There is irony in a political organisation of self-styled disciplined revolutionaries — quaintly still attached to the passé salutation of “comrade” — that can’t maintain order in the ranks.
The African National Congress this week had the ignominy of being rapped over the knuckles by the SA Human Rights Commission. This was in response to ANC supporters booing and “making hand signals” indicating their displeasure at the presence of Western Cape acting premier, Patricia de Lille, as speaker at a Human Rights Day ceremony.
Presumably these mysterious “hand signals” were the universally understood zap sign, by which testosterone-fuelled adolescent males of all ages express their disdain for their adversaries. One is generally in favour of politicians of any ilk getting short shrift from the masses, but this event was not a party political rally and De Lille represented the Western Cape administration, not the rival Democratic Alliance.
The feisty De Lille, who started her political career in the Pan-Africanist Congress and as a shop steward at the sharp end of apartheid, is probably inured to such crass intolerance. And given her struggle credentials she could well have posed to her tormentors the question that Minister Trevor Manuel recently asked of radical-chic government spokesperson, Jimmy Manyi: “By the way, what did you do in the war, Jimmy?”
The SAHRC, which is packed with deployed ANC drones and has an unhappy reputation for appeasing government, was unusually forthright. The crowd’s behaviour was an “unacceptable … a disturbing act of intolerance which contradicts the constitutional provisions that guarantee freedom of speech and human dignity”.
While this warms the cockles of the liberal heart, one must ask why the SAHRC is suddenly so exercised over low-grade heckling when, in the past, it has been schtum over far more serious attacks on freedom of speech? For example, DA leader Helen Zille has in past elections had meetings in “black” areas disrupted by chair throwing, fire-bombs and marauding ANC supporters who had to be controlled by the police firing rubber bullets. Then the SAHRC said absolutely zilch.
The real strength of the SAHRC’s views on such issues perhaps can be gauged by going to their website and checking under the heading “Commission’s Positions”. One finds … nothing. The SAHRC apparently has no position on anything, especially not freedom of speech, which amazingly does not merit a single mention in the SAHRC annual report.
Possibly the SAHRC’s ire was related to the fact that its chair, Lawrence Mushwana, spoke at the same ceremony, as did President Jacob Zuma. It was a lack of good form rather than a threat to freedom of speech that sparked the SAHRC’s pique.
They need not have fretted, for Zuma is accustomed to ANC unruliness. This week, a 100-strong mob of unhappy supporters trashed the ANC’s Western Cape offices and threatened to kill staff because of discontent over the party’s election candidate list. It follows on similar incidents in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga and the North West.
In KwaZulu-Natal, 150 ANC protestors blockaded a public road for nine hours to protest a nominated candidate who they claimed was corrupt. When the rapid-response riot police eventually arrived they were met with tyre and taxi barricades and a fusillade of bricks, stones and bottles.
ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe describes these incidents in as a “minor hiccup”. “Expressing your anger is a healing process. The ANC must never stop people from expressing their feelings. It must manage those feelings,” a sympathetic Mantashe told reporters.
So the ANC crowds dissing De Lille were neither ill-disciplined nor anti-democratic. They were merely progressing through the predictable stages of anger therapy. The SAHRC should surely approve.
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