Corruption and crime in South Africa … quo vadis

Dr Mamphela  Ramphele, an outstanding human being and member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, pointedly reminds South Africans that “passivity over corruption imperils our constitution” in an article published in the Sunday Times on 27 2011 March. See -  It  is relatively easy for her to prove the case of rampant corruption and functional deviance … and the list is quite endless.

Her real point is that of our shared “passivity”. Apart from grumbling now and then we are not disposed towards actually addressing the matter in any sensible way. Patricia de Lille, our most ardent and courageous advocate on this score, has actually incurred significant resentment and demonization as a result, with hardly a squeak of protest from the rest of us.

The question is why? Why do we have rampant corruption? And why are we so passive and accommodating about it.?

The answer is – anomie. Anomie is a word  popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). In simple terms, anomie is present when there is a breakdown or absence of a common set of social norms and behavioral  codes that citizens are sufficiently bound to so as to respect them.  The populace interacts in a climate of “social norm confusion”. The debates on the “kill the boer” saga prove this beyond doubt.

An aspect of  anomie is that, particularly in revolutionary times, people will a) re-identify their goals and b) re-identify the means of achievement. So typically the unskilled worker who would have previously been prepared to work for 25 years and retire with his gold watch to a modest pension, will now aspire to a driving a BMW, obtained with use of a 9mm parabellum. A central aspect is that deviance and crime becomes rampant. In South Africa deviance and crime are now  pandemic.

It is very common to find a constant wail of lament about the crime situation in the country. This emanates from members off the middle to upper socio economic bracket. Complaints about robbery, murder, rape, hijackings … etc … are understandably never ending … as the levels of these crimes are indeed now legendary.  This same camp, to which most of us belong, also calls for more effective policing and harsher penalties to deal with the criminals and crime, and we lambast government for not doing enough.

Government itself, in response to this clarion call, has responded by beefing up the police, to the extent of even militarizing the police. So we now have “Generals” and “Colonels” in the police force. These bright sparks even want the law changed so that they “can shoot to kill” the criminals that are besieging society.

With respect, this well meaning response by government, and the calls that triggered it are incredibly naïve. It is naïve because it simply ignores the fundamental driver of crime … which is anomie! In fact the whole situation is somewhat farcical.

In this, with respect, we are all complicit. We are complicit on any number of counts. For present purposes we need only recognize that a) we do not have shared values and behavioral codes; and b) we have done little to achieve reconciliation and racial unity and perhaps most importantly c) we ourselves indulge in deviance at all levels.

Deviance is a national pandemic! Carte Blanche exposes this week in week out. It presents at all levels and across all racial groupings. At the bottom of the spectrum we have postal workers stealing. At the top we have the “elite of the elite” fixing national commodity food prices. In between you have crooked mechanics, dodgy lawyers, scummy estate agents, corrupt police officers … etc. The list is actually quite endless. The deviance encompasses everything from functional deviance (bad /appalling service) to gross criminal conduct. The deviant road use culture that is the driver of our appalling road use record demonstrates all of the above in microcosm.

The point is that this deviance permeates all levels of our society and presents as a pandemic, far bigger in scale than the hijackings, rapes and robberies that we all scream about! We are indeed a thoroughly anomic society … and this is the fundamental driver of the very crime (and business/governmental dysfunction) that we cry so loudly about.

Here is the rub. No social scientist or criminologist will disagree with any of the above. That is how simply true it is.

What is very  disturbing is that this is not rocket science. It is certainly not exotic academic mumbo jumbo. All legal experts, worth their salt, will know this and have known it from the time of independence, especially as apartheid undoubtedly predisposed us to the condition. Despite this there has been no evidence that government is aware of this. There has been no indication that it has been so advised. There is a total absence of appropriate strategy(s).

What is the solution?

Like any addiction we must first accept and admit that we are indeed a society that is inflicted with a widespread deviant culture – at all levels … and stop just pointing fingers, polishing our halos and having hissy fits about “others”.

When the connected elite go on a swanee to New York, on pretence that they are attending a Human Rights conference, it is fraud .. on a massive scale. When no sanction is then imposed we are actually admitting to the criminal underworld that we are “cut from the same cloth”. The deviant mindset is once again reinforced. We have a plethora of such “passivity” examples. The systemic hypocrisy by the “advantaged” sector has to stop. For goodness sake, we have a police commissioner sentenced to 15 years. We have had a president who brazenly protected a convicted thief and kept her on as a minister. Why should the “poor” hijackers and robbers feel any incentive to  desist? The fish does indeed rot from the head.

Then we need to assemble a cluster of social scientist and criminologists to devise a “national plan” to address the problem. The call by Dr Ramphele for the setting up of an independent anti corruption agency, with teeth, will then present as  just one of a raft of measures that we all need to be involved in … in our homes, schools, workplace, boardrooms … etc.

There has to be a national effort, with all citizens taking ownership, encouraged by the fact that we are all saying mea culpa and not just bitching, moaning and pointing fingers. A shared acknowledgement will also be a powerful precipitant to fostering national unity, especially as it will include the admission that the poor suffer the most as a result.

What If we Don’t

If we do not address the issue of anomie, more crime, bad service and carnage on our roads is guaranteed … whatever we and our well meaning “General” Bheki Cele and his squad of official hit men may imagine. As Ramphele and Archbishop Tutu have already said we need to “walk together”. It is as simple as that. Finish and klaar …. 

Racism in South Africa … unconscionably signed off by the ANC government?

In other blog posts I have strongly lamented the fact, and the law, that we have used race/ethnicity/skin colour as the central criteria to redress disadvantage in our transformational model. Under a raft of laws and protocols our Affirmative Action model is predicated on the proposition that, before you can receive assistance to redress apartheid induced disadvantage, you must be Black or accept the label “Black”. Also see ......

I have made the point that we now have a nation that is obsessed and preoccupied, in its psyche, with racial/ethnic difference, with dastardly consequences looming, particularly for our children in their formative years. A reality check is to advert to America, a country we just love to pooh pooh and posture against. The comparison is that, in South Africa, it is absolutely inconceivable that any "non-black" could be considered  for presidency, for a nano second. The Whites in the USA have installed a Coloured president, referred to as "black" in terms of a social construct -- NOT LAW.

I even circulated a New Years Appeal to all opinion makers in South Africa. This was, like the problem itself, simply ignored without acknowledgement.
Regrettably my stance has now been spectacularly vindicated. It has emerged that Jimmy Manyi, Chief government spokesman, made a statement on 9 March 2010 that – it is “very important for Coloured people to understand that there was an over concentration of them in the Western Cape” … and that “they should stop this over –concentration situation as they are in an oversupply situation” where they are and should move out to other Provinces. He finishes by stating the Employment Equity Act is a very good Act. See youtube…

This statement could not be more racist on a very obvious test. Each Province has an ethnic group that is in the majority, such as the Zulus in Kwa Zulu, Natal and the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape. However it is only the Coloured majority in the Western Cape that is seen as a bad problem, so bad as to negate/subvert socio-economic transformation.

A whole people, who have been in South Africa from the beginning, are classified as a problem for South African society - simply on account of their ethnicity.
There is no conceptual difference in this stance and that taken by the 3rd Reich against the Jews … and that led to the Holocaust. In both cases the ethnicity of the people is the objection. In both cases that ethnicity is classified as inimical to national interest. The only difference is that Hitler exterminated the Jews. Manyi insists that the Coloureds must migrate. Did Manyi dream this up as Idi Amin did in August 1972? Given a choice, would he resort to the same "solution" as Amin? Well, it is almost the same. Amin's solution was an expulsion of Indians from Uganda. Manyi's solution is "migration" of Coloured folk.

To see people as a problem for the national interest, as if they are plague carrying vermin, is the worst form of racism. Typically, non other than Zwelinzima Vavi of COSATU, and many others have confirmed this obvious fact. See

Manyi is our government spokesperson. Our government is the guarantor of the Constitution, that includes a Bill Of Rights, ensuring equality before the law. He has torn this up by making it clear that Coloureds are not equal before the law. They must be discriminated against. Unlike Zulus of Xhosa, and other dominant groups in other provinces, their ethnicity is a bad problem for national interest.
 It gets worse. One month after this vile attack on Coloureds, Manyi had this to say about Indians whilst addressing the Durban Chamber of Commerce

 "Indians, we should be having only 3% [of positions on management]. They are sitting at 5.9. I call it the power of bargaining. Indians have bargained their way to the top." This was said during the year that the country was supposedly celebrating 150 years of Indians having arrived in South Africa.  See …
It gets very much worse. Instead of taking action against Manyi, and/or his statements, Government took action in support by drafting an Employment Equity Amendment Bill that will have the effect of forcing migration of Coloureds out of the Western Cape as an estimated +- million of them will become unemployed. 

From this it is clear that Manyi was expressing the accepted view of a government “think tank” or “brains trust,” charged with responsibility to come up with a solution to the “Coloured problem”. The solution is the Bill.
Although government is now backtracking on the Bill, on account of widespread criticism by Unions in particular, this does not remove the truth of the whole saga. Coloureds were officially seen as a problem, purely on account of their ethnicity. Government decided that action needed to be taken. A Bill was drawn up and signed off by the whole of Cabinet, including Trevor Manuel who ironically now publicly labels only Manyi as a racist, but significantly includes the charge that – “I have a sense that your racism has infiltrated the highest echelons of government.”

Idi Amin expelled the Indians. Our government proposed to force Coloured migration!

 The Democratic Alliance could not be more right. If there is any doubt that government is fully complicit is this racism, it is completely removed by the fact that Manyi is still in his job, despite widespread calls for his removal.
 There can be very little doubt that the "anti Coloured" stance is also informed by the fact that they have voted the DA into power in the Western Cape. This exercise of a basic right to choose one's leaders is seen as offensive, unpalatable, anathema in our young democracy.  It is so, even though so many gave their lives in order to ensure we now have that sacred right. The situation could not be more vomitus!

 The Bill is, in effect, a form of pernicious social engineering to ensure that the Coloured vote is diluted to the extent that they become a racial minority in a province that they have been the majority in from day one.

At the time of independence, led by Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, South Africa straddled the whole world as a moral giant and example to mankind.  Egged on by wonderful voices like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Mamphela Aletta Ramphele, it stood to lead the world in a new social justice culture of  ubuntu.  Ubuntu was discarded and replaced by a rapacious culture of enrichment by a new elite, trading entirely on the "Black" label. The richer have gotten richer. The poorer have gotten poorer. 

 What is especially pernicious about all this is that Manyi  and government, in the Bill, have linked the Coloured and Indian issue to the extremely emotive issue of jobs. The clear message is that these ethnic groups are prejudicing the disadvantaged Black majority on this score. The historical analogy is when Mugabe linked the emotive land issue to Whites in Zimbabwe. Despite equality under the constitution of Zimbabwe, the Whites were then divested of all rights and victimized at the whim of anybody professing to be serving Black interests.
Many Coloureds and Indians imagined that accepting the "Black" label would provide equality. We should no longer be confused. Coloureds and Indians are not Black and should never have accepted the label as a precondition to benefiting under Affirmative Action and Employment Equity laws and protocols.  They are not accepted as either "Black" or as equal. They are seen as a problem, a very big problem. 

That is the inconvenient truth that is now before our eyes for the whole world to see. We are all Africans. We should be proud Africans. That much is also clear from Thabo Mbeki's epic prose "I am an African". The richness of our ethnic diversity is admitted. We cannot be coerced to deny it. We don't have to be Black to be proud and equal among equals. 

As a nation, we should have insisted that Lady Justice remain blindfolded.

Our President needs to urgently show leadership, faced with this grossest violation of human rights and subversion of our Constitution. He knows all too well what it is like to be "categorized" and victimized. Ordinary branch members of the ANC removed Thabo Mbeki, and chose him, because they saw him as epitomizing victimhood. He carries a brief for all underdogs. He made a solemn promise that he would stand up for those who are most vulnerable and would guarantee accountability.   

If Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma sees himself as the President of all South Africans the least he will do is to fire Jimmy Manyi ...immediately.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it.

I'm for justice,

no matter who it's for or against.

Malcolm X

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jimmy Manyi, Trevor Manuel … and Lady Justice

Manuel

Manyi

Trevor Manuel must be commended for his open letter to Jimmy Manyi, as published on 2^nd March 2011. The fact that he has transparently labeled a fellow member of the new elite a racist, with the brutal simplicity that characterizes truth, is laudable in the extreme, given the prevailing culture of acquiescence amongst its members.

The problem, and it really is a problem, is that what has happened is simply a product of what South African society, led by the ANC, has conceived, embraced and embedded under the raft of laws and protocols variously titled under employment legislation. At the heart of these laws is the proposition that the criterion to redress apartheid induced disadvantage is that one must be either Black, or be labeled Black.

In short, we racialised the basic criterion for ensuring socio-economic transformation. In terms thereof it is now the position that, as regards jobs and contracts, it is the law that  –

a)      a White must be discriminated against outright;

b)      a Black must be the recipient of favourable discrimination; and

c)       and a Coloured, Indian or Chinese may be treated as a Black if he/she accepts such label.

Right there we embraced and embedded a concept that was at the very heart of apartheid culture. We adopted racism as central to our transformative model. Perhaps it was understandable. Given the prevailing polemics, perhaps it was unavoidable. The people, it seems, may not have tolerated anything less at that time. However, as history so often proves, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Using “reverse racism” as the national transformative elixir was like using snake venom to cure the effects of the bite – inherently dangerous. The BEE brigade and “tenderpreneurs" were to prove emphatically just how dangerous.

At the same time, we proudly held up our Constitution as a standard for the whole world. It positively prohibits racial/ethnic discrimination, except that the right not to be discriminated against can be limited, but only as follows –

36. Limitation of rights

1.   The rights in the Bill of Rights may be limited only in terms of law of general application to the extent that the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, taking into account all relevant factors, including ­

a.     the nature of the right;

b.     the importance of the purpose of the limitation;

c.     the nature and extent of the limitation;

d.     the relation between the limitation and its purpose; and

e.     less restrictive means to achieve the purpose.

2.     Except as provided in subsection (1) or in any other provision of the Constitution, no law may limit any right entrenched in the Bill of Rights.

Put quite simply, you cannot be discriminated against, unless it “is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society and there isn’t a less restrictive means to achieve the same purpose”.

So do/did we have “a less restrictive means to achieve the same purpose …” that accords with what “is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom?”

The answer is a resounding Yes!  It is staring us in the face and is really a no-brainer!  It is not rocket science!

A person should be affirmed if he/she is still disadvantaged on account of the effects of apartheid.

That is logical. It is common sense. It is right. It is fair. Most of all it is not racist. Whatever your race, ethnicity or skin colour, if you are a citizen, still disadvantaged on account of apartheid, you may be affirmed! Goodbye BEE and the other corrupt stratagems that have sabotaged, not promoted, true transformation. The poor would actually be affirmed, not have their faces spat in.

The Coloured issue was always a touchstone on the issue of whether or not these AA and BEE laws/protocols bring about transformation and social justice. The stinky nature of things is proved by the simple fact that, during apartheid years, many Coloureds had to play White in order to secure socio-economic advantage. Now, by law, they have to play Black!.

It gets a lot more stinky, as we are now seeing. Let’s be reminded of this little matter -

In the aftermath of his failure to become the president of the South African Rugby Union (SARU), Mike Stofile said the elections at the annual general meeting held on Friday proved there was no place for black people in South African rugby. …."I've been saying for four years now there is no place for black people in South African rugby and this is the final nail for black people in this country. http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-03-28-stofile-there-is-no-place-for-black-people-in-sa-rugby

Stofile said this after being beaten, in a democratic election process, by Oregan Hoskins, a Coloured, for the position of president of SARU. Mike Stofile’s stance could not have been more clear. Whatever we were imagining, under our much vaunted AA and BEE laws/protocols, Coloureds were not Black and had no right to be selected, democratic process or not,  in preference to a Black.

ANC leadership said nothing. The Human Rights Commission said nothing. The whole nation was paralyzed by this show of blatant racism.

Roberts

Now we have Kuli Roberts having to apologize for having penned a racist column about Coloured people. Kuli can be forgiven. The whole nation is obsessed with racial/ethnic difference on account of the fact that rights and privileges are granted in accordance with such difference.

The High Court was obliged, so it seems, to declare that Chinese folk were Black.

Now the ANC Government proposes bringing in a Bill to limit the number of Coloured people an employer can have in the work place in the Western Cape. For the objectives of the Bill to be achieved the so called “Coloureds are Black definition under labour law” has to be dumped. So under our marvelous, world beating Constitution, Coloured folk stand to be defined as both “Black” and “non-Black”.

All of the above is, self-evidently, nonsensical to the point of near insanity. It is vomitus stuff. Whatever else, it certainly cannot be viewed as “reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom”.

It is not reasonable, but madness. It is not justifiable, but racist.

Most of all it is not based “on human dignity, equality and freedom”. It is an insidious, systemic, stinky business in which we are demeaning our humanity and thrashing the dignity of all people of Colour.

Understandably many Coloured folk have been confused on the matter. We need to understand that, as a matter of simple anthropological/genetic fact, we are not Black, just as we are not White. We are neither Negroid nor Caucasian. To say we are Black is to propagate a very “convenient untruth”.

We also need to understand that, whatever the pretence, we are not accepted as Black. We must be indebted to people like Stofile, Roberts and Manyi for being honest enough to expose a huge “inconvenient truth”.

Most importantly, we need to understand that the social and legal obsession with being Black is racist. It is a “social construct” that had its uses in the American and South African struggle for social justice, but is no longer relevant in “an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom”.

If we continue to countenance this pernicious concept we will not be just on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” but on the “The Plantation”, with Manyi and gang being the masters, those who embrace the Black label being “house niggers” and the rest of us being the “plantation niggers”.

When Mohamed Bouazizi, of Tunisia was tired of having his dignity trashed, he was moved to commit immolation. This brought down a government and led to a long outstanding struggle for social justice in the Arab world.

Our dignity, and rights, are being trashed. We don’t need to set ourselves on fire like Mohamed Bouazizi. We just need to take the thing to the Constitutional Court. Whatever utility the thing was perceived to have at the time it was conceived,  in 1994-6, actual experience has proved, and is proving, beyond doubt that it really has no place in our society. We voted the DA into power in the Western Cape. It has the resources to mount a constitutional challenge. As a retired High Court judge, it is my respectful stance that the racist criteria for affirmative action will not stand up, as it requires the most tortuously obscene reasoning in support.

Lady Justice

You see, we must believe that our Constitutional Court Judges will accept that there is very good reason for Lady Justice being blindfolded, and that social injustice is guaranteed once you start taking the blindfold off and asking her to see what racial, ethnical or skin colour differences there are.

Therefore speak to them in parables: because

they seeing, see not

and hearing they hear not,

neither do they understand

Mathew: 13:13