What to make of it all?

The contributions to the SA situation by Messrs Bell and Pottinger have been depreciated by all right-thinking persons, save those sheltering in the forests of Nkandla. However, no-one has paid much attention to the equally mischievous writings of an earlier Bell Pottinger-like combination: Pringle and Fairbairn.

The constitution provides that SA is a country in which the rule of law prevails. In short, “you do the crime, you do the time”.

However, this is antithetical to the thought processes of those who led the Fees Must Fall campaign, who either personally or by way of encouragement (the doctrine of common purpose) burnt libraries and other outposts of the derided colonialism and now face belated prosecutions in the courts.

The leaders of the Fees Must Fall movement are now calling upon the president to abandon the rule of law and “pardon the alleged perpetrators”.

The government’s call for citizens to submit suggestions for the exemption of further items from those subject to VAT is like the editors of Die Son or Huisgenoot calling for entries in a test-theteam competition.

Such an approach is in accord with the government’s total incomprehension that pouring money into the lame-duck state entities such as SAA and Eskom puts them on the intellectual level of the governments of Neville Chamberlain, Harold Macmillan and especially Edward Heath.

There are murmurs that one of the causes of Africa’s low rankings in all the world’s ratings of progress is the fact that the leaders of the liberation movements did not limit themselves to the constitutionally approved number of terms.

But it is frequently overlooked that one of the leaders of the American liberation movement founded in Tammany Hall famously overlooked the constitutional limits on the US presidency.

Errol Callaghan

Kenilworth