The Lindiwe Sisulu Mzansi Justice Saga Rant
By
the Gentle Spearman of the Tattooed Warriors at the Ford of the River Craw
Dear Lindiwe,
Congratulations on opening a can of worms, a can that certainly needed to be opened, especially by someone like you. Have you always held such opinions, or have you had an epiphany, a revelation that the “Law is an Ass” along with its cousin “Politics”. One can’t lump one as deficient without the other, after all, it is the political elite worldwide, regardless of ideology, who make the laws.
Therefore one can rationally assume that “Politics is an Ass” for making the laws in the first place. As you so eloquently put it, even the Nazis were underpinned by laws of their own making. Jews were legally sub-human and therefore it was lawful to slaughter them. Likewise, as you so rightly put it, the Apartheid Regime was underpinned in a legal framework based on vicious race laws.
You refer to the “Rule of Law” without “Social Justice” can be no better than Apartheid or Nazis law and order. However social justice in the hands of angry people merely begins to persecute and eventually to try and annihilate those they are seeking justice against. The Nazis were a profound example of this. Their accusation against the Jews was founded on the economic prosperity of Germany’s Jews along with their self-identification as the chosen people of God, whilst the majority of the German population of the 1920s and ‘30s were economically depressed. The Nazis form of Social Justice for Germans led to the slaughter of 6 million Jews. Social Justice is in no better position than your argument around the rule of law, it depends entirely on who is implementing it. The most horrific example, of social justice in the hands of evil people, in Africa, is the Rwanda genocide.
Laws are only ever as good as the people who formulate them, the Politicians of the day. There is ample evidence worldwide, that many politicians have only specialised interests or their interests at heart. It’s all about power and money is power.
I am glad you seem to understand this worldwide phenomenon. It is the elite versus the rest of humanity. The poor are simply there to be exploited by the rich, regardless of race, ethnicity, tribes and tongues. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor, whether in the USA or South Africa or anywhere you choose to name. The laws are formulated to protect the rich from the poor. The law is always double-edged, the blunt side for the rich and powerful and the sharp edge for the majority to keep them in line. In South Africa, that majority, unfortunately, are our Black African brothers and sisters.
You are quite right, the primary motivations of colonialism were and are economic. But you are fooling yourself and others by not adding capitalism, socialism, communism, liberalism, conservatism and any and every other type of political “ism” one can think of. Every system of governance in the world has the blight of systemic corruption infused into it. Most politicians are beholden to special interests and most campaign contributions come with pay-back clauses. Only a fool could believe there is a squeaky clean government anywhere in this world.
You are very naughty, castigating your comrades for accumulating instant riches whilst the poor languish in their poverty. No wonder they are all so angry with you. I note they have re-directed their anger to your statements on the judiciary and constitution rather than their miraculous acquisition of wealth. It makes sense to rather hide the real reason for their anger. Without a doubt, the greatest tragedy and biggest travesty of the post-apartheid new democratic era are the millions upon millions of our black brothers and sisters left in poverty. Of course, we do hope you have been keeping yourself on the poorer side of the rich and are clean of any stomach politics yourself.
The New South Africa was the political miracle of our times. The country under Nelson Mandela was conferred the highest moral and ethical accolades of any modern nation. The country had the unique opportunity to break the mould and change the way things were done. Alas, all that seemed to change were a different set of people feeding at the trough of largesse, whilst the poor were relegated to bigger and bigger informal settlements. It’s well known that around 30 billion or so vanishes from the treasury every year for the past 2 decades or more.
You asked “what has happened to us” in your article. Here in my mind is what has happened to you all. I am reminded of the ANC Mangunang conference. The people attending the event waited long for Jacob Zuma to arrive. Eventually, in the hot afternoon, he did so, gave a long speech and then it was time to cut the cake and crack the champagne, but only for those on the stage. The speaker came up to the mic and said the words which sum up what has happened to the ANC elites, he said the following, “Raise a fist in salute as we drink this champagne and eat this cake on your behalf”. It goes far beyond just cake and champagne, it’s the expensive cars we drive on your behalf, the nice houses in the leafy suburbs we live in on your behalf, ad infinitum…
You are right of course, it is all about the land. I wish I owned a piece of land myself. Alas, like the majority in the country, I never have and likely, unless I win the Lotto, never will. There is only one problem about the redistribution of land and wealth and resources, as evidenced wherever it has been implemented throughout the ages in the world a large. It never goes to the poor but the already rich and politically connected.
Land ownership is an issue for everyone. Your average property owners, whether houses or farms are paying off bonds on the property over a period usually of 20 years. Thus the banks are the de facto owners of any property until the bond is paid off. As far as I can tell in traditional African culture, the land is communally owned and the traditional leaders are the heads of African communities, meaning in essence they are similar to the banks, they own the land, the chief difference being that they never relinquish ownership to the tenets of the land.
Please help us to understand what no one has bothered to explain. When you say that Africans have not been able to take back what was taken from them over a century ago, but have been co-opted to work against their interests and are trapped in politics of meaningless language, crap and stupor, why is that so? Who has co-opted them? Who has trapped them? Are you saying it is the ANC that has perpetuated the continuation of a colonialist ideology and policy? Why all the nifty doublespeak? Let’s not fool ourselves and others as you like to say, land reformation and restoration will only place the poor under the foot of a new kind of owner designated by the powers that be. They, themselves, will never own the land as their personal property.
I can understand your anger and disappointment with the state of Justice in the land. Even God proclaimed in the Old Testament numerous times that there is no justice in the world of men. What I don’t understand is your scathing designation of those in the upper echelons of the Judiciary as mentally colonised Africans. They are, after all, following the laws that the ANC Parliament legislated and which I am sure you, as a member of the ANC caucus in Parliament, voted for as per the collective mandate given to all ANC MP’s to vote as a block.
I did write to Raymond Zondo. You can read it here:
But yes, there is no justice, and no will, it seems, for justice to be seen to be done. Those who have stolen trillions over the past 2 decades and more are mostly yet to be bought to book and probably never will. Those who do end up in court find ample ways, that only the rich can afford to delay and appeal and delay some more. Those few who were prosecuted and convicted were quickly pardoned or else like Mr Shaik, medically paroled for terminal illnesses that were never going to kill them. That is how justice works in this country. Law and order are for the masses, not the elite. The law is to keep them in order so that the wealthy of any skin colour can continue to get wealthier.
I know, I know, by now you are asking who is this white voice from some leafy village of privilege. For twenty years I lived a destitute life, many years on the streets. In the late ‘80s, I slept in the parks, highways and byways of the political violence capital of South Africa, Pietermaritzburg. Many Zulu men befriended me as we shared space in the parks to sleep. We used to sing Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Paul Simons song, Homeless and Jaluka songs by Johnny Clegg. In 1994 I voted for the first time. We had hope then. The Madiba Magic nearly pulled this country through the Eye of the Needle. Sadly after he retired, nothing changed, the Rainbow Nation faded into Black and White and all was grey. These days, I live in a house that is not my own, the only thing I own is a computer and a desk.
I hear your cry for the poor Lindiwe. I just wonder if all they are, are crocodile tears, hiding an agenda that has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with power. Sigh!
