Lindiwe Mazibuko --- colour blind disciple of social justice

This beautiful, personable lady was interviewed by Leanne Manas on eTV this morning, 31 Oct 2011, on her success in securing leadership of the Democratic Alliance in Parliament.

Understandably she was heartily congratulated on her success, which congratulations she graciously accepted.

She was also propositioned, in countless different ways, on the issues of race, ethnicity and skin colour. That is where South Africa is to-day, after some 17 years since apartheid was deposed as government culture. Its not about her vision as leader in Parliament of the Opposition, but about her ethnicity??

As repeatedly pointed out in blog posts the national psyche of South Africa is infused with race, ethnicity and skin colour. It is a preoccupation and obsession that is eating away at the national psyche like a cancer, destroying progress towards nation building.

Because the colour “black” was posted as the central criteria for a human being to qualify for redress from apartheid disadvantage, under our Affirmative Action and other transformational models, there is now an inarticulate proposition in the subconscious mind of the nation that “Black good, White bad, Coloured/Indian/Chinese not too good”. This is the exact converse of what was at the heart of apartheid culture. 17 years after apartheid it is assumed that every Black person is disadvantaged in relation to every White person, even if such Black person is a billionaire. This has ensured that a "connected" Black elite is amassing fabulous wealth whilst the majority remain stuck in apartheid style poverty. 

The obsession has been evidenced by continual incidents of a subsisting racist culture in the corridors of power. Notable examples are Mike Stofile bitterly complaining that there was no place for Blacks in SARU after being beaten in a democratic election for the presidency of the South Africa Rugby Union by Oregan Hoskins, a Coloured. "I've been saying for four years now there is no place for black people in SA rugby and this is the final nail for black people in this country” Stofile lamented. As a Coloured Organ Hoskins had no right to oppose a Black.

Later there was the Jimmy Manyi saga, in which our chief government spokesman was shown on tape holding to the considered view that “there were too many Coloureds in the Western Cape … and that they should migrate to other provinces”. Cabinet then had to backtrack on a Bill that it had signed off on, which was designed to force Coloured migration from the Western Cape as employers would be forced to dump them in the workplace.

Despite such back tracking, the Department of Correctional Services has just been exposed for implementing a policy to give effect to the Jimmy Manyi racist doctrine. Manyi had also insulted Indians by postulating that they were “over-represented” at management level on account of their “economic influence”.

Just last week, none other than Julius Malema, flag waving populist leader of the ANC youth League, condescended to apologize for referring to Indians as “coolies”, a derogatory term. His apology sufficed. No other sanction, let alone condemnation, accrued. However he has declined to apologize for referring the Whites as "criminals" and “thieves”. Not so as regards Darren Scott, ace media sports anchor who was fired for calling a Black colleague a “kaffir”, also a derogatory term. The difference in the Malema and Scott incidents is that Scott is White and Malema is Black. As a Black person, Malema is “more equal” than Scott on our new “animal farm”, and his racist comments therefore more tolerable and unremarkable.

Leanne Manas did her job as a media journo. She put it to Lindiwe that there was a veritable deluge of comment from various Black spokespersons that she was simply not perceived as Black or Black enough! She put it in a dozen different ways, including the allegation that Lindiwe was a “coconut”, i.e., black/brown on the outside but with a “white” mentality. A long indictment from the "thinking like a black" camp was put to her. 

To her immense credit our good lady, Lindiwe Mazibuko, disregarded the accusations and declined to dignify them with any kind of  response. With the ease and grace of a person of immense emotional intelligence she simply declined to be dragged down into the pernicious quagmire of this obscene discourse and stuck to what matters in present day South Africa, i.e., the now dire needs of our people. Not once did she mention the word “black”, despite the very pointed nature of the questions put. It never appeared, for a nano second, that she would be distracted by this nonsense. Instead she spoke to the needs of our people and how she imagined that she and her party would be able to address those needs. To her, it is all about failed delivery, human misery and what needs to be done. It is all about hope for the future.

All right thinking citizens of South Africa, in particular, must salute this young lady. Not only is she educated, personable and skilled, she also has that most precious commodity, understanding. She understands that in a constitutional democracy race, ethnicity, skin colour are irrelevant. What is relevant is social justice. She understands, in particular, that you do not take the blindfold off Lady Justice and ask her to see differences in the race and ethnicity of human beings. She knows that to do so guarantees deterioration to systemic discrimination, victimization and other forms of injustice, such as xenophobia, as we have experienced in South Africa at horrendous levels.

Lindiwe Mazibuko, we salute you. You are a new brand of leader. You are refusing to turn South Africa into an “animal farm” in which some are “more equal than others”. You have understanding; understanding of the realities, understanding of human rights; understanding of social justice. You share this understanding with your illustrious colleagues Helen Zille and Patrica de Lille. It in this brand of leadership that provides hope for the future of this incredible country.

It is the hope that Martin Luther King Jr adverted to in his “I Have a Dream” speech and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela imagined in his “Never Again” speech.

Justice --- must inform thinking

Justice (or fairness) is a word that is bandied about at all levels and is often used with great passion. We all imagine that, when we use the word “justice”, we mean what we say and say what we mean. It is also behind what we believe is right and what we think is wrong. It is fundamental because everyone will agree that, without it, life is intolerable. We don’t have to think about it … instinctively we all know that it is something we all must have … as human beings.

But do we know what justice is? Most people, when asked “what is justice?” will have trouble defining it, even though it is absolutely fundamental to human relations. I base this on actual experience in addressing human groups.

Despite this, people will enthusiastically, aggressively and even violently take a stance on what is wrong, or right, fair or unfair. We see this daily in Face Book discussions for instance, whether its about the killing of Muammar Gaddafi, the so called “land reform” in Zimbabwe, the treatment of Gays and Lesbians, the Israel/Palestinian conflict and a plethora of  other local and international affairs.

It is very frustrating to read the discussions, because they usually end the way they start, with each side still locked into the self righteous position they started with, after sometimes bitter "point scoring", regardless of what the opponent advances. The reason why parties to a debate stay locked in their positions is usually because the paradigm thinking, driving their stance, is steeped in religion, culture and/or political persuasion. Politics, culture and religion are boxes in which people find and keep themselves --- often with pride and great passion.

So we really need something that takes all of us out of our respective boxes, if any progress is to be made. These boxes can’t all be right … all of the time. After all, which box you find yourself in is usually a matter of pure chance, over which we have no control. You do not choose to be born Black. You will become a Moslem only because of where and to whom you were born. So too as regards whether you are an American or a Tswana, or Ndebele or Shona. It is all dependent on pure chance. And yet, we lock ourselves into the box in which we find ourselves in, espouse its gospel and imagine that we are right! Wow! How very silly we are. Really!

The religious box is perhaps the most pernicious. Religion is handed down from generation to generation almost exclusively by parents to their children. These children embrace the religion on account of parental influence and the environment they find themselves in. None of this occurs on account of any substantive cognitive process. And yet, generation after generation accepts unconditionally that their religion is "right" to the extent regrettably of being prepared to victimize, even kill, others in its defense and/or propagation. It is the most obscene/grotesque reality that more human beings have been killed and maimed in the name of religion than for any other cause.  It is obscene and grotesque because all major religions preach peace and love of humanity. 

What we need is something that is divested of our own box; something that applies regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, colour or creed.

Lady Justice

 Might I introduce you to this lady. She is beautiful; as beautiful as we all imagine justice to be. So feel free to ascribe her the beauty that you ascribe justice. She is called Lady Justice. 

What you will notice is that she has a sword in one hand. This is because, at a certain point, justice demands that there be punishment, sometimes very severe punishment. No one disagrees on this.

You will also notice that, in her other hand, she holds a set of scales.  This is where she weighs up the dispute. When we argue with each other we are insisting on what should go into these scales. Lady Justice puts us, and our arguments, in  the scales --- and proceeds to resolve the dispute by making sure that they are in a balance – neither having more than the other. Whatever else we may disagree on, we all agree that justice only occurs if, in the end, neither has more than the other. So that is why she has the scales; to ensure this balance.

Most importantly however, we see that Lady Justice is blindfolded! She was not always blindfolded. In her original version, as the Greek Lady, Thermis, she was not blindfolded.

Originally, at the time of the Greek goddess Thermis, and her daughter Dike, there was no connection between the notion of justice and that of fairness. Justice was a matter of fate, providence or in terms of the will of the gods. So untimely death, illness (even wealth and poverty) or other misfortune was seen as God’s will, fate, providence, or just being cursed.

 However conflict and human misery, experienced over centuries, proved, beyond all doubt, that she needed to be blindfolded, otherwise there would be still no justice.  Over many centuries man came to the realization that, in order for Lady Justice to do her job properly, she needed to be blind to the racial, cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, social, political and other differences of those appearing before her.

Unless she was blind to difference there would never be justice. This realization is encapsulated in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, which absolutely outlaws distinctions based on status. Such differences are irrelevant to the sacred business of weighing up the disputants and their claims in her scales. Lady Justice does not see the box that you are in. 

All are equal before her. All are equal before her. All are equal before her.

The fact that you are a senior politician, or even a President, does not make your defense to a claim by a humble peasant any stronger. The fact that you are a Ndebele does not make you right and your Shona adversary wrong. The fact that you are ZANU-PF does not mean that your policy is more fair or just than that of the MDC. These “boxes” are simply irrelevant to the issue of justice, or fairness, or right and wrong.

In the result we must all agree with Malcolm X that --“I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against”.             

 “Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just". Blaise Pascal (French Mathematician, Philosopher and Physicist, 1623 – 1662”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. Martin Luther King (Baptist Minister)1929 - 1968

“In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same”         Albert Einstein (Physicist)1879–18 April 1955

All of these statements need to be studied very carefully, considered and embraced, unconditionally . When you do, you need to first take yourself out of the box that you are in. The fact that you are Conservative or a Democrat, ZANU-PF or MDC,  Christian or a Moslem, Jew or Palestinian, Ndebele or a Shona, Black or a White .. etc ... are simply irrelevant.

You need to see your opponent, through clear eyes, simply as your equal, because Lady Justice does not see any difference between you.

Then you need to ask yourself the question. Do you love him/her as you love yourself … and/or … are you treating him/her as you would want to be treated.

 It is that simple. Really!

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Order --- theother.orgfree.com.

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The Coloured Issue --- dealing in lies

This issue needs to be settled, dispassionately. It is important on a number of counts, especially as it now reposes very much in a “growth sector”, as the different races find that opposites attract and that there is real magic in difference. Some are even mooting the proposition that the World’s populace will sooner, rather than later, be a nice shade of honey brown.

It is important also because, in microcosm, it is a touchstone on which propositions of social justice are tested. These range from tribalistic attitudes to broader matters of social engineering.

“Since Coloured people are neither truly white, brown nor black, a government obsessed with colour as a basic criterion in the treatment of human beings, is tripped up and confused about what to do. So it resorts to makeshift and unprincipled solutions like artificially defining all "non-white" people as Black. The consequences for us Coloured people are organically induced challenges, ever present, hardly acknowledged; in a minefield of obfuscation”.¹

In May, 2011 a film was screened titled “I'm Not Black, I'm Coloured”, Identity Crisis at the Cape of Good Hope” by Mondé World Films  depicting the plight of Coloured folk in the new South Africa, on account of an inherently racist Affirmative Action transformational model.²

Monde Films was quickly vindicated when it was revealed that chief South African government spokesman, Jimmy Manyi, had insisted there was an “oversupply” of Coloureds in the Western Cape and suggested they “spread in the rest of the country”. He said their “over-concentration” in the province “is not working for them”. The comments were made in April during a debate about affirmative action that appeared on KykNet’s Robinson Regstreeks show.

At a stroke this chief government spokesman gave the lie to the pretence that Coloured folk were regarded and accepted as Black. He let the cat out of the bag. Claimed government policy was a hypocritical lie. This was confirmed when the government then signed off on a Bill that would have had the effect of forcing employers to dump an estimated one million Coloureds in the Western Cape, on the basis that they were not, in fact, Black.

So we know that it is a legitimate issue. Like all such issues there are consequences if mishandled, sometimes dreadful consequences. Is the issue being mishandled? 

The answer is Yes. It is yes as regards Coloured folk being labelled as Black, and pressured into acceptance of the label by societal attitudes and verbalization.

South Africa is a quintessential example in that, amongst other things, Coloured folk are being denied the attainment of social justice, under its transformational model, unless they claim and prove that they are Black, even if they are visually "snow white" with green eyes.

For rejecting this classification, I have been roundly condemned by even my most trusted and respected of Black friends. A Namibian judicial officer, who I hold in the highest regard, said he just could not believe that, especially as I was a Judge, I could/would not accept a now internationally accepted social norm that there is no such thing as “Coloured”. You are either White or you are Black. This was more or less repeated just yesterday by a revered Face Book friend who assured me that this was most certainly the situation in Europe.

To these of my friends, and all others who understandably hold to this view I have this to say. You have unwittingly joined a world in which dealing in “convenient untruths” is a now a norm at pandemic levels. There are innumerable examples of this. We have witnessed them being listed on our site, lies damned lies, ranging from historical distortions to blatant propaganda, whether it be about why Iraq was invaded to Ian Smith saving Rhodesia from communism.

You see the statement that nearly all Coloured folk regard themselves as Black is simply untrue. If you accept that a Coloured person is anyone who also has African blood in his/her veins, you will quickly realize that there are millions of human beings on this planet who have the now notorious “one drop of black blood” in their veins but do not regard themselves as Black for a nanosecond. Neither are they regarded as Black. It is an open secret that most White Afrikaners in South Africa fall into this category. Facts are awkward things, when you are sucked into accepting lies.

I am not Black. That is a simple fact, that even a five-year-old child will confirm to you without the slightest hesitation. More importantly I am anthropologically not Black. Genetically I am Euro-African, anthropologically 50% Caucasian and 50% African. That is a fact. It is the reality. It cannot be denied, wished away, obfuscated or rationalized into something else!

To say or pretend otherwise is to propagate a lie. Lies are bad. I was first taught this by my African grandmother, Mafulela Thebe.

“I loved being at my granny's village, comprising a cluster of pole and dagga huts with thatched roofs. However, I was extremely resentful of the fact that all those around me were black and I was brown. Also my hair was almost completely straight. This induced a serious identity crisis. When my mother arrived to fetch me she called me by name Vavie. I protested bitterly and tearfully in isiNdebele - "I am not Vavie. I am Ndiweni ... Me I am Ndiweni""
My grandmother was not impressed. She explained that I was not "umuntu um'nyama" [a black person]- that I was "umlungu" [of White status patrilineally ] - that I should never forget this and be proud of what I was, otherwise she would have to use a switch to get me to understand”.¹

However my friends are right. All over the world Coloured folk are referred to as Black. Millions refer to themselves as Black. President Barrack Obama, Euro-African like me, is also referred to as Black, even though he was actually brought up by a White grandmother.
It is symptomatic of the extent to which our world deals in lies. This one is understandable. It is called a “social construct”.³  

Social construct is a convenient label.  Packaging is everything.  It cloaks the thing in legitimacy. It makes the lie acceptable, even desirable, as my friends insist.

So why do I reject the thing?  Why do I seemingly refuse to accept reality?  Why swim against the tide? Why be stubborn?  Why be unrealistic?  Why do I refuse to accept the label "Black"? 

Might I ask all of you to put the following statement to any competent psychologist or criminologist.

“Judge Chris Greenland claims that self image is deeply embedded in the human psyche. It is critical to human development. Confusion around issues of self image are inherently dangerous and can, in the longer term, stunt development, induce personality aberrations and inhibit the realization of potential. There is a direct correlation between deviance and criminality, on the one hand, and such confusion, on the other.”.

You will not find one reputable psychologist or criminologist that will disagree with that statement. So there you have it. If you want to bugger up your children psychologically, go along with the lie. Children can absolutely differentiate between lies and truth.  The experts will also confirm this. Children know when you are lying. They have eyes. They can see themselves in the mirror. They do not appreciate the fact that it is not regarded as a lie because it is packaged as a “social construct”.

The experts will also confirm that what is actually needed is acceptance of what and who you are in a culture of self-pride. To influence a brown child that he/she is black is to force a lie on the child, induce confusion, destroy such acceptance and inhibit self-pride. It is a very dangerous business.

It is, of course, quite obscenely ironic that the social construct is a product of racism. It is a legacy from an era in the United States when all non-white folk where forced into one camp, on account of rejection by the dominant White group. You were to be labelled black, whatever your actual skin colour, on account of the fact that you had just “one drop” of African blood. Since anything black was so bad you were to be cast into the larger Black pool of the rejected, despised, humiliated and abused! It is this diabolical legacy that now informs the so-called social construct. We have embraced the infamous “one drop” rule and made it our own. Wow!

My friend Tendai has said – “I am in a relationship with a white girl and you need to understand that our children are not going to be brought up as anything but Black!”

Tendai you are red carded … voted off the island … for firstly displaying typical African male historical chauvinism and secondly, racism. Yes – racism, with respect! You see the definition of racism includes not according another human being full recognition on account of their ethnicity. To accord your wife’s ethnicity absolutely no value in the ethnicity of your child is racist. Worst still you will seek to impose this perspective on your child! A racist culture is going to be added to the confusion the child will be already experiencing. The child needs to be imbued with pride about each of his/her parents, and pride in his/herself for being part of both – not one!

Miss-identification with one parent can have a very profound consequence. For instance, if a male child adopts a father image of its mother before the age of six, this can cause it to become homosexual.

So can I invite you to be concerned with truth, not lies and not play dangerous games with your children? This does not mean that your child will not grow up to regard himself/herself as Black or identify with Black causes. Conversely, the child may grow up to regard himself/herself as White … or Brown, like me.

However, it will be a choice made by a child imbued with a sense of self-acceptance and pride. It will be an informed choice shaped by other societal factors that present in its environment. It will do so in its own interests, especially on account of what gives him/her the greatest sense of belonging.

A sense of belonging is important. Personally I have always felt that I belong to the larger Black community.

This is understandable. Like millions of other Coloured Zimbabweans, I was welcomed into this world by the Black community and given love and comfort. Later I was liberated by mostly Black freedom fighters. The fight against racist oppression was captained by Blacks, like Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. I, therefore, have been drawn into that community by real-life experiences. I can belong there without lying about who and what I am.

When I look at my life I am happy with it.  I think I did good. I am forever indebted to my Black grandmother for having given me a very good start in life, by insisting that I accept who and what am.

Minority groups, all over the World, need to find the label that best fits their self image and accords with truth. They should not accept what is conveniently forced on them by dominant groups. They must insist that they are accepted for who and what they actually are! . In Zimbabwe we are referred to by the Black majority as "makhaaradis”, (Coloureds). Wonderful!!!!

“I am not a little bit of many things; but I am the sufficient representation of many things. I am not an incompletion of all these races; but I am a masterpiece of the prolific. I am an entirety, I am not a lack of anything; rather I am a whole of many things. God did not see it needful to make me generic. He thinks I am better than that.”
Joy Bell 

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¹ Extract from “The Other – without fear, favour or prejudice” by Judge Chris N Greenland. Book site - http://theother.orgfree.com/ 
²  I'm Not Black, I'm Coloured - The Film   https://www.facebook.com/INBIC
^3. See -  Ethnicity … Homo Sapiens and the Black aberration ---  http://coginito.blogspot.com/2011/02/ethnicity-homo-sapiens-and-black.html

Dubula ibhunu --- (Kill the Boer song) A Nation in Trouble

Julius Malema

South Africa is a constitutional democracy that came into being, with the rapturous acclaim of the whole world, as epitomizing the ultimate triumph of good over evil. In 1994 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela stood astride an adoring world; a moral giant in his embodiment of everything that was truly good about the human spirit. Thereafter South Africa adopted a constitution, that it has touted as being the best in the world, so as to ensure that these perceptions were not just an illusion, but a reality for all of its people.

Today, 17 years later, the nation is as divided as ever. Our Black dominated government leads the Black majority in emotional rhetoric that rejects, condemns and demeans a judgment of its own court of justice. At the very heart of this angry discontent is the fact that the court has, in a judgment, sought to protect the rights and interests of a White minority. For this the Black majority is being encouraged to be deeply offended and/or angered. The exhaustively reasoned judgment of a High Court Judge, (sitting in the Equality Court) arrived at after some five months of consideration, is dismissed out of hand. He is wrong, he is wrong! ...  and is seeking to expunge Black struggle history! ... is the resounding refrain bugled right from the top.

The facts are simple. Julius Malema, controversial African National Congress Youth President, repeatedly sang a struggle song, the impact line of which is dubula ibhunu, which literally translated means “Shoot the Boer”. The term Boer has always referred to White Afrikaner farmers. AfriForum, a zealously driven White Afrikaner dominated interest group, took the issue to the Equality Court,  arguing that the singing of the song constituted hate speech as it could reasonable induce endangerment, dislike/antipathy for and/or a demeaning of its members.

• There was no dispute that the ordinary meaning of the words, “Shoot the Boer”, in the song, constitutes hate speech. 
• Julius Malema, and the ANC, argued that the ordinary meaning of the words should not be applied, as when the song was conceived and sung, during the struggle, it referred to “destroying the evil apartheid system” and not to the killing of White farmers. 
• It was therefore in this “historical context” that the song was still being sung, and since no mischief was intended, its singing was not hate speech.

The Court agreed with AfriForum that the words constituted hate speech and banned the singing of the song in public or in private, ruling that it had no longer has a place in our constitutional democracy, with its legislated imperatives of nation building.

The universal response to this ruling at leadership level has been one of deep offense and anger. This nation is in trouble. It is in trouble because it is blindingly obvious that there is a complete lack of understanding of the imperatives of our constitutional democracy, particularly the most precious commodity of equality before the law. It is therefore necessary to set out, with the simplicity that characterizes truth, an explanation of the reality of our situation. Judge Colin Lamont has already set out, with commendable exhaustiveness, a jurisprudential version of this. This is for our leaders and all of us ordinary folk.

1. When our constitution was adopted everything changed forever! 
2.  Hostilities ended, races were reconciled and all citizens were rendered equal before the law. 
3.  In such a situation there can be no room for any person calling for the shooting (killing) of any other person, whatever the reason. 
4.  The fact that the words used have a particular meaning that was ascribed and applied in struggle history changes nothing as, by law, Judge Lamont was constrained to apply the “ordinary meaning” of the words. 
5.  In doing so Judge Lamont is upholding his sworn duty under our Constitution to apply the law “without fear, favour or prejudice”. He has no option. His hands are tied. 
6.  In any event, common sense tells us that, 17 years after the fact of the struggle there are likely to be more, not less, human beings who are totally unaware of the particular meaning that the ANC ascribes to the words. Farmers are already being killed at significant levels by criminal elements. The exhortation in the song can only make things worse. 
7.  In giving this judgment the court has in no way “expunged ANC history”, as emotively claimed by just about all leaders of the ANC. History can never be expunged. That is a simple fact. History is just that – history. By its very nature history remains in the past. It does not exist in the present. Expunging ANC history was, and remains, an impossibility. 
8.  In effect, the judge has ruled that the ANC cannot dredge up historical behaviour and culture so as to endanger, threaten or demean citizens to-day. 
9.  There is nothing new about the fact that practices, behaviour, and culture that had a strong place in history are discarded, even criminalized. No one can deny that the inequality of women generally was once entrenched. Today the Constitution forbids it. One twin was killed at birth. Today that would constitute infanticide. In isiNdebele culture a baby would be killed (as a wizard/witch) if its top teeth appeared first. That too is now classified as murder. There are many other examples. 
10.  Conversely White Afrikaners are debarred from preaching that Blacks were Biblically ordained to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water” which was their culture, used to underpin the evil apartheid system. Preaching that now would undoubtedly be classified as hate speech. 
11.  Like the song in question all these historical practices are now part of history. Whether they can or cannot be invoked is a matter of law as applied under our “World beating” Constitution, however much we may be emotionally or romantically attached to that historical practice.

It is as simple as that. Hence the tragedy of rampant misunderstanding at leadership level. A Court of Justice is now being portrayed as traitorous. One revered political commentator even  adverted to the fact that Judge Lamont was of apartheid vintage. Such talk and posturing is highly irresponsible and dangerous.

The nation is in trouble. If our leaders do not understand the realities of a constitutional democracy we are in serious trouble. The danger is of new tyrannies becoming manifest on account of a culture of “might is right”. 

The extent to which minorities are protected is a sure indicator of the extent to which a country is strong or weak on social justice and human rights. History has repeatedly shown that the majority are often wrong. That is why we have courts to ensure protection of all, and equality under the law. The seeming contempt with which a carefully considered judgment of a court of justice is being rejected undermines the very essence of our constitutional democracy. The courts are being brought into disrepute and the rule of law subverted.

Leadership, represented by President Jacob Zuma, gave solemn undertakings that the decision of the Courts would be respected. This decision is being visited with disrespect and contempt as evidenced by Malema's unchallenged statements that the Court seeks to take South Africa back to apartheid days.  The whole approach appears ton be fueled by a belief that because the ANC community prefers something else, the decision "must be wrong". 

Might is not right! history has repeatedly proved this. In South Africa we have the very significant precedent that the vast majority hold to the view that capital punishment is not just desirable, but an imperative. The Courts ruled otherwise. Government led the nation in acceptance of this ruling! However, it now fails to see that it is simply wrong to reject another decision by the court because the latest decision is politically ":inconvenient".

Will everyone please take a step back, take a deep breath and quietly and soberly reflect on these realities. 
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PS: Professor Steven Friedman makes a seemingly good point that it would be better not to have a ban but allow people to openly trade insults as banning breeds resentment.

True -- very true -- for mature democracies!! Africa is quite a different matter ... and actual experience has shown how inter racial/tribal "labeling" can result in situations as bad as genocide. Judge Lamont understandably adverted to this. 

In South Africa we have already had a horrific saga of xenophobic violence because foreigners were linked to social injustice -- just as Malema is linking the Boers to subsisting dispossession and economic disadvantage. 

PPS: 

An Australian court has ruled that articles on fair skinned Aboriginals contravened their Racial Discrimination Act.

The articles, which were published in 2009, were headlined "It's so hip to be black'' and "White fellas in the black''.

Federal Court Justice Mordy Bromberg found that fair-skinned Aboriginal people were reasonably likely to have been "offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated by the imputations conveyed'' in two articles written by Mr Bolt. 

This case is of relevance to South Africa's consideration of the Malema "Kill the Boer" court saga. Our Judge Lamont appears to be vindicated.

South Africa’s Protection of Information Bill

NOTE: - This post was first published in October 2010. It has been fully vindicated on account of what has now occurred as regards the Public Protector and journalist Ferial Haffagee.

There are understandably serious concerns about the Protection of Information Bill Government is seeking to introduce. When a government seeks to interfere with media freedom it is nearly always for bad reasons; very bad reasons.

However, with respect, there is an unarguable point in one respect.

Having been involved in law for over 40 years, including as an advocate and as a judge, I have not the slightest doubt that this aspect needs urgent changing/tweaking.

At present the media can, and does, publish defamatory articles/reports about a citizen without having first afforded the citizen any opportunity to deal with the allegation(s). When the report later turns out to wholly or partly untrue, it is too late. The damage has been irretrievably done. An apology, even an award of monetary damages, does not retrieve/redress the damage done.

This must be changed to bring things in line with the common law.

You see it is a fundamental rule of such law, substantive and procedural, that no Court can condemn a person, including making adverse finds about the person, without having first ensured that the person has had full opportunity to both face his/her accuser and deal with the accusations.

Now if the courts cannot do it why should the media be allowed to? It is a no brainer.

In my book, “The Other –without fear, favour or prejudice” (available on-line) I give a classic example of the problem in relating a case in which I acted for the late minister Edson Jonasi Zvobgo in Zimbabwe.

I also refer to an instance where City Press and Elias Maluleke purposefully published a scurrilous article about my wife and I, implying that we were criminals who had obtained residence in South Africa illegally.  When we produced written proof of the falsity both declined to retract or even apologize. Right there our good name and reputation, built up over 50 years, was contemptuously put in jeopardy.

In our case, the false publication was in furtherance of a nefarious agenda, as a prelude to forcing me out of the Road Accident Fund on account of the fact that my interests were to reform the system to primarily benefit road crash victims and not the plethora of “service providers”.

The same thing appears to have occurred recently as regards Geraldine Pillay, a great athlete and wonderful human being. Here again, innocuous facts were dredged, tailored and slanted to do damage in furtherance of an ulterior agenda, i.e., to prevent her election to the Athletics Board.

Now (June 2011) we have this scourge unfolding again as regards the Public Protector (Advocate Thuli Madonsela) who, like us, first hears of seriously damaging allegations impugning her personal and functional integrity when these are head lined in the Star newspaper. The paper published a headline article crafted to give readers the impression that she was about to be arrested for corruption. To date, it has provided not a shred of evidence that the police had made a decision to arrest her and/or that they had a basis for doing so.

Eric Miyeni

Yet again (July 2011) we now have and article penned by senior journalist Eric Miyeni City Press reading –

"Haffajee does it for white masters. 

JULIUS Malema must never answer a Ferial Haffajee. Who the devil is she anyway if not a black snake in the grass, deployed by white capital to sow discord among blacks?

In the 80s she'd probably have had a burning tyre around her neck. We know where she comes from. She was groomed by The Mail & Guardian, the same newspaper that produces the Jacob Dlaminis of this world, black people who say it was nice to live in the townships under apartheid.

And today we must believe that Haffajee's utter hatred of ANC politicians is based on journalistic integrity. Quadruple crap. I am more inclined to think that people like Haffajee, who edits City Press, are most likely to be the kind that wakes up in the morning, sees their black faces in the mirror only to feel a wave of self-hatred rising up to nauseate them."

The above article is highly injurious to Ferial Haffagee on any number of counts, unlawful and puts her at personal risk. In the context of South African politics, where people have very recently been “necklaced” in the Eastern Cape. The article could not be more damaging.

In law injury is injury; whether to the person or the personality. Injury to a person is criminalized. Injury to personality should, at least be, prohibited.

The law must be changed so as to ensure that no report about a person that may impugn his/her name and/or reputation may be published unless the same test that binds the courts has been satisfied. In addition, the person’s response must enjoy equal exposure as the report itself.

The indicated format is perfectly simple. Before the media can publish information that is defamatory it must run the information past the affected person and then publish his/her response with the same prominence that the damaging report is given.

Failure should, inter alia, incur summary judgment in punitive monetary damages in favour of the victim. This model is quite easy to draft.

“After the fact” remedies, like “strengthening the Ombudsman’s office’ is not the answer. Prevention must be the objective.

The change is indicated on a human rights test. It is jurisprudentially unarguable. It is as simple as that.

Thinking like a Black --- or like a White --- cogito, ergo sum

Apart from too often dredging up the past when discussing current

issues we also find that there is now an entrenched tactic to characterize an unwelcome view as either “not thinking like a Black” or “White thinking”.  The phenomenon is well represented on social networks and comments on news items.

Since not all human beings are black the stance is inherently racist. At the very start of the discourse ethnically different participants are challenged to accept that their thinking is flawed and that they are incapable of understanding, purely on the basis of their ethnicity. Since the dominant group in South Africa is Black, it is a bully boy tactic, designed to intimidate.

It is intended to place the attacker in a position of higher moral ground of righteous aggrievement; to induce a guilt complex in the opponent about the past; to create a psychological border over which stones can then be thrown.

The motive for this tactic is obvious, crude and rather bemusing. However, it is effective in achieving the objectives of the adherents of this approach. Simply put, it is a classic example of “playing the man, and not the ball”. By labeling your opponent you immediately distract everyone from the real issue and start a process of discrediting your opponent instead. Once the “dog has a bad name, no one will listen to its bark”. Because the attack is racialised it is particularly appealing to so many who, understandably, have unresolved issues on this score.

So as regards a person of mixed race pedigree problems are immediate. When a Coloured person points out the fact that he/she is obviously not Black the artful response is that “Black is a state of mind”.  What then as regards a coloured person who sees him/herself as Coloured or even White? Out comes labeling and insults. Such a person has a mind “that was colonized’; “imperialistic”; “polluted” … etc.

There is also a far more sinister purpose behind this type of insistence. Requiring people to be constrained to "conformist" thinking (that of the dominant majority) is a tool of tyrants and despots. A situation is created where people are not allowed to question, to ask, to query, to have their own opinions and think for themselves. The "great leader" or the governing party does "all the thinking for all the people". Anybody who dares think for themselves is labeled "anti-revolutionary"; "reactionary"; “traitor"; “sellout" ... etc and liable for victimization. This was the culture of the 3rd Reich. It is the culture of North Korea. It is what I have personally experienced in South Africa.

So everyone needs to take a step back, take a deep breath, and examine the proposition that is routinely peddled without challenge. What exactly is it to “think like a Black”? Do Black folk think in binary code? Is the cognitive process ensconced in a skull covered by a black skin different from the rest of humanity? As you pose these questions, and so many suggest themselves, you are struck as to how absurd the thing is.

You quickly realize that you either think or you don’t. That is exactly why the great philosophers had little difficulty with the proposition by René Descartes that cogito, ergo sum, i.e. “I think therefore I am”. In short, it is the ability to think that just about completely defines us human beings and distinguishes us from other animals.

What is particularly nauseating is that you do not find other ethnic groups indulging in this nonsense. Even racist Whites do not advocate that anybody should “think like a White”. You will find no such rubbish in Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese, French …. etc… discourse. It is only some of our Black brothers that are imbued with the notion that there is such a thing as “thinking like a Black” or “thinking like a White”.

So we have an obscene pantomime of a certain Professor Jonathan Moyo, architect of anti-media laws in Zimbabwe, telling the World that he is a "Pan Africanist" (our biggest conformist camp) on Africa 360, dressed in shoes, suit and tie of completely European vintage. Sigh! Let us think it through. Should the World therefore have “Pan Japaneeism; Pan Frenschism ….?” Come to think of it with all its drug use the United States should be not “Pan but Pot Americanism”. The tea drinking Chinese should be “Kettle Chineseism”. You really have to be a sheep on Animal Farm, and one of the really dumb ones at that, not to see how nonsensical this is. 

I have little doubt that members of this camp will immediately seek to counter my stance by advancing a rather silly, but otherwise pernicious, ancillary label – “coconut”. A “coconut” is a label attaching to any member of mixed race pedigree who declines to “think like a Black” and is therefore brown on the outside but “white” inside, like a coconut.

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry … really! Anthropologically all human beings are classified as homo sapiens, i.e., possessed of intellect. Intellect is obviously “colourless”. Oprah Winfrey has achieved spectacular success in using her mind efficiently and effectively. So has Barrack Obama and millions of other persons of colour. There was nothing “black” or “white” in their cognitive processes as they made their successful journeys of life.

Albert Einstein, Madame Curie, Edison, Pasteur …. and so many others that have advanced the course of humanity, did this by thinking ... using their cognitive processes to see things for what they are ... un-coloured and un-cluttered by racial thinking!

Abraham Lincoln was not black. However, he was able to reason that slavery was simply wrong. What type of thinking was the "white" electorate indulging in when they elected Barrack Obama? It is, of course pertinent to point out that the culture of the "thinking like a Black" camp is the very antithesis of what Martin Luther King Jr advocated in his immortal "I have a Dream" speech. It is also the antithesis of what Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela advocated in his “Never Again” speech.

So let us all see this propensity of labeling other human beings and putting their minds in “racial camps” for the cowardly, nonsensical, smelly thing that it is. When you cannot deal with the substance of your opponent’s point of view, you dredge up a discrediting label. It is extremely demeaning of humanity that this type of thinking is tolerated, acquiesced in, connived and colluded at.

Ask yourself what is going to be the position if the proponents of this insistence were to govern. The answer is self suggestive - you will not be allowed to think for yourself. Alternatively you will be condemned, persecuted and victimized for thinking differently. There will be "Thought Police" as envisaged by George Orwell in his classic work "1984". 

Let us be clear, Black Consciousness is a noble concept and state of mind, when it seeks to explain our history, including the hurts and pains, and promotes what is good about our culture like ubuntu. That is not the same as “ethnic thinking” which we need to dump. It is self demeaning. Really!

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Order --- theother.orgfree.com.

Osama Bin Laden - some bad even the good ....

In a clandestine operation a group of men entered a foreign country, without permission of its

government, attacked a domestic residence, killed three people including a woman, made off with the body of one of them; which they subsequently dumped in the ocean, without participation of the relatives of the deceased.

These are the facts of the matter. They were a consequence of a “wanted dead or alive” notice issued by George Bush, previous President of the united States of America.

CNN has just screened an in depth report featuring President Obama and Admiral William H. McRaven, Commander of the Navy Seals at the time, as it is the 5th anniversary of the event. 

In reaction to the raid and killing, nearly the whole world expressed approval, ranging from satisfaction, solemn exaltation to wild exuberance. We did this, even though the “Wild West” days in which men were flushed out by a posse, and killed on a wanted dead or alive notice, are long gone. 

This world is made up of mostly good people who, by and large, insist on certain sacred principles. These include the fact that -

1. a person is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty before an independent adjudicating authority;
2.  that extra judicial killing is murder; 
3. that one cannot be accuser, judge/jury and executioner. 

The fact that the execution was on foreign soil, after clandestine invasion, is aggravating of the violation of these dearly held sacred beliefs and norms, embedded in a raft of dogmata called human rights. Indeed these rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed off by nearly all governments at the United Nations in 1948 after two World Wars and the Holocaust..

That is our belief set. They are a fundamental component of what we insist on, fight for and defend, having learnt from the lessons of history. We say that anything short of this is injustice. We say that an injustice to one is an injustice to all.

"We are bound by an inescapable garment of mutuality, whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." 

Dr. Martin Luther King, jr.

- letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1962 -

But for the fact that the victim was Osama Bin Laden, we would have undoubtedly had an entirely opposite reaction and would have expressed negative emotions, ranging from disapproval to extreme condemnation.

In my book¹ I advert to a saying that – “some are good even the bad, some are bad even the good”. The phenomenon of Bin Laden has managed to emphatically validate this saying. Many believe that bad boy Bin Laden was good.
However the vast majority of good folk the world over, have suddenly ignored/changed all of the most fundamental and sacred rules that we post at the very center of unalienable human rights. 

We have this “bad” approach because we have accepted what has been served up by the media. Bin Laden has been caricatured as the devil incarnate. At a stroke the awesome power of the media is demonstrated. It has induced an almost universal anti Bin Laden hysteria. In that hysteria we fail to distinguish what is information and what is proof beyond reasonable doubt.

We abandon all standards and our sacred beliefs. We have all accepted information from the media, not evidence, let alone proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

In the process Bin Laden, and those who died with him, accused and convicted of nothing, were divested of all their human rights … as were the 2752 innocent victims from 97 countries on 9/11, as well as so many others around the world.
The blood of the innocents cry out, not so much for justice as for vengeance.

Admiral McRaven specifically disavows vengeance as having been the motive for the raid and the killing and claims that it was about justice. So does President Obama.
As a qulaified lawyer President Obama must know that extra-judicial killing can never be about justice. It is the antithesis of justice because this Lady is left out of the picture. She is Lady Justice. She is blind to the status and repution of those that appear before her and only goes on hard evidence that must be proved in open court.

So, as much as we, good people, may profess to believe in standards that accord with a level of personal integrity that we have assigned ourselves as civilized human beings, in the end we have been forced to accept that the ancients were not wrong when they insisted on “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”. *

All of the above is guaranteed once some believe that the gratuitous killing of other innocent human beings is justified in order to make a political statement. This thinking is grotesque, obscene and abhorrent on every count … and we instinctively all know that no God can approve of it.

Whatever else we might imagine; mankind is as barbaric as ever.

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¹The Other –without fear, favor or prejudice. (See - http://theother.orgfree.com/)

* a further point made in the book