The morality versus moralising dilemma
WHEN IT COMES to the legacy and scandal of corruption, South Africa is like an onion. With each layer that is peeled away, a chemical is emitted, causing one to cry.
Perhaps the genesis of the problem was well summed-up by a checkmate statement by Bathabile Dlamini, the then-minister of social development and chairperson of the ANC Women’s League, when she said “all of us have
smallanyana skeletons”.
Steve Friedman makes a revealing distinction between the transformative content and power of morality versus the hollowness of moralising.
Morality, he argues, confronts each one of us and creates a compelling platform for finding solutions. Moralising does not necessarily provide a solution. Friedman says: “If you care about a problem you discuss it. If you don’t, you moralise about it. Which tells us much about South Africa’s national debate.”
This, I surmise, answers the question why we have graduated from one smallanyana skeleton to a slightly bigger one since 2009.
Men and women of the cloth have confronted this moral decay. For almost a decade, they held a moral mirror up to the politicians, who instead continued to moralise and express dismay.
The South African Council of Churches (SACC) has supported the latest push by President Cyril Ramaphosa to halt corruption.
However, the SACC have not left this to Ramaphosa’s word, but have pressed on with solutions that mobilise society to empathise with the challenge and take the necessary action against this malaise.
Being listed is not enough. Going through the ANC integrity committee is not enough. The full might of the law is the only condition that translates action into effective empathy.
The Annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture this month reminded us of our obligations and what actions should be taken against global racism, as Reverend Al Sharpton narrated how this 400-year project is no accident and the crucial lessons that can be drawn from what Steve Biko did about it.
The morality versus moralising dilemma was brought into sharp relief by Professor Barney Pityana, Professor Mamphela Ramphele and Ambassador Thenjiwe Mtintso on how Biko confronted the morality praxis.
What we should not moralise about, therefore, is the decay in infrastructure, as we see rail plundered in broad daylight in our main cities, resulting in escalating transport costs, particularly for poor families.
What we should not moralise about is why Statistics SA seasonally adjusted and annualised the quarter-on-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate. After all, this has been the headline standard by which GDP has been reported on by StatsSA following international standards.
What we should be concerned about is the fidelity of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which the government and National Treasury have failed to finance for going on 10 years.
What we should not moralise on is yet another measure of poverty, which both then Treasury and the government have failed to finance for seven years.
Faced with the coronavirus pandemic, how will these crucial indicators be measured? In the middle of an ocean, we need a compass to determine the direction and pace at which we move to our destination.
Amid all this is the contestation between trade unions and the government about salary adjustments based on CPI – a measure statistician-general Risenga Maluleke may find difficult to defend because of neglect.
Ivan Fellegi, the chief statistician Emeritus of Canada, has a confirmatory advice against moralising. He says, “Whenever I said that we need to do something, I never preached about it, because that is useless. Exhortation doesn’t get you anywhere… one has to dream up techniques or tools or prods that make people behave the way you hope they would behave.”