Morality can’t be manipulated
South Africa’s elite find ways to make wrong seem right, writes Paulus Zulu
THE problem faced by democracies is that representative democracy, although the best possible form of governance in a mass society, is only as good as the political culture of the moment permits. In South Africa, the political culture of transformation is definitely not unproblematic.
The politics of transformation has moved away from conventional morality and ubuntu as guiding principles in public discretion and decision making. Instead, new political hegemonies characterised by a culture of amassing wealth have developed; our politicians and senior bureaucrats constitute a rentseeking and predatory elite.
The big question remains: what alternative morality does the politics of transformation present?
In general, it is a morality of expediency dressed in various guises. The political elite have rationalised their contravention or dereliction of accepted moral standards in the language of transformation. Explanations have ranged from Black Economic Empowerment (Oilgate and tenderpreneurship), to employment equity (parliament and Travelgate), transformation of the legal system (the Jacob Zuma, John Hlophe and Tony Yengeni cases), and the security of the state (the Jackie Selebi case).
While the language of transformation may be used to explain morally questionable behaviour, the exploitation of positions in government cuts across all actions of self-enrichment. Positions in the state, or connectedness to those in the state hierarchy, have become a great asset.
Four philosophical modalities are used as rationalisations in articulating this new morality:
An acceptance by the elite themselves that, indeed, corruption exists both in the government and in the ANC as the governing party. This is the confessional modality where the test lies in contrition, repentance and atonement;
A retreat into legalism, where the elite invoke human rights, including the rule book, and refuse to accept culpability until the law courts make a decision. The dictum of the presumption of innocence becomes the operational defence mechanism;
Moral relativism, where the immorality of apartheid constitutes the first line of defence; and
A restitutive morality, which invokes the creation of a patriotic bourgeoisie as an engine of equity and material restitution. The argument is that enriched individuals needed to be compensated for the role they played in the struggle, and that the action does not constitute self-enrichment since they will pass on their newly acquired wealth to the nation or to worthy sections of the nation such as the people’s party.
It is now almost axiomatic that South Africa is at a moral crossroads where the governing elite and, to an extent, the corporate elite, are well equipped with rationalisations for ways to grab wealth and state assets using their public positions and offices. Part of the mechanism to achieve this is to create an institutional culture in which political power redefines and manipulates existing norms.
Njabulo Ndebele refers to this practice as “conferring innocence”.
In an incisive and challenging analysis, Ndebele describes how the ANC elite attempt to redefine the legal presumption of innocence into a substantive presumption of moral cleanliness outside the processes of the justice system.
The political elite hope to market a version of morality that presents greed and avarice as normal practices within a culture of restitution and redress
He cites the case of an ANC provincial chairman and MEC for finance in one of the provinces, who, despite his arrest on charges of tender fraud, remained in office because of prevarications by the government and the party regarding the onus of responsibility to remove him. What is at stake, according to Ndebele, is the precarious balance between party and state interests, because the official concerned commanded popular support in the party.
The consequence of this indecisiveness is the anguish, particularly on the part of citizens, “who fear the far-reaching impact of this situation on the culture of public systems and wonder about the depth of commitment to the integrity of the state institutions by both the president and his party”.
The case in point is not an isolated one. Precedent has been set by Oilgate, Travelgate and in the Zuma and Selebi cases, although Thabo Mbeki paid dearly for removing Zuma from the deputy presidency subsequent to the latter’s implication by Judge Hilary Squires in the case against Schabir Shaik.
What is at stake, as Ndebele aptly summarises, is that “from the point of view of the public, the presumption of innocence does not exclude the possibility of guilt, nor does it preclude the possibility of legal innocence”.
Such observation is not limited to the case in point. However, Ndebele concludes that there has to be a resolution to the anguish and the moral impasse created by the indecisiveness parading as the presumption of innocence.
I find Ndebele’s analysis to be almost a summation of the construct of contested registers where the political elite wish to escape the moral anguish caused by the contradictory moral poles through a redefinition of morality itself. This puts justice under siege where, through the creation of moral beacons masked in legal and political jargon concocted in political circles, the political elite hope to market a version of morality that presents greed and avarice as normal practices within a culture of restitution and redress.
What is tragic is that this behaviour undermines the foundations of the very system that the elite wish to create, because there are no guarantees that future regimes will subscribe to the same practices.
The present is a morality built on shifting sands.
That in itself would not be tragic; the tragedy is that we are going through an era in which the politics of transformation have unwittingly muted even those institutions, such as the church and other organs of civil society, which stood up as moral beacons during apartheid.
This might not be the fault of the
Hegemonies characterised by a culture of amassing wealth have developed; our politicians and senior bureaucrats constitute a predatory elite
political elite. There is no legislation against dissent, nor has anyone been threatened for criticising the government. There appears to be a self-imposed censorship on the part of intellectuals — save the press — against serious critique of what appears to be a departure from the noble ideals in the Freedom Charter and expressed repeatedly in the course of the struggle for justice.
We seem to have forgotten that democracy is only a means to the realisation of the ultimate good. It is not an end in itself.
On September 16 2010, leading South Africans from civil society, business, academic institutions, the legal fraternity and political formations met at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia, to constitute the Council for the Advancement of the Constitution.
In the main address marking the occasion, it was evident that a group of leading South Africans had resolved that the alternative moral order operating in the name of transformation could no longer continue unchallenged.
It is unfortunate that, when confronted with truth, South Africans resort to a form of defensive cultural relativism.
It was in response to this habit that Mondli Makhanya objected to the cultural rationale for corruption and profligacy, writing: “It is our anthropological makeup as humans to know right from wrong . . . This, one can say without any hesitation, applies across all race groups, ethnic affiliations and religious persuasions.”
Makhanya could not have been more correct. There is no culture that encourages or condones injustice.
Unless we have the courage to state these ills openly, our democracy and consequently our justice and the attainment of the common good will ever be elusive.
Zulu is the director of the Maurice Webb Race Relations Unit at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. This is an edited extract from the concluding chapter of his forthcoming book, A Nation in Crisis, which will be available from September 18