Malema, Secrecy Bill a result of ANC's broken moral compass

The African National Congress’s (ANC) decision to charge youth league president Julius Malema and the punting of the Protection of Information Bill, which is to be put before Parliament for debate — while seemingly unrelated — are both manifestations of the same malady afflicting the ruling party.

The discussion in both Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively, with a number of other incidents, suggest a paradigm shift which flies in the face of both the principles and primary goals of the ruling party — all cause for concern.

While corruption and politics often go hand-in-hand in many countries, including the apartheid government, my feeling is that South Africa is seeing the introduction of the legislation which enables it.

The ANC, as a liberation movement moving into a constitutional democracy i.e. the new South Africa, held the moral high ground based on their championing of universally accepted principles which their fine leaders had sacrificed everything for in order to achieve.

Their achievement is evidenced by the Constitution as well as those of both the ANC and ANCYL. A careful reading of those documents will help people understand the quality of leadership that existed and the bona fides of the parties who set about their construction.

All three recognise equality for all while accepting that the masses of this country — previously disadvantaged — required extraordinary measures to ensure their upliftment if the country is to succeed in the long term. It is the potential backlash from those masses which presents the biggest challenge and the gravest danger to modern South Africa and as such redressing that imbalance had to be and must remain the primary goal of the ANC.

The ANC as a ruling party held to those principles and that primary goal, even if there were obvious concerns relating to reports of corruption, cronyism, the response to HIV and Aids, bizarre foreign policies and many more. As a government they were relatively newborn and allowances had to be made while the opposition parties, media and other groups, as in any constitutional democracy, criticised their mistakes.

This is an important feature of our system of democracy — that the opposition and media keeps the government under scrutiny, the government in turn defends its position or changes those areas where it is falling short. Failure to listen and adapt to these results in a continuation of flawed policies which leads to a situation similar to Zimbabwe. Keeping the good and dumping the bad is how parties achieve real growth.

What is vital is that ANC remained true to its core principles as set out in the constitutions referred to above.

That is, in my humble opinion, no longer the case.

The exact moment when all of this changed is hard to pinpoint but, to my mind, the ANC’s moral compass is broken which is bringing untold damage to the party’s image and will continue to do so until this is rectified.

With all due respect to the leadership of the party as it now stands, my perception is that self-interest and the acquisition of wealth and power have replaced the primary goal and that as a result the true principles of the ANC are being compromised in order to achieve that.

Of course the rhetoric remains largely the same but the deeds and conduct suggest lip-service rather than real intent to live by the principles many gave their lives and liberty to achieve.

Let’s look at this in context:

The masses’ most potent weapon against government abuse is the Constitution which ensures that unconstitutional legislation cannot be passed. Presently certain members of the ANC are suggesting that the constitution is a sell-out which favours whites and stops the government from enacting laws.

This is patently absurd.

If there are laws which tamper with the constitutional rights and protections afforded to all South Africans then the Constitutional Court will send them back to Parliament.

Why would anyone want the safeguards provided by the Constitution removed?

A good example being the ruling that the Hawks could not be effective if they were at the mercy of politicians.

The outrage that this caused should be read in the context of the current war on corruption:

The arms deal probe keeps grinding to a halt, tenderpreneurs carry on as if they are victims, police who should be suspended after being accused of suspiciously trying to spend hundreds of millions on headquarters are not and the Scorpions, who were a major deterrent, were scrapped.

Where billions upon billions of the masses money (resources for what should be the primary goal) is allegedly being misappropriated the response is at best ineffective and at worst dilatory. When the Constitutional Court steps in and hands down an order that the Hawks should be independent i.e. given a free hand to tackle this scourge there is anger and resentment.

We get a bunch of non-sequesters as the response – The Constitution (which assists in stopping the masses’ billions being stolen) is a sell-out which favours whites (when in truth the only parties it favours are previously disadvantaged communities).

The Constitution isn’t a sell-out those members of the ANC who have forgotten the party’s true principles and primary goal are.

The best way to tackle corruption is to ensure that the police, NPA, security services and judiciary are impartial and independent of government — that they know if they proceed without fear or favour they will have the country’s full support as well as that of the ruling party and government.

Instead Menzi Simelane is appointed NPA boss, Mo Shaik head of intelligence and General Bheki Cele head of the police. While I have no problem with President Jacob Zuma rewarding their loyalty, because all politicians do so with their supporters, it is in the positions that they hold that I have difficulty.

As things stand we have heads of key departments required to fight crime whose loyalty to the country is compromised by their relationship with the president.

Individually they might be outstanding at their jobs but their loyalty to Zuma cannot be questioned and as such their positions should be such that there can be no conflict of interest between the needs of the country and politicians.

It gets worse when the choice of chief justice becomes available we don’t look to the obvious choice to uphold the highest judicial post. This should have been a slam dunk but for reasons best known to others it wasn’t.

I watched Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng deliver his response to the criticism on Saturday and have to admit that I was highly impressed by him. Not only did he answer his critics with reasoned logic supported by documented facts and cases but he showed a humanity and awareness of the importance of the role that critics unfairly failed to present. I would have no problem with him as my Chief Justice.

That does not detract from the fact that acting chief justice Dikgang Moseneke is being overlooked because he might consider the people above the interests of the ANC. That the party seemingly perceives his role at the head of the judiciary as a stumbling block to introducing certain legislation which they seem to believe they might get past Mogoeng.

Bad news guys the man I saw answer his critics on Sunday is not going to rubber stamp your legislation and looks to be a man who will have the moral fortitude to safeguard the principles set out in the constitution.

Then we have the Protection of information Bill which will allow certain departments to stamp to death documents proving theft by politicians and state officials. If the media or whistleblowers dare touch that proof of corruption they face jail. The defence of being ‘in the public interest’ is excluded.

Why would you ever exclude it?

This act is being held out as vital to South Africa’s national security — against whom and on what basis is the draconian measures justified? The ludicrousness in calling this aberration, for that is what it is, urgent is surpassed only by the cheek in assuming that South Africans are morons who don’t understand what it is going to be used for.

It certainly isn’t in place to defend us from war, foreign agents or the usual threats that a bill of this severity requires. How unfortunate then that a by-product of it just happens to be the ability to conceal proof of corruption and theft.

Mind you I guess that does explain the urgency.

Accordingly if the upliftment of the masses has to be our primary goal and the biggest threat to that has to be corruption then the fate of the Scorpions, Hawks, key appointments, Protection of Information Bill, failure to act against those accused of major corruption and the many other incidents which are becoming more noticeable by the day demonstrate that the ANC is presently the biggest obstacle to achieving it not the champion.

If the primary goals and principles of the ANC are being trashed by the conduct set out above how does this play out in terms of the battle for power?

When Malema, unforgivably, trashed former president Thabo Mbeki in the manner he did, it should have set alarm bells ringing.

Whatever your views on Mbeki and the party, the level of disrespect shown by a youth league leader, of the same party, should have indicated that he had no respect for anything or anybody which is exactly how it turned out.

We have seen Malema sabotage investment, insult Botswana and Zimbabweans, attack the alliance partners, threaten the ANC leadership if they don’t support his economic policies and so on and so forth.

If the party’s principles become secondary to gaining power and disrespect on this scale is allowed what did people expect would happen?

Twice he has been called to account for ill-discipline and in both cases it took place after perceived disloyalty to the President rather than anything to do with his outrageous behaviour which shamed both party and country. The first time he was called after praising Mbeki over Zuma and recently after indicating that the ANCYL intends backing a Kgalema Motlanthe/Fikile Mbalula pairing in 2012.

Prior to that he could pretty much do and say whatever he pleased to whomever he chose whenever he chose to do it.

It gets worse.

When Malema was called to task the ANCYL went wild even going as far as calling for an arms deal investigation. This was not because they were genuinely concerned that the masses wealth had gone missing, because they would have raised it before, but rather because the ANC had dared to charge Malema and all his alleged tenderpreneurial skeletons were now falling out of the closet.

It was tantamount to extortion along the lines of “if you discipline us we’ll put the knife in where it hurts the most”.

The role of the ANCYL is to act as a breeding ground for future leaders and members of the main party and to bring fresh, radical ideas to the table. Instead they have become the biggest danger to the ruling party because they don’t understand that when they introduce ideas or criticise the mother body it must be done in accordance with the structures of the party and be unveiled in ways that doesn’t make the ANC look like fools.

Yet the disciplining of Malema would seem to be about his backing the wrong horse rather than antagonising our neighbours, running what looked like a civil war this week, creating wide scale racial hatred, inciting xenophobia, disinvestment and just about everything else that should have been clamped down on long ago before his expedience ran out.

It should have been done because his conduct is a total contradiction to the principles of the ANC relating to equality, non-racism, non sexism … but I’m sure that the whole list need not be repeated here.

That he wasn’t goes to the question of power, just as I have indicated above the failure to tackle or the method in dealing with corruption goes to the question of wealth.

Don’t I want to see a few wealthy black men?

Nope.

I want to see thousands of wealthy black men and women who employ millions of other black men and women rather than a handful of tenderpreneurs.

Malema is a dynamic leader and intelligent as we saw in court.

The fact that he is now in this position and that the country is looking at sacrificing much in terms of the fight against corruption and freedom of expression through this ugly new bill owes itself to the fact that the ANC’s moral compass is broken.

If those principles were being jealously guarded and the primary goal religiously pursued then Malema would have been put on the right track long ago and would now be headed towards becoming a leading light in the ANC instead of facing expulsion and criminal charges and the country would not be facing another battle for its freedoms.

The time has come for the oldest liberation movement in Africa, with its proud traditions and great leaders, to take stock of itself and put the bus back on the right course for its own sake as well as the people of this country.