January 23 to 29 2009

Zuma: we were warned

Both your editorials of January 16 (‘Why Zuma must step down” and ‘Banking on change”) resonate strongly with what Mark Gevisser wrote in those far off pre-Polokwane days. In his introduction to his Thabo Mbeki biography, The Dream Deferred, he makes three points that bear repetition.

Gevisser asserts that back then Mbeki was ‘deeply distressed by the possibility of being succeeded by Zuma” and regarded Zuma’s ambitions as ‘part of a strategy to avoid prosecution”. Mbeki’s concern was that ‘Zuma and his backers had no respect for the rule of law, and would be unaccountable to the constitutional dispensation” if they came to power.

Finally there was the worry that ‘Zuma’s leftist advisers would undo all the meticulous stitching of South Africa into the global economy that Mbeki and his economic managers had undertaken over 15 years.” A Zuma presidency would be ‘a dream shattered … as South Africa turned into yet another post-colonial kleptocracy; another footprint of despair in the path of destruction away from the promises of uhuru”.

Remember, these words were written before anyone announced a preparedness to become homicidal for Zuma, before Zuma-backer-in-chief Gwede Mantashe expressed the view that judges are ‘counter-revolutionaries” and before the Congress of the People (Cope) schism.

The core issues involve accountability. Zuma cannot pretend to be a mere deployee of his party: he is first and foremost an individual who is in a position in which he is obliged to comport himself responsibly, reasonably and in a manner responsive to the needs of the people. He cannot possibly properly run the complex, long-overdue criminal trial in which his personal liberty is at stake, a trial that will keep him in Pietermaritzburg for months if not years, and discharge the responsibilities of head of state and head of the national executive in Cape Town and Pretoria at the same time.

He also cannot expect to duck that trial and retain sufficient personal credibility to stand his country in good stead in the eyes of investors and on the world stage. Politics is about perceptions and if the general perception is that Zuma is a crook, though astute enough to avoid prosecution, it does the country no good at all.

The ANC-led alliance is also accountable to its supporters and to the country at large. It is surely not beyond the wit of the leadership to find a presidential candidate better suited to the obligations of upholding, defending and respecting the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and of promoting the unity of the nation and that which will advance the republic, which is exactly what the Constitution requires of all our presidents. Zuma’s candidacy is so divisive that it has spawned Cope; expect to see three vertical black bars defacing Zuma’s countenance on election posters if he does not do the right thing by withdrawing now. — Paul Hoffman SC, senior advocate of the high court of South Africa

In your editorial of January 16 Jacob Zuma is urged to step down as presidential candidate for the coming elections in view of the recent Supreme Court of Appeal’s verdict.

While it is true that Zuma has a mind of his own in whether he wishes to relinquish campaigning for the presidency, it must be conceded that there are other powerful forces at work that have a bearing on such a decision.

It is common knowledge that the ANC, Cosatu and SACP leaderships are staunch supporters of Zuma’s presidential candidacy. Even if Zuma was convinced that the best course of action in the country’s interests would be to withdraw his candidature, would his supporters endorse such a decision? In all probability, they would persuade him to hang on in compliance with the Polokwane resolution.

Such reasoning can be substantiated by the recall of Thabo Mbeki. Zuma was opposed to Mbeki being recalled before the end of his term in office. The ANC leadership prevailed over the party president and Mbeki was recalled as a matter of urgency. — Professor Tuntufye S Mwamwenda, Durban

Your coverage is dripping in hatred

In general the Mail & Guardian‘s coverage of Israel — be it locally authored pieces or those lifted from the partisan and propogandistic Guardian — seem to be motivated by a visceral hatred projected on to Israel, so that much of it reads like the medieval demonisation of the Jews that occurred in churches where the Jews were forced to listen to sermons where they were devalued, dehumanised and their status as the unworthy and inferior Other was driven home again and again.

The resentment and marshalling of so-called facts to serve this hatred drips from every line. Fortunately, while hatred is unseeing, love too is blind. My love flows from the concern for the dignity and life of the millions of Israelis held captive by the growing wall of Iranian-funded Hamas and Hezbollah missiles surrounding them. Israel, after all, is just an abstraction, as is any collective entity.

Those of us who love Israelis can only redouble our efforts to support and nurture the assertion of human dignity that Israel ultimately is. — Immanuel Suttner, Parkhurst

For far too long the state of Israel has adopted a policy inimical to its own interests. Its militaristic approach in Gaza, on the West Bank, and towards Lebanon, although ostensibly directed at eliminating Hamas, Hezbollah and similar terrorist groups, has — by the regrettable killing of ordinary civilians — served only to further alienate Palestinians, other Arab nations and world opinion.

The time has come for Israel to reassess urgently its role towards the Palestinian people. It should promote the establishment of Gaza and the West Bank as separate nation states. The price of this being recognition (Israel’s right to exist) and peace (freedom from incursions by suicide bombers and/or rockets).

But Israel needs to go much further. To promote its own interests it must work with the people of these territories to advance their social needs, health requirements, education and jobs. Israel should establish hospitals, clinics, schools and libraries for Palestinians. Border industries and factories with tax-free status should be set up within Israel to provide jobs for Palestinians. The financing should be borne by international entities, public and private.

The future would be an ­enlightened, healthy middle class in Gaza and the West Bank. Today there is only despair and despondency. Israel, the leading democracy in the Middle East, could fulfil its historical destiny as a light unto all nations. — Eric Polonsky, Cape Town

We’re not pigs, Dawkins!

The most annoying articles in the beloved M&G are ones where the journalist assumes the readers join him in being too smart for religion. In your January 9 issue it’s Decca Aitkenhead with her piece on Richard Dawkins, the scientist who has figured that science and religion are alternatives and that there is almost certainly no God. How do you calculate that ‘almost certainly”? Belief in God is basically an assumption about the existence of hierarchy in the world, and the human position in that hierarchy.

Science is a method for extending knowledge using experiments. It penetrates best in directions where we can experiment, like chemistry, and least deeply in directions where we are ourselves engaged as partisans, like sociology. That’s the direction where we place God. A nation is like a tiny God. So is the biosphere. Considering the smallness of human beings relative to the world and our short attention span relative to the continuity of natural systems, the sensible assumption to make is that human beings aren’t at the pinnacle of this arrangement. That’s the assumption made by our ancestors and by the ‘stupidest-faced” woman Dawkins sneered at for wearing a cross to her work at British Airways.

Religions are like antennae fashioned to pick up our relation with the pole of what is greater than us and different religions come up with different-looking antennae – though often with convergences. Dawkins would have us abandon these tools and so ‘stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Wouldn’t that make us like pigs? Or is that an insult to pigs? And what is wrong with being God-fearing? — Jonathan Jackson, Durban

Once again the M&G has chosen to deal with the question of religion by focusing on a Cambridge scientist in the European context. Good God! Why this fascination with an Anglocentric debate when there are much more fascinating questions about religion going on here in South Africa?

So again I ask: for politics, economics, culture and sport the M&G correctly turns to South African experts. For religion you turn to British journalists and the religiously illiterate Shaun de Waal. Why are you so scared to engage with scholars of religion and theology at South African universities? — Professor Steve de Gruchy, head: school of religion and theology, UKZN

Cameron is ‘without peer’

In his letter, ‘Cameron ‘not appropriate’” (January 16), Phillimon Mnisi says Judge Edwin Cameron’s ‘integrity, professionalism and objectivity in the Constitutional Court will be questioned”, because of his ‘advocacy on HIV/Aids and same-sex relations”.

This cannot go unchallenged. Cameron is a person of unimpeachable integrity, professionalism and of great moral and political courage. As a South African legal scholar and jurist, he is, I submit, without peer.

He is also a man of profound compassion and empathy. He is internationally recognised for his unrelenting efforts in relation to HIV and Aids. This should be in his favour. Also, as section 9(3) our Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, his views on this matter cannot be held against him.

As a judge and jurist he ranks with Sir Sydney Kentridge and Richard Goldstone as a South African with an international reputation. Despite his formidable intellect and his achievements, he is a humble person, always willing to help and champion the poor, the marginalised and down-trodden.

He will be a brilliant and dedicated Constitutional Court judge who will make an inestimable contribution to the jurisprudence of the highest court in the land. Failure to have appointed him on the grounds suggested by Mnisi would have been a travesty of justice. Indeed, his appointment is most appropriate. — Professor George Devenish, Durban

No offence

Rather than celebrate having Zapiro to offer unparalleled cartoon commentary, Butch Hannan (Letters, January 16) finds a Zapiro observation offensive to his religious feelings. It takes the brilliance of Zapiro to use the birth of Christ to highlight the current South African perversion of what Christ represents, to both believers and atheists. What ought to be offensive to Christians is the takeover of Christianity by callous, commercial interests. What I, as an atheist, find offensive to God is the idea that the claimed creator of the universe would be so small-minded as to take the slightest offence to Zapiro’s cartoon. — Jeff Rudin, Woodstock

In brief

So Jacob Zuma has now made a music DVD called Uyamemeza uJesu uthi ANC — Jesus is Shouting the Name ANC. No free-thinking Christian would give Zuma the time of day, let alone vote for him. What gives him the right to mock Christianity and compare himself with our Saviour? — Cilla Webster, Scottburgh

In spite of the poverty gripping many South Africans, the ANC spent millions on its manifesto launch. It was all pomp and funfair. Remember when Robert Mugabe’s support base was under threat? He roped in Jonathan Moyo and there were galas, music videos and so on. – Mgcini Nyoni, Daveyton

Is Zuma costing the South African taxpayer money in his seemingly endless manipulation of the legal system? If so, how much? If you can, could you publish a weekly barometer (as for Aids), which keeps the public aware of how much of our money this man is wasting? -­Laurence Bam, Sedgefield

All our efforts need to be focused on building a nonracial developmental state where all are driven by an undying desire for a better life for all. Let 2009 be better than 2008 and let’s collectively look forward to a peaceful, free and fair election. — Tshepo Lefera, Tshwane

I first met Helen Suzman 40 years ago when I was called upon to thank her for coming to address our school. Thereafter, I had the privilege of meeting her and listening to her speeches on many occasions. From first to last she was the most logical person I have come across. The Afrikaans word ‘konsekwent” better describes her. — Nigel Willis, Johannesburg

I appreciate the cartoons done by Zapiro but feel that using the nativity scene as a backdrop for his year-end cartoon is distasteful. As a Christian I find it in bad taste. Would he use a Muslim event as a backdrop? — Butch Hannan