Zuma is right to fear civil rights groups
The last ANC national executive committee meeting, followed closely by the ANC policy conference, left most South Africans feeling that although under pressure, President Jacob Zuma remains untouchable for now — while our economy collapses, joblessness and poverty increase and the rest of the world rates us as junk.
Yet his own narratives give us an indication of his Achilles heel. One hint came in his recent speech to the MK Military Veterans Association, in which he warned of the sporadic rise of civil rights groups.
Among the most prominent civil rights groups in SA are Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, Black Sash, Corruption Watch, the Helen Suzman Foundation, Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.
In singling out the civil rights groups, Zuma entirely missed the point that he is in effect targeting the electorate, the portion of the 55-million people who elected the ANC to power and, through that vote, elevated him to the highest position in the land.
The civil rights groups are the only mechanism by which the same 55-million people can find a voice to fight back against a morally bankrupt government. These organisations enable us to move beyond helplessness and complacency to becoming active participants in how SA is run.
Hence, he is right to be afraid. We are not Zimbabwe, with its small population easily controlled by a paid-off army and an option to migrate south. There is no “south” for SA — only the ocean. We have nowhere else to go. We have no choice but to fight.
In SA, civil society has been part of a fight against corruption since 1999, when the same government Zuma now represents held its first anti-corruption summit. In 2001, the government launched the National Anti-Corruption Forum, which brought together civil society, business and the government and adopted a Public Service Anti-Corruption Strategy. This committed the government to combat corruption in the public service. More anti-corruption summits were held in 2005 and 2008.
But all this is now moot. Our court system has become the only effective enforcer of the Constitution. The courts have recently thrown out the costly nuclear deal, protected the poor in the social grants debacle and reminded ANC MPs that their affiliation is to the country and not their party when voting in Parliament, specifically on the motion of no confidence in Zuma.
In the absence of a functioning prosecuting authority, it is up to civil rights groups to fight corruption in the courts on behalf of the rest of us. They do so thanklessly, on a nonprofit basis, supported only by public donations and pro bono legal work. Aided by investigative journalists, these groups are fighting and winning. Case by case, the process of bringing to justice those responsible for plundering SA grinds forward.
It is now time to stand behind these organisations and assist. We can assist financially. We can assist by punishing all those who aided and abetted the looting of SA, driven solely by greed. From Net1 to KPMG, McKinseys, SAP and Bell Pottinger, to name just a few already in the public domain, we have witnessed unspeakable acts of omission and commission, all in the name of cold, hard cash.
Some merely looked the other way or did not ask the right questions, others appear to have paid middlemen to secure contracts. Some exploited the poorest in society, others exploited taxpayers. And the most despicable took on a brief that involved cloaking the plunder by their masters in a veil of racial division, in a country recovering from apartheid.
If we don’t take a stand against all of them we become complicit in destroying SA.
CASE BY CASE, THE PROCESS OF BRINGING TO JUSTICE THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR PLUNDERING SA GRINDS FORWARD