We are ready, already, to consider our verdict. Why not just have a national referendum and let us vote, yay or nay? says William Saunderson-Meyer.
This is South Africa at its very best. One nation, irrevocably divided, with liberty and justice for all who can afford it.
No, I speak not of the general election campaign as the squabbling picks up steam. Although the bile being spewed as politicians rubbish not only their opponents but the demographic groups they represent, serves as a reminder that Nelson Mandela’s reconciliation dividend is well and truly spent.
Consequently, ordinary citizens are having to endure levels of illogic and invective that surely exceed the World Health Organisation’s recommended safety limits.
I speak of the Oscar Pistorius trial, now into its second week and steadily dragging down worker productivity to festive season lows as huge swathes of the population park off in front of their televisions for hours every day, immersed in the real-life gore and drama of how Oscar offed Reeva.
This is ultimate reality television and already one can see how the siren song of instant celebrity status is transforming dour, jowly lawyers from pedants into performers.
One mustn’t be snobbish. There is an upside to the most recent national obsession – it’s been a crash-course in criminal jurisprudence for millions of South Africans and a useful addition to the forensic expertise they have acquired from watching programmes like CSI Miami.
In a low-skill, high-unemployment economy with staggering levels of criminal violence and corruption, that can only be a good thing. Expect university applications by prospective law students to rocket.
Through my work over the past week, I’ve spoken to several dozens of people and none was undecided, one way or the other, over Pistorius’s guilt or innocence. In the face of such certitude, it seems pointless to persist with these slow-moving, cumbersome judicial processes. We are ready, already, to consider our verdict. Why not just have a national referendum and let us vote, yay or nay?
The referendum could be held on May 7, the same day as the general election. Not only would that be a convenient and cheap solution – just one more space to fill on the ballot – but it would galvanise the hordes who are, after a mere two decades of democracy, so overcome with ennui that they can’t decide whether or not they’ll be bothered to drag their indifferent arses to the polling stations to vote.
Of course, it used to be that any suggestion in the media as to the guilt or innocence of an accused, even were he caught in flagrante delicto with a smoking pistol and a dead maiden at his feet, would be seen as an attempt to influence the judiciary and an offence.
Given the present reality of an innately uncontrollable social media, in which millions of individual postings can instantaneously span the globe, the South African courts have abandoned any attempt to enforce the sub judice law.
That was a sensible acknowledgement of changed circumstances, but it has had unfortunate consequences. While it doesn’t matter much whether every oke and his chick in every pub and coffee house in the land has a firm and loudly expressed view on an accused’s guilt, it does matter when influential public figures with large and malleable constituencies, and axes to grind, do the same.
Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota this week declared that Julius Malema – he of tenderpreneurship fame and out on R100 000 bail facing fraud, corruption, money-laundering and racketeering charges, as well as a R16m tax bill that culminated in his provisional sequestration – was a “young, innocent” victim of corrupt officials and businessmen.
Speaking at Cope’s election manifesto launch, Lekota said to loud applause: “You see, they tell us he owed that money, but they don’t tell us… where did he get such amounts of money to owe that amount?”
The explanation, Lekota said, was that “it was not Malema who stole the money, it was the ones who were controlling the government that stole the money and passed it to him, and it was recorded in his name. That’s why he has been accused”.
I guess we should be pleased for Malema that he is not guilty. After all, it just wouldn’t do to one day have as president a man who is dishonest.
But what we really want to know about is Pistorius, Judge Lekota.
Did he do it? Please tell. The suspense is killing us.
Follow WSM on Twitter @TheJaundicedEye
Weekend Argus