Judge Motha: Don Quixote of the Bench
In Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel, Don Quixote, a member of the lower Spanish nobility reads so many chivalric romances that he descends into delusion. He no longer sees reality for what it is but enters a fantasy world where he acts as a gallant knight, selflessly striving to free the world from evil.
Similarly, Judge Mandlenkosi Motha emerges as the hero in his own story in his ruling in Peri Formwork Scaffolding Engineering v. Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Commissioner et al. Judge Motha states that he chooses “not to shut his eyes” and “at great expense” to himself to “take the bull by the horns” to correct what he imagines to be a “patent and palpable iniquity.”
In Judge Motha's case, he has apparently immersed himself in the destructive and paranoid ideology of Critical Race Theory (CRT), a toxic form of “wokeness.” The point of departure of CRT is that the fundamental organising principle of society is “systemic racism,” created by white people for the sole purpose of discriminating against, disenfranchising, and dehumanising black people.
CRT believes that racism is the “normal state of affairs” in society and that it is permanent, endemic, and pervasive. It, therefore, lurks everywhere and is always just below the surface. Robin DiAngelo, the “Critical Whiteness Studies educator” (as she describes herself), writes that the question can never be whether racism is present in a particular situation, but only how racism manifests in that situation.
That Judge Motha shares this belief is evident in his description of “persistent, obstinate and deep racial divisions still prevalent in South Africa.” It is typical of CRT disciples to cynically discount any progress in race relations. For them, the South Africa of 1970 and that of 2024 are one and the same place.