied about its ”veterans” or the ethnicity of its leadership, but is expected to put a lot of emphasis on implementing sound policies aimed at achieving a ”better life for all”. The mandate provided by ordinary South Africans should be the basis on which the success and failure of the ANC is measured, not by internal skirmishes and the number of ex-MK cadres who ”died like paupers here in Gauteng”.
It is perhaps appropriate to disabuse Skweyiya and his communist comrades of a notion that the formation of the new party is counter-revolutionary. It is in reality an expressed desire for a real revolution, judging by the enthusiasm elicited by the Shikota party.
For far too long our people have been spectators of Luthuli House roulette, characterised by the ”recalling” and ”counter-recalling” of opponents, while neglecting the task for which they were voted into power. The ANC’s real enemy is the ANC itself! No self-respecting ”liberation movement” will harbour dubious individuals who threaten mayhem should the wind blow in a certain direction.
Lastly, to frown upon the ANC does not mean one endorses the hypocritical antics of Shikota. Whether they possess the political sincerity and maturity to take our troubled land forward remains to be seen. — Malava Ramphomane, Khutsong
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The article ”People died for the ANC flag” (November 7), which encapsulates Skweyiya’s pleas for cohesion in the ANC in the face of the launching of Shikota, ironically but effectively explains why the present ruling party is past its sell-by date.
No person can argue about the invaluable role that the ANC played in mobilising the masses to shake off the yoke of apartheid — this was a battle fought by a highly united bygone generation that identified with a specific epoch-related cause perhaps outside important issues which would later demand attention. Albeit that this courageous role should never be downplayed, we live in a somewhat dangerous, ever-evolving world with new life-threatening challenges for our future generations to overcome. Plainly, a new, fervent and enlightened youth is beginning to emerge and demand positive change and accountability.
Sadly, while urgent contemporary issues such as HIV/Aids, poverty alleviation, education and job creation should have been central to government policy over the past 14 years, factionalism, tribalism, cronyism, supreme power, corruption and racial polarisation have characterised our ”national strategic objectives”.
As can be learned from Barack Obama’s election victory in the United States, it is not an issue of black verses white, not the issue of a supreme, omnipotent political party, or an issue of male verses female. It is an issue of fostering love and unity between all South Africans, an issue of positive change that brings hope and an issue of thinking with your head and not your heart in the face of trying times.
Therefore, in all truth, Mr Skweyiya, while our national government ministers advocated garlic to dying Aids patients, fought the Springbok emblem while township children practised sport on dirt patches, attacked the integrity of the judiciary, sang about using machine guns, were implicated in mass corruption and protected dictators to the disadvantage of our economic stability, can you still say that ”it is the ANC which will provide a better life for South Africans”? — Shane Brody
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What would Shaka do?
So Robert Mugabe has been let off the hook again by our Southern African leaders. He goes off to hunker down in one of his palaces, smiling his thin-lipped smile and scheming while corpses pile up outside his gates. It looks like another impotent African solution to yet another unsolved African problem.
What should happen is that our leaders indict the man for crimes against humanity, send an army into Zimbabwe to remove him from office, declare martial law in the country, install Morgan Tsvangirai (he won the most votes, didn’t he?), back him with force if necessary to stop the bloodshed, and combine with the international community to pour in food and medical supplies as well as doctors and engineers. Open the hospitals, let the people live again! After a year or two to allow the shattered nation to regain its poise, there should be a duly supervised free election.
Too dramatic? Too decisive? Not African enough? Good God, what would Shaka Zulu have done?
Of course, while the stench from Mugabe’s charnel house continues to assail us, we could continue to do nothing (it’s called quiet diplomacy) until the United Nations, stung by taunts about its inactivity over the Tutsis and Hutus, stirs its lethargic limbs. Then it might ask the former colonial power to send a gunboat up the Zambezi (so to speak) and an army sergeant and a platoon to return the shattered remnants of Zimbabwe to order.
How humiliating for us all. — Humphrey Tyler, Eastern Cape
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Beyond the politics of intolerance
I want to say to my brothers and sisters in South Africa: we need each another. We need every brain and muscle to contribute to nation-building. This is not the time to create enmities.
There is a lot of unlearning we have to do if we are not to end up as a banana republic. Top of the list is the political culture of ideological rigidity. In the history of our nation political formations were based on ideological rigidity, on hatred and exclusivity. It was black versus white and black versus black. Need we repeat that history?
Political rigidity produces intolerance of those who differ. It has been visible in many parts of Africa, often with genocidal consequences. In South Africa we have to learn that we need one another, over and above the politics of intolerance.
We are an anchor of hope to many a tired, miserable and hungry African brothers and sisters. So many driven by war, poverty and genocide have found in South Africa a place of relief. We have been building sustainable democratic institutions in Africa, yet lately my fellow South Africans have moved close to hate speech and words of intolerance.
We need a strong political superstructure in our new democracy. The strength of democracy is tested by tolerance of differing opinions. How mature is our democratic practice? — Dumisa Maliti
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Party blooper
I am taking the unusual step (for me) of writing to the Mail & Guardian. The reason is as follows: I enthusiastically opened last week’s edition of the M&G to devour every last word on Barack Obama and his magical election victory, only, much to my horror, to come across a statement from myself recorded at the Troyeville Hotel Obama election party.
The statement in two sentences writes off all my beloved fellow partygoers as centrists and Obama’s stunning election victory as a damp squib! Now I am undergoing intensive trauma counselling while in deep hiding from dozens of angry readers of the statement, who have placed large amounts of money on my head!
This statement arises from a late-night boisterous exchange between Charlotte Bauer, myself and a friend. Many lively ripostes were flung in jest — all aimed at being more provocative than the next. This was then reduced to the two deadly sentences! Charlotte, how could you do this to me?
It’s one thing being a critical, left-leaning thinker, which I strive towards, but it’s another thing pouring cold water on one of the most inspiring moments in recent history.
Of course I have reservations regarding what Obama will aim at achieving and what he will succeed in achieving, with everybody else at that party. But my goodness, the man is magic and that evening I celebrated that magic.
Regarding my fellow party-goers being centrists: many are dear friends, and together we have celebrated significant and insignificant events going on for four decades.
I would kill many bulls for each one of them (and grill the bulls as well), no matter damn them to being naive centrists.
Well done on the insightful and in-depth coverage of the Obama phenomenon, including the Troyeville event. But please publish this letter so I can continue to follow history in the making (and visit the Troyeville Hotel again without getting prego rolls thrown at me). — Jeremy
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A show of support
The Mail & Guardian (October 31) reports that the University of Cape Town has invited Professor Nithaya Chetty, who is facing disciplinary charges at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, to present the annual TB Davie Academic Freedom lecture in 2009.
The UCT Academic Freedom Committee has invited Chetty to present the lecture both because of his outstanding contribution to public debates on the role of the university in South African society and because we wish to express our solidarity with him and his colleagues at UKZN.
We are not privy to the details of the charges faced by Chetty and Professor John van den Berg. But we believe it is important for academics to be watchful for management policies and practices that are vindictive, repressive and ultimately destructive of the academic enterprise. We do not believe that a university should be pressing charges against its members for expressing a considered opinion on the conduct of the institution, as UKZN management appears to be doing against Chetty and Van den Berg.
The TB Davie lecture was established at UCT in 1959 to protest against injustice, show solidarity with its victims, clarify the role of the university in society and defend ideals of academic freedom. At that time the frontlines of the conflict over academic freedom ran between the apartheid regime and the open universities. Today they often run through the universities themselves.
We honour Chetty for keeping the ideals of academic freedom alive. We look forward to welcoming him to our campus. — Andrew Nash, chair: Academic Freedom Committee, UCT
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Make it relevant
Make it relevant
talk nuts and bolts
and not the pie
out there in the sky
Make it relevant
to the youth rather
than preach and scold
and deliver workshops
Make it relevant
not just to the man
in poverty street
but to the woman too
Make it relevant
our much-beloved
and admired Constitution
and the Bill of Rights
Make it relevant
lest you make yourself
irrelevant
— David Kapp
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In brief
Anyone who thinks Barack Obama is going to inaugurate a global renaissance will, I believe, be profoundly disillusioned. Name me one president since JFK who did not disappoint in some way. All American presidential candidates are appointed by the corporate elite, so any notion that the president is there to serve the people is — alas — an illusion. — WL Mason, Johannesburg
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I was impressed again with the clear, honest and, to my mind, accurate analysis presented by Rapule Tabane last week. I am also convinced that the overwhelming majority (and I speak as an anti-ANC, white, racist South African) would elect Kgalema Motlanthe if we had a real democratic opportunity to elect our president (Shikota-style!) directly. He appears to be capable, fair, honourable and level-headed. Like Obama, he simply seems to be the best man for the job. — Willem van den Berg, Pretoria
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Contrary to Jo Els’s opinion (Letters, October 31), I wish to thank the M&G for publishing Lev David’s always amusing, always skilful writing. His fantasies about Sarah Palin’s undergarments helped me turn an object of terror into an object of ridicule (as Mommy tried so hard to get me to do all those years ago). — Rushdi Slamang, Cape Town