Quash the sabre-rattling or pay the price
As elections get under way, there seems to be a return of noisy sabre-rattling in the undulating hills that make up the hotly contested province of KwaZulu-Natal. It is here where the real battle will be fought. It is here where, sadly, many lives have been lost in many wars going back into history. And if our leaders fail to take control, it is in this province where more blood could still be shed.
More than a week ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa, while addressing irate residents of Emalahleni in Mpumalanga, was asked about some less-known and forgettable character associated with the party of crooks — the Umkhonto we Sizwe Party — who made a stab at being a rabble-rouser.
This fellow, Visvin Reddy, said: “We are sending a loud and clear message that if these courts, which are sometimes captured, try to stop the MK there will be anarchy in this country. There will be riots that have never been seen in this country. No South African will go to the polls if MK is not on the ballot.”
Reddy, without a sense of occasion, accuses others of “capture” when he’s in a party initiated and led by captains of capture. The irony is lost on the poor fellow.
But Ramaphosa, asked by the media to respond, displayed uncharacteristic urgency and seriousness, noting “anyone who is threatening any form of unrest ... will be arrested. Those are people who belong in jail. Those are people who are the enemies of our democracy. I can promise you ... we will arrest them. That is going to happen.”
It was the first time, I must say, in a long while, that I heard Ramaphosa speak so strongly about so important an issue. The ink had hardly dried when the MK Party was back at it, this time through some wet-behind-the-ears youth leader, Bonginkosi Khanyile, who said: “If they remove MK and remove president Zuma as the face of the campaign, there won’t be elections in South Africa. Let me repeat, so that when we are arrested they can use this video as evidence in court. We mean what we say.”
Khanyile goes on to ridicule the country’s defence force — and perhaps they do deserve it for their amateurishness — and then taunts the police: “Do you think you can stop MK? Unleash all police officers, and we will meet toe-to-toe.”
The media this time gave Ramaphosa a miss. The honour
Reddy accuses others of ‘capture’ when he’s in a party initiated and led by captains of capture. The irony is lost on the poor fellow
fell on minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who confirmed that the cabinet had not discussed the threats. Well, police minister Bheki Cele should have been asked in the meeting what his officers were doing about this madness.
Ntshavheni then says “law enforcement agencies must do their work to apprehend those who intimidate South Africans, as instructed by the president”, and also that
“there won’t be mayhem, there won’t be a repeat of the July 2021 unrest”.
What is clear is that the MK hotheads are trying harder to push the envelope, to project themselves as possessed of an avant-garde mentality required to force change because the past 30 years have not worked for the poor majority.
And poor Ntshavheni is forced to respond to nonsense because, had the police done what Ramaphosa promised in Emalahleni, she would not have been asked the question. She, like him, expresses hope (that police will wake up and do something someday) and makes promises that we will not see the return of July 2021 riots despite the sabrerattling.
But how do people violate election laws knowing they’re being recorded and still get away with it? If you can’t take charge during an election as outgoing president, when can we expect you to lead?
This country has endured a lot more violence related to politics than could be justified. Around this time 30 years ago, or when Khanyile was still in diapers or merely an idea for his parents, Lucas Mangope was fleeing Mmabatho, with members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) shot and killed. In KwaZulu-Natal and the East Rand, people were being killed like flies sprayed with an insecticide as Walter Felgate and Dr Ziba Jiyane were announcing the IFP would not participate in the first general elections.
As the killings spread, Nelson Mandela asked for a probe into a possible “third force” supplying weapons to fuel the so-called black-on-black violence. If you consider the wars fought before and after King Shaka, the anti-colonial battles that led to unimaginable bloodshed, the battle against apartheid and the spectre of inkabis taking many councillors and political opponents, mostly in KwaZuluNatal, you’d be impatient with the police.
Not that I take the infantile Khanyile any more seriously than his kindergarten buddies do. But I know only too well how inflammable the situation can be. It is this that I thought fuelled a sense of urgency in the president’s voice in Emalahleni. But alas, the rattlers win or so it seems.