Cause for hope as the march towards equilibrium gets under way
Beneath the barrage of greed, graft and political sniping, slow, certain change is taking place as the country corrects its recent disastrous course
The perennial search for truth and the colossal struggle to ensure we attain a reasonable plateau of fairness — not only in the pursuit of justice but also on other fronts — have the cumulative effect of suffocating even the most hopeful in society.
We throw our hands in the air in disbelief when, as happened two weeks ago, those charged with ensuring law and order run for dear life from a band of angry, armed and dangerous farmers in Senekal in the Free State. The questions flow like a steady current. Were the police simply unprepared? Is the whiteness of the farmers a factor? Why is it easy for police to kill in Marikana but not in Senekal? What would have been in the interest of society — “cowardly” police officers who run away or police as “brave” killers of the nation?
And this is just one example. Our public sphere is awash with incidents, events and campaigns that seek our attention. As a consequence, we complain. We become a loud nation. We turn apoplectic. Our minds ask questions whose answers are often not immediately available. Sometimes they are not even believable, sucking hope out of our lives.
Yet, all of life, it seems, is a march towards equilibrium — a constant war to restore a balance that often appears precarious. South African life seems to be a yearning for historical course-correction, an exercise pursued without, it seems, much success.
But when the Hawks do their work and the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) attaches fancy cars and jaw-dropping houses, a march towards equilibrium becomes discernible.
When those who lived in obscene, ill-gotten wealth are handcuffed and taken away in what social media scions call “the car of the year”, the feared VW Golf used by the Hawks, we seem to be trudging in equilibrium’s direction.
In Pedagogy of Hope, an offshoot of Pedagogy of the Oppressed , Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire notes that even at the height of shamelessness and corruption in Brazil, the fact that citizens protested against the affront to the common good offered hope.
“The people cry out against all the crass evidence of public corruption. The public squares are filled once more. There is a hope, however timid, on the street corners, a hope in each and every one of us,” says Freire.
Shortly after the ANC elective conference in Polokwane in 2007, a triumphant — some might say vindictive — faction led by former president Jacob Zuma were in their element, morphing the feared Scorpions into a caricature, a timid, hollowed-out structure called the Hawks.
About 13 years later, though, the Hawks are completing their mutation into modern-day Scorpions.
Not long ago, Zuma’s use of power was crass. He had a band of powerful friends in the Gupta family. They crushed people’s careers if they dared insist on doing the right thing. Remember how former Government Communication & Information System directorgeneral Themba Maseko was shown the door for insisting on doing the right thing?
But where in the past Zuma wielded power and dispensed patronage, today he can only write “open letters” to complain to those with power. He pretends to be too busy to appear before deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo to account for his misrule.
His trusted former head of crime intelligence, Richard Mdluli, was the beginning and end of the law. Today, though, he is in an orange uniform, as is Angelo Agrizzi, once the central cog of Bosasa corruption.
Where Mosebenzi Zwane was a useful tool in getting tenders to those who consorted with the leadership — telling officials to approve irregular and corrupt tenders or suffer the ignominy of unemployment — today he has made peace with pretending to be a fool of a housing MECwho didn’t know the Housing Act existed. Anything to avoid jail.
But it was Zuma who was a classic vignette of his own show. Once the Scorpions folded, the judiciary was in his crosshairs. He said: “If I sit here and I look at the chief justice of the Constitutional Court, that is the ultimate authority. I think we need to look at it, because I don’t think we should have people who are almost like God in a democracy. Why? Are they not human beings?”
Some dismissed him as a constitutional illiterate. Others felt his comments were ominous, coming at a time when the spineless head of the NPA, Mokotedi Mpshe, controversially dropped fraud and corruption charges against Zuma — a decision that was reviewed and set aside years later.
Today, though, Zuma is humbled: forced to appeal to the chief justice to help him avoid appearing before a commission he was forced to set up.
At his zenith, Zuma was mean and spiteful in his use of power. He overlooked, twice, then deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke for the position of chief justice. He opted for Mogoeng Mogoeng, who was initially believed malleable to political influence — though that move backfired.
Those who benefited from Zuma, like “businessman” Edwin Sodi, maintained a sordid network of beneficiaries while using newfound power to wreck the marriages of popular celebrities.
But equilibrium is the leitmotif of life. One day you’re at the top, and the next day your flashy multimillion-rand cars and posh houses are being attached by the reinvigorated Hawks and AFU.
Often, it takes a while to notice great strides towards equilibrium. Some of those adversely affected by public corruption never live long enough to experience the slow, silent march.
In this newspaper two weeks ago, we told how Maria Ackeer of Bethlehem in the Free State lost her mother 10 years ago to lung cancer. They live in one of the asbestos-roofed houses off which Sodi, somewhat literally, made a killing. Ackeer’s mother did not live to see Sodi and those who stole asbestos funds lose their treasured cars and houses.
Hopefully, Maria will see the culprits go to jail. The march towards some type of equilibrium is well under way. If we look closely enough, we will realise that “there is a hope, however timid”.