Sipho Singiswa
CAPE TOWN - Earlier this year a media storm broke over the opinion piece, ‘Hi Mzansi, Have We Seen Justice?’ Written by Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
In it she laments the constitution and the judiciary’s failure to protect the rights of South African citizens equally.
The minister confronts the racial bias in the application of the constitution, the judiciary system or rule of law and its lacklustre intervention with regard to the absence of land reform, economic reconciliation, equal distribution and ownership of the means of production in South Africa.
She further denounces the role being played by Native African lawmakers, as well as Constitutional and Supreme Court judges, in the continuation of the colonial-apartheid style status quo and economic oppression of her people.
The minister’s argument is one that is rooted in colonialism and apartheid history and it was her lived experience of this oppression which prompted her reflection.
Sisulu, together with her parents and siblings, have a long background in the liberation struggle and imprisonment in apartheid prisons.
She is one of the longest serving cabinet ministers in various portfolios in the ANC-led government.
In addition to also being a senior executive member of the ANC’s various leadership structures, she is the chairperson of its social transformation sub-committee.
Her concerns did not manifest themselves out of boredom, but are well informed by her insight and praxis in the struggle for the just and fair social transformation of a country that is steeped in the history of violent settler usurpation that left millions of Native African people maimed for life, landless and impoverished.
It is against this wealth of experience in the struggle for the emancipation of her people that she penned her article.
Early last week and just a little more than a month since Minister Sisulu’s article was published, Section 27 and the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution, hosted a discussion on Constitutionalism, the Rule of Law and Democracy.
The discussion, which included international guest speakers, was streamed on a global online platform and published on a number of media platforms, including the City Press newspaper.
Constitutional Court justice and former chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission Jody Kollapen, who was invited to deliver the keynote address, highlighted the same endemic socio economic problems that persist to plague the South African political landscape nearly 28 years into democracy. Justice Kollapen’s keynote address echoed the concerns raised by Minister Sisulu in her ‘Hi Mzansi, Have We Seen Justice?’
Kollapen said, among other things: ‘The country has been brought to its knees by high rates of unemployment. In the past four years alone, the number of unemployed people has increased by 3.3 million. There are now 12.5 million jobless South Africans – an increase from 36.3% to 46.6%.”
He pointed out that “most black people continued to receive substandard education, while corruption undermined service delivery”.
Kollapen said that issues relating to “racism had been put on the back burner and questioned why there was no prominent anti-racism movement in the country”.
He expressed concern “that there is only outrage in the country when an incident of racism occurred, but no steps were taken thereafter to ensure that it was not repeated”.
“I’m not sure whether we equate diversity with anti-racism –they’re different concepts. We still experience high levels of exclusion in our country,” he said.
With regard to the intrinsic role of the Constitution and the application, he warned that while it is supreme the South Africa’s Constitution alone may not be able to provide all the answers to South Africa’s socio economic problems of inequalities.
When this story broke, it did so in the space of quiet respect.
There were no acrimonious voices calling for Kollapen’s head. There were no deformed deliberate misreadings referring to him as outright stupid and referencing his style of dress, pedicures and hairstyle as proof of this. Unlike in Sisulu’s case, the white-controlled media houses and their trusted gatekeepers seemed to have gone on special vacation.
There was absolutely no outrage or vitriolic attacks from them against the Section 27 and the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution for hosting such a discussion, nor against Justice Kollapen for his keynote address.
Although Sisulu’s reflections are backed by a number of research studies, including by Statistics South Africa along with independent bodies such as Oxfam, the South African Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, legal practitioners and academics such as the late Prof Sampie Terreblanche, as well as anti-racism activist and writer, Gillian Schütte, the cabal of maleficent forces made up of white owned media, corporate NGOs and family foundations chose instead to vilify the minister on mainstream media platforms and the public sphere that they have a monopoly-control of.
Why is there selective outrage without any self-introspection from the minority settler about issues that impact the lives of the South African majority?
Is it because members of the minority settler communities think Native African people have no right to speak - or are incapable of representing themselves? Is it perhaps because they see only currency in the perpetuation of our people’s endless struggles for equality and, thus have no desire in the pro pan-Africanist developmental objectives that are being advocated by the likes of Minister Sisulu?
In this scenario, any Native African and anyone who poses a threat to these power dynamics must be stigmatised, demonised and isolated from his/her peers in preparation for a public lynching and humiliation to justify the endless assassination of authentic indigenous African views.
Of equal concern is that the highly imperious racist attitudes and actions against the indigenous African sentiments are being now openly propagated and/or endorsed by entities such as the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution, the Defend our Democracy Campaign, the Freedom Under Law, the corporatised NGOs and self-serving political ‘icons’.
They have joined the duplication of corporatised civil society cabals and entities who industrialise, abuse and exploit the legitimate community struggles of the indigenous African people in order to derail them from the key objective for fundamental social transformation in South Africa.
Their overall objective is to confuse, as well as to ‘Divide and Rule’ the Native African majority while simultaneously advancing and protecting the racially biased exclusive rights and privileges of the settler minority communities, albeit, this at the expense of the Native African people.
This explains their general selective political amnesia and disinterest in self-introspection.
Their relevance and financial survival is dependent on the continuation of the Native African struggles with no long-term solution in sight.
This further exposes a political conflict of interest, as well as fundamental ideological differences.
And because these racist entities often camouflage their activities within the legitimate struggles of the Native African people they have been allowed to flourish and go about doing their business unchallenged, usually with the help of economically ambitious members of the Native African community.
This is how most of these Machiavellian textbook revolutionaries, the self-imposed gatekeeping institutions and foundations operate.
They play both the political sides of the coin with their conflicted and condescending ASKARI-type theories. They are engaged in the business of ‘Divide and Rule’ politics.
And as Minister Sisulu said … Mzansi Must Connect The Dots!
It is also time for native South Africans to say no more to the ongoing unconstitutional treatment of them as a group compared to other racial groupings in South Africa.
Singiswa is an ex Robben Island political prisoner, co-founder of Media For Justice and media director for the Robben Island Ex Political Prisoner International Human Rights Programme. He is a well known filmmaker and social justice activist.
Cape Times