Phapano Phasha
The arrest of Jacob Zuma could be the most important political event since 1994. His spirit of defiance and arrest could inspire Africans who are in squalor and degradation to defy the 1994 concessions which have reproduced poverty and inequality.
The former president is the ultimate face of defiance and is going to jail on his own terms.
Here are the hard cold facts, Jacob Zuma is not being pursued because he is corrupt, most of the people pursuing him are also corrupt and have created their wealth from corruption. So the pursuit of Jacob Zuma is not about corruption but about power; that is State power and our resources.
South Africa is a country with massive resources but externalised to only benefit a minority and Jacob Zuma is a diversion which must keep us content with black poverty, with black children going to bed hungry and stunted because of malnutrition while minorities and the new black elite continue to live their best life.
There is everything wrong with this system and Constitution that allows the majority to live in abject poverty and a minority to thrive in our indignity.
Today, apartheid is reproducing itself under a black government and oddly the same Constitution restricts the same government from transforming the socio-economy. Just recently the tourism equity fund that prioritised struggling black-owned companies in the tourism industry was successfully challenged on constitutional grounds.
The final words go to the same unelected judges who are part of the elite and continue to defend their class interests and are not sensitive to the needs of the majority and the poor.
Money supply in the traditional banking system is still largely allocated to land owners, it is still allocated on the basis of collateral.
The whole banking system which is still in white hands issues loans on the basis of security and this security is mainly land, if you don't have land you don't have security and flow of money.
The value of land is not just for farming or agricultural purposes but the value of land also decides who gets allocated the money supply. Hence blacks were put in unproductive land and continue to be given unproductive land with no value.
Therefore, money supply is given to land owners and blacks don't own land and the Constitution protects property rights of a minority and ensures black people remain beggars in the land of their forebears, again reinforcing apartheid.
And what is frustrating is that there are black ANC leaders who own land and have vast amounts of wealth who go around telling landless black people that land restitution and restorative justice is not critical.
As I write this article I am a second-class citizen in the land of our forebears given all forms of civil rights except economic rights just like my late father, his father and those who came before him and no different, my children will continue being free slaves.
Today we celebrate a Constitution and constitutional court that has legitimised apartheid and protects the privileges of the same white people who accumulated their wealth through our resources and in the process turning us into their slaves.
To the extent that the same judges are willing to violate and break the same Constitution they claim to be protecting. You cannot uphold the rule of law by violating it.
We really need to tear apart the 1994 concessions because they have not worked for black people.
* Phapano Phasha is a communications specialist, writer and political commentator.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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