M&G readers share their views on our religion edition, police brutality and the local government elections.
Police heads must roll
I watched in horror as armed thugs masquerading as policemen beat a fellow South African to death — one thug in particular followed the man, a 33-year-old father, Andries Tatane, and beat him from behind as he lay on the ground. Then they shot him in cold blood. A week after this murder the minister of police and the police commissioner are still both in their jobs, and I am starting to hate the police again — just as I did during apartheid.
A man, a father, a teacher — he and I (and many of you) have so much in common. The desire to live well, a love for our fellow human beings and pride in our communities and families — now he is dead, killed by vicious, cowardly thugs, who attacked him, eight to one. These half-idiots act like gangsters and lack the ability or training to respond properly to a tense situation.
To add insult to terrible injury, Bheki Cele (I refuse to use a title he does not deserve) visited the grieving widow and the fatherless child — to do what? Where was his immediate resignation? Surely his “shoot to kill” statements in part created an environment in which these rabid dogs could behave the way they did. He even had the nerve to ask the crowd “not to provoke the police” during the court appearance of the same rubbish. Am I angry? I am outraged.
But not as outraged as I am disappointed that millions of South Africans have not taken to the streets to protest against our government using Nazi-style police against its own citizens engaged in peaceful protest. Where are my academic colleagues? Where are our student leaders? Why are our universities, schools and communities not “on fire” with protest against this shame? I voted for this horrible government that kills its own citizens.
I call on the government to dismiss the minister of police and police commissioner immediately, to appoint a commission of inquiry into this killing — and if necessary charge the police leadership as well as the policemen on the scene with murder (by common cause) — and to disband the police force in its entirety and start again. — Michael J Naidoo, Grahamstown
A corrupt state is naturally violent. South Africa cannot be an exception. It uses state power to suppress the will of the people and the public broadcaster to justify its actions. The brutal killing of Andries Tatane in Ficksburg reminds me of the death of Johannes Nkosi, Vuyisile Mini, Looksmart Ngudle, Ahmed Timol, Steve Biko, Rick Turner, Joseph Mdluli, Mapetla Mohapi, Matthew Goniwe, Hector Pieterson and many others who died at the hands of the apartheid police.
Tatane was murdered by a “democratic” state to intimidate the people, to stop them protesting against lack of service delivery. In Mandeni’s Ndodakusuka municipality people protested against corruption and a public meeting was called. But instead of the ministers of housing or local government, there was the minister of state security, Siyabonga Cwele. At the meeting community leaders were accused of being Cope or enemy agents.
After Biko’s death we demanded the resignation of Jimmy Kruger. After the killing of our people in Boipatong, we demanded that Adriaan Vlok resign. When the apartheid regime killed our people in KwaLanga, Hammarsdale, KwaZakhele and in many other places, we called on Louis le Grange to step down. Today both Nathi Mthethwa [minister of police] and Bheki Cele [police commissioner] must resign.
Our people are killed at the time when the media is exposing corruption scandals such as Sapsgate, Bosasagate and Shicekagate. This corrupt regime has increased electricity tariffs by 79% since the last election. We have seen ANC cadres milking municipalities all over the country.
The ANC must stop singing “Letha umshini wami” [Bring me my machine gun] and “Dubula iBhunu” [Kill the Boer] and instead chant “Long live the spirit of Tatane” and “Dubula indlala [Kill hunger] and corruption”. May Tatane’s blood nourish the struggle against corruption in the same way the blood of Solomon Mahlangu nourished the tree of freedom. — Siyanda Mhlongo
It took a small incident to trigger World War I and an equally small incident to ignite the Maghreb revolutions. After Tatane’s death a seething nation’s chagrin can be kept in check only by letting the law take its course, as Minister Mthethwa directed.
This incident, however, will remain an ugly blot on post-apartheid South African history and an insult to the 27 years Nelson Mandela suffered as a prisoner of conscience.
If we are to preserve Mandela’s legacy, the culture of forgiveness and tolerance, and promote reconciliation, we must avoid emotional reminders of our past. Let the Ficksburg incident and the loss and pain the Tatane family feels also be our loss and pain. Let it fan the processes of forgiveness and reconciliation as the law takes its course. When we bury Tatane, let us also bury hatred, intolerance and related baggage.
The township and the municipality Tatane served with his life should have a statue of him so posterity can salute him as a hero. — Benjamin Seitisho, Phuthaditjhaba
Local elections neither free nor fair
As one of the candidates contesting the local government elections on an independent ticket it is disheartening to see the political intolerance practised by ANC apparatchiks.
I naturally assumed that, 18 years into the new democratic dispensation, political parties would embrace the fact that our democracy has matured and there is space for all parties and candidates to electioneer peacefully. But no. I am even more horrified to imagine what would happen if the ANC were to lose its grip on power nationally.
The local government elections reflect the fact that the ANC seems to be deeply deluded that it will never lose power. I can only pray that this phenomenon will not lead to the “Zanufication” of our politics and, inevitably, to the ostracisation of our country.
The tearing of our posters, the defacing of our electoral material and the unashamed intimidation of our supporters gives an ugly picture of the ANC and leaves one with a sense of the ignorance and political immaturity of the party’s mandarins.
If an illiterate and aged electorate can be duped about grants and RDP houses being stopped and confiscated if they vote for different candidates then the lack of political morals runs deep within the ANC.
It is an ominous sign that the once-revered ANC has lost its moral compass and will need strong and decisive leadership to return our “beloved movement” to its founding ideals and values.
Also, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) should not wander cluelessly around the issue of the harassment of non-ANC candidates but exercise its constitutional mandate to intervene and rectify the situation.
The IEC’s clumsy advice to go to the police is unhelpful, because they refuse to investigate if you have not seen a person vandalising or defacing election posters. From my experience, since the elections were proclaimed one cannot really say that they are free and fair. — Patrick Rampai, Wolmaransstad
The usual Easter onslaught of drivel
Every year during the Easter period I brace myself for the usual onslaught of drivel contained in the Mail & Guardian‘s special religion section (April 21). Sadly, there were no pleasant surprises this year as (organised and unorganised) irrationality was paraded about once more as a virtue. I can’t help thinking that the M&G, with its secular and leftist leanings, really should be doing more to combat religious belief instead of promoting it.
The impression one gets after reading the religion section is that one would do best to sign up to one or another creed of religious belief and that, if one does not, one is missing something that needs to be substituted with dabblings in Eastern or New Age philosophy (“The silence of sounds” and “Certain of my doubt“), has no boundaries (“What’s a nice Christian girl to do?“), or is probably an eccentric provocateur like the writer mentioned in “Meet Jesus, the bisexual drug addict“.
And where religion has been criticised, Christianity gets more than its fair share, portrayed as the religion of the coloniser. Has everyone forgotten (or perhaps some never knew) that Islamic colonisation was far more brutal and successful than Christian colonisation?
But, as has become standard, Islam is painted only in the most positive light possible. For example, we are told (“Inside a crowded marriage“) that the Qur’an tries to limit the practice of polygyny, but are not told that the “prophet” did not limit himself to four wives, and took, among his 11 to 13 wives, a child bride.
The only article on this topic worth reading was Shaun de Waal’s excellent review of Sam Harris’s latest book, The Moral Landscape, but this was tucked well away in Friday (perhaps to avoid causing offence). — Alex Myers, Cape Town
Writing as an avid reader of the M&G and as a historian of religion and a theologian, I take issue with the article “Meet Jesus, the bisexual drug addict” published in your Good Friday edition (April 21) and probably intended as an insult.
You must be aware that you are directing a base attack on the religious sensitivities of a major part of your readers. My criticism is not about the attributes listed in the title. Maybe Jesus was bisexual, very much as King David was, according to biblical sources. We also know reliably, however, that Jesus lived the life of an ascetic.
To call Jesus an “addict”, well, anybody dedicated to a cause may be accused of being an “addict”. Probably quite a few people in journalism hear that at home from their partners.
The vulgar insult that this article represents is in the timing and the baseness of its argument. I wonder how you uphold the value of respect for the dignity of any individual if you don’t respect the dignity of collective entities such as religions. Would you venture to publish such a piece about Moses, Mohammed, Gandhi, Buddha or Sigmund Freud?
Have you have ever thought about the fact that the value of “self sacrifice” essential to our liberation movements is at the core of Good Friday and the celebration of Easter? It does not require Christian adherence to see this. — Ullrich Kleinhempel
The article “Doomed Cults” states Jim Jones of the People’s Temple preached of moving to another planet to live in bliss after death. This is patently false. Nowhere did he speak of, or is he quoted as speaking of, any afterlife. — Don Beck