A bad week for South Africa
This was a bad, bad week for South Africa. It began badly and it ended badly, with ominous import for the future.
The perceived danger is that the state -- that great organ of coercion, Friedrich Engels's 'bodies of armed men' -- is being degraded into an instrument of brutality and self-enrichment to the advantage of certain selfish sectional interests, as a kind of Mafia. One has every reason to fear this.
If this were so, it would amount to a betrayal of the anti-tribalist heritage of the African National Congress from the time of its foundation as the Native National Congress in 1912, and prior to that, of the ethics of Mahatma Gandhi's initiation of modern liberation politics in southern Africa in the years between 1906 and 1914. It would be a betrayal also of the - at least formally - internationalist principles of the South African Communist Party, from the time of its formation as the Communist Party of South Africa in 1921.
The events of the past week suggest that the ANC which opposed the anti-Indian pogroms in Durban in 1949 is no more, or at least is morally decayed. The spirit of Gandhi, and its further development in the spirit of the 'Doctors' Pact' of 1947 betweeen Dr AB Xuma, Dr Yusuf Dadoo and Dr Monty Naicker, has suffered a severe wounding.
Local ANC political bosses in Durban have endorsed and shielded, even if there were to be proof that they had indeed not initiated, a xenophobic and murderous pogrom launched on the nights of Sunday 27 and Monday 28 September against a peaceable community of shackdwellers, the Abahlali baseMjondolo, who quite properly include a number of isiXhosa-speaking residents, at Kennedy Road in the Durban area, as reported last week (see here).
There is no excuse for anyone who claims to be a democrat in South Africa not to condemn the local ANC state authorities in KwaZulu-Natal for their brutalist support for the pogromists, and there is no excuse not to provide support to the victims. Local state authorities arrested and traduced the innocent, and permitted the guilty to escape.
In a statement issued on October 1, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, supported the brave and principled condemnation of this outrage by Bishop Rubin Phillip, the Anglican Bishop of KwaZulu-Natal, who has provided an outstanding example. Archbishop Makgoba said: ‘I share Bishop Rubin Phillip's view that it is a profound disgrace to democracy, that militia have been allowed to drive out the leaders of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement, and many hundreds of families with them.'
He continued: ‘When we remember how much we suffered, and how hard we struggled, in order to ensure that an armed minority could no longer exert oppression and deny freedom of speech, of opinions and of dissent, it is completely unacceptable that such intolerance should rear its head again in a different political guise.' He added: ‘I too shall be making political representations,' inviting others to take up Bishop Phillips' proposals for supporting the displaced, whether through political action, through material support, or through prayer for all those injured or bereaved.
‘The people of our country deserve better than this,' he stated. ‘Political leaders and the police must ensure that democracy and the rule of law are upheld.'
It was bad enough that the week began with a pogrom endorsed and shielded by local political and state authorities.
What followed at the end of the week made clear, however, how certain narrow, private and sectional interests now dominate the state in its most crucial department for actual and potential political control of the population, its secret intelligence services. On Friday 2 October, President Jacob Zuma promoted Moe Shaik - brother of the more famous Schabir, released by Zuma on alleged health grounds from a 15-year prison sentence for corruption - as head of Secret Services in a re-organised, centralised and more powerful State Security Agency (see here).
The worthiness of Moe Shaik for control over the secret services of the state may be judged from his political and family connections.
Paul Holden provides an easily accessible profile in The Arms Deal in your Pocket (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2008), which states:
'Shaik, Mo: former head of ANC intelligence in SA, Shaik claimed in 2003 that Bulelani Ngcuka had acted as an apartheid spy, a charge later dismissed by the Hefer Commission of Enquiry. He admitted under testimony during the Hefer hearings that he had made the allegations against Ngcuka in order to protect the honour of Jacob Zuma. He is brother to Schabir, Chippy and Yunus Shaik.' (pp.272-73, Appendix A),
Holden's biographical note on Moe Shaik's brother Chippy reads as follows:
'Shaik, Shamin "Chippy": A key mover-and-shaker in the Arms Deal. Chippy Shaik was appointed as the Chief of Acquisitions for the Department of Defence in 1998, and was a key player in the evaluation process that led to the eventual selection of the preferred suppliers in the Arms Deal.
'In 2001, the Joint Investigation Report slammed Shaik for failing to recuse himself from meetings at which the selection of [his brother] Schabir Shaik's African Defence System as a subcontractor to supply the information management system for the corvettes was discussed.
'He has subsequently been alleged to have received $3m from a successful bidder in the Arms Deal, but has never been charged on any count of corruption. In 2008 Shaik's PhD degree was withdrawn by the University of KwaZulu-Natal after it emerged that he had substantially plagiarised from other sources in writing his thesis.' (p.273, Appendix A).
It is public knowledge that Moe, Shamin, Schabir and Yunus Shaik were part of Jacob Zuma's underground military and intelligence apparatus within Umkhonto we Sizwe in the Natal/KwaZulu area in the late 1980s, during the last years of the apartheid regime, known as 'Operation Bible'. At this time Zuma was head of counter-intelligence in the ANC's feared Department of Intelligence and Security, known as iMbokodo, the grindstone. Schabir Shaik subsequently became Zuma's personal financial adviser, extending to him significant unpaid loans.
The appointment of Moe Shaik to such a crucial position in the state inevitably recalls the judgement of Judge Hillary Squires in the Durban High Court in June 2005, when he found that the "payments [Schabir] Shaik admitted to having made to Zuma - and Zuma admitted to having received - were made 'corruptly', that his [Zuma's] intention was to 'use the weight of his political offices to protect or further [Schabir] Shaik's business interests'" (Padraig O'Malley, Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa, Viking/Penguin, 2007. pp.434-35).
O'Malley goes on to quote a commment by Yunus Shaik immediately following the conviction of Schabir. The passage states: "The Shaik brothers are unrepentant. 'After the verdict', says Yunus, 'Moe and I discussed among ourselves whether Schabir could have done things differently. And we agreed...that he should have done what he did. He honoured the bonds of friendship. We are proud of our brother'." (p.435)
This appointment inevitably recalls also Zuma's own aborted trial for corruption. It suggests that an improper degree of personal loyalty attaches this new spy chief to the old spy chief of the 1980s, for perceived reasons of factional self-interest and in defiance of the criterion of the public interest. All semblance of civil service impartiality has been abandoned in this most partial and self-serving of appointments.
At the same time, the pogrom attacks at Kennedy Road, and the mendacious, menacing and insulting official responses from the local ANC authorities, cannot fail to suggest the possibility of a state programme of actual or implicit Zulu hegemony, carried out by means of brutal force and institutionalised corruption, to the benefit of President Zuma's intimate supporters. There is an exceptional weighting in this administration to political loyalties rooted in KwaZulu-Natal, and grounded in a noxious regional power apparatus, as the fate of Abahlali baseMjondolo shows.
In a country of historically fractious racial and ethnic divisions, this is a recipe for disaster that would make the late Mbeki administration - for all its entrenched self-interest - look by comparison like a haven of civil security.
If there was one matter which it was essential for President Zuma to have made clear from the first days of his presidency, it was that there would be no ethnic favouritism in his administration. The entire political and constitutional fabric of South Africa is now threatened. So too are the traditional foundations of the two parties of government since 1994, the ANC and the SACP. The promise of racial peace and reconciliation, exemplified by Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is in tatters.
A recent comment by Richard Pithouse, of Abahlali baseMjondolo, is worth considering. In an article 'Apartheid under a new guise', on Times Live, Pithouse writes: 'When society is very weak in relation to political elites, the point can be reached where politics, in its debased sense, no longer sees any need to hide its crude excesses. On the contrary, it tries to legitimate itself precisely via the public spectacle of its own power. There are occasions when we've come very close to this point in recent years.'
Shaik's appointment as controller of the secret services would seem a further indication of this.
One applauds the example set by the leaders of the Anglican church in KwaZulu-Natal and in Cape Town, in opposing spiritual and moral principle to the conduct of this government. Any decent person should follow their lead.
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Comments
... when the pope is assassinated? - as the old journalist's rhetorical question goes.
You should keep quasi-hysterical gigantic claims of the end of the world for really serious issues. This attack, appalling tho it might be, and the . .more
by Jeremy Gordin on October 05 2009, 06:20
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C'mon Jeremy, pour yourself another coffee bru........ OK, so the pope is technically still with us but methinks Paul is reporting a gathering of whispering hooded bishops at a shady tavern in the dead of night.....maybe it was a birthday celebration, . .more
by CM on October 05 2009, 08:32
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"might be", Gordin ?
by witbooi on October 05 2009, 08:44
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the British BAE investigation will shed further light on the role of our local criminal cabal. Methinks not unfortunately...BAE will admit guilt without much ado, pay an enormous fine and things will go away. And those evil Shaiks will just carry on . .more
by Dave on October 05 2009, 09:02
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I am not suprised that Paul Trewhela was able to connect the babrbaric attacks on Abahlali Basemjondolo to President Zuma. This man's obsessive hatred for the President should actually make objective South Africans worried.
For some reasons he . .more
by Njabuliso on October 05 2009, 09:05
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You have indulged yourself endlessly on this site.
by OBS on October 05 2009, 09:13
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Indeed it is. Tutu's judgment that one cannot look forward to a Zuma presidency was spot on. Zuma is no friend of law and order, and would have been behind bars had the ANC cadres in the NPA and the NIA not intervened in the judicial process.
The . .more
by flebus on October 05 2009, 09:28
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JEREMY GORDIN. CONTRARY TO WHAT YOU MAY HAVE US BELIEVE, WHEN OMINOUS EVENT SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL IN OUR COUNTRY , YOU WILL BE THE FIRST TO ACTIVATE YOUR EMIGRATION BUTTON TO THE UK.
IF YOU PERCEIVE PAUL TO BE OVER THE TOP WITH HIS CORRECT ASSESSMENT . .more
by CHENEYBUSH on October 05 2009, 09:57
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Keep it up.
by BB on October 05 2009, 09:58
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You do NOT remind me of Pastor Niemuller
by Plutarch on October 05 2009, 10:08
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Fitting really the day Selebi comes to trial we have a replacement, albeit in another security position.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20071222081359297C992563
by Annie on October 05 2009, 10:18
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Now can you spot the difference and then decide where this country is ultimately heading? Not difficult. Meanwhile the murders rape crime corruption aids and the sad state of the country generally is proof enough. Now we have a Shaik in control!In my . .more
by Compare on October 05 2009, 10:28
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A significant number of its leaders are simple convicts ie have criminal records for crimes involving dishonesty. This is a gang of thieves plundering wherever they can-mostly from there own misused electorate!
The arms deal is a disgrace, The . .more
by SAM on October 05 2009, 10:56
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There's a saying which goes : Lest men suspect your tale untrue, keep probability in view.
What is the probability of "Jeremy Gordin" on this blog being THE Jeremy Gordin?
ZERO, I'd say.
by flebus on October 05 2009, 11:12
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African law dictates very clearly that only the strong will survive. Anybody even thinking that the Rule of Law prevails, is in serious need of a wake-up call. It's time to play the game according to the rules given to us. It's no use criticising Jeremy, . .more
by AFRICAN WARRIOR on October 05 2009, 11:41
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Why the surprise! Its not unusual for crime families to be placed above the law and hold powerful positions (in governments) all over the world.
by Fred on October 05 2009, 11:54
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these people do not see a lack of a moral compass and being economical with the truth as wrongs. for them its one-upmanship. God will be there judge. what they are in effect doing though, is to steal from the futures of the children of this country. . .more
by msholozi on October 05 2009, 11:58
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Agree 100%. I find it very ironic that the ANC used to use Martin Niemoller's quote extensively in the 1980's to tarnish the Nat's, now it seems to apply wholeheartedly to them. The wheel turned full circle...??
by Freddie on October 05 2009, 12:26
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We need to respect the views of two thirds of South Africans who voted the ANC and Jacob Zuma into power.
by De La Rey on October 05 2009, 13:23
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@Msholozi: You have taken this name from it's rightful owner. Get your own please.
It's funny when the Xhosas ran the show and appointed their own cohorts to positions of power or first-n-line to stick their snouts into the trough, no-one . .more
by Devil's Advocate on October 05 2009, 14:12
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Paul the problem with your article is that it betrays a lot of underlying prejudice with the current President. He is no moralist nor is he a man for the rule of law, nor is the ANC by the way. The founders of the ANC were for the rule of the law but for . .more
by Mototoane Borole on October 05 2009, 14:21
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secure your home,get a boerboel,made in south africa,to keep out south africans
by by boerboel on October 05 2009, 14:30
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Be careful that your hyperbole does not produce unintended consequences. With your views South Africa may be unjustly shown in a bad light internationally.
by King Zwakala on October 05 2009, 14:48
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Tribal conflicts predate the arrival of the colonialist whites, who brought civilization to the Dark Continent which has reverted to darkness after 'liberation from Europeans'......SA will be no different. Kenya was also held up as an example........and . .more
by Lionel on October 05 2009, 15:05
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So he`s DOUBLE OH MO now, well i never.
by James I on October 05 2009, 15:29
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Can we look forward to evidence dissappearing and cases being manufactured???
by Stone thrower on October 05 2009, 16:32
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Although I think Zuma is now doing a semi-good job at the helm of SA, I do think that the means in which he rose to the top are going to cost SA dearly! But he is the chief, and I guess that means he is untouchable! TIA!
by Simon on October 05 2009, 16:38
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worry not about an article published on a local website....you should worry about internationally published crime statistics....tourists attacked and murdered, in fact, worry about every edition of "Morning Live" on SABC 2, because the FACTS are putting . .more
by Johnny V on October 05 2009, 16:58
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Get your facts correct Paul, Mo has never admitted that, "he made the allegations against Ngcuka in order to protect the honour of Zuma". Some of us who were present at the commission didn't hear any such utterances. Do not mislead people or be misled by . .more
by Zacharia on October 05 2009, 17:10
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The Zulus and the Xhosas there will be only one winner.
The xhosas.
The Zulus might have a reputation as warriors but the facts belie the reputation.
They have lost every single major battle ever fought except the Mafikane where they chased . .more
by Cassandra on October 05 2009, 19:50
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im not sure if the Zulus or any of the other black tribes have ever fought where the odds are even. Dingaan's Zulus murdered Piet Retief when they cunningly disarmed him and his men. then they found out where his Boer women and children were camped ( at . .more
by mhlanganyelwa on October 05 2009, 21:00
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.
by . on October 05 2009, 23:50
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People have this tendency of ranting and whining at every decision made by the current government, Even if the decision is morally, academically and economically correct, there is always an element of BUT????
I think we need to get things straight . .more
by celemba on October 06 2009, 11:55
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What utter nonsense. Look at Angola, Mozambique, Hertzoginia etc. There are no winners in these wars. Only fulls like you believe there will be winners you idiotic Cassandra. This is Anc was founded by multi-tribes man under the slogan Zulu, Mxhosa, . .more
by Gambu on October 06 2009, 14:31
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What utter C*** you are talking. The ANC was founded on the premise of "How can I get my hands on the cookie jar"
by AP on October 06 2009, 15:41
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Paul Trewhela will blame it on the ANC
by Domza on October 07 2009, 09:01
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I can not find a connection between the appointment of Mo and the attack on Abahlali Basemjondolo. How is Jacob Zuma connected to it? Does'nt Mo have the necessary experience for the job?
Should Zuma start appointing DA and Cpoe members into . .more
by BM on October 09 2009, 09:54
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Tolerance for DISSENT is what we need in this country.Our President accepts it from his political platform anywhere anytime so it is important those rogue elements in the party should question their motive for destroying this important fabric of . .more
by joe on November 16 2009, 10:40
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