NARENDH GANESH
I would be remiss if I do not commend you on a profoundly written article - your command of the language is par excellent. I was highly impressed.
It was with great interest and intrigue that I perused your lengthy response to your comrade, Ronald Lamola’s correspondence to you.
While it made for riveting reading, in many ways, to the hoi polloi, it would be as meaningless, as it would have been a damp squib written on an electronic papyrus meant only as a rebuttal against a fellow comrade, but also as a possible contemplative gambit for the months ahead.
These are the very people whom you purport to represent and whose proxy your party runs helter-skelter to during vote harvesting season – the very citizens who are in the throes of another “struggle” brought on by the” people” who, during the time of the “struggle” against apartheid, promised that “better life for all” and so much more.
You will admit that such a promise was simply pie-in-the-sky - a political catch-phrase if I may, dreamt up on a philosophical agenda driven by the need to secure power and herd the “colonialists” out of the Union Buildings.
I bought into that phrase myself, having once been a card-carrying member of the party you represent – but no more.
I agree with you – the South African Constitution is a “living document”, and the “courts and judges are not the Constitution’s owners”.
No one owns the Constitution, and our reverence to and adherence to such a charter is clearly manifest in its basic premise of upholding the laws of the country, to the extent, but not limited to any possible amendments necessitated by circumstance or the changing tides that emerge from time to time.
If we are to be brutally frank, then we have to look to our Constitution as a guiding document designed to encapsulate our “hopes, fears and conflicts” into a formalised process of governance whereby law and order raise hopes, diminish fears and resolve conflicts.
In a manner of speaking, it could very well be our own Magna Carta of a democratic order built on the blood of those who paid the ultimate price so that we could live better.
I disagree with you that the “Government is based on the people’s will”.
Have you, or any person considered a parliamentarian been elected by the people?
Rhetorical as that may seem, the reality, which has been politely if not politically ignored, is that NO PERSON in national government has been directly elected but are simply proxies or nominees of a political party that determines who should sit in the hallowed halls of legislative determination.
This, you will agree, makes a mockery of what true democracy is all about.
Your sense of unease with the judiciary is predicated on the common cause that is the preserve of the privileged and to those “who can afford it”.
That may very well be the case the world over – and that in itself is a travesty.
We are indeed aeons away from having equal justice for all, no matter who the recipients of such justice are – and indeed, have you even pondered on the fact that you, together with your fellow comrades in government, are also part of the “elite”, enjoying the benefits and privileges that the common man can only dream of?
Governments are known for their chicanery – that comes with the territory, and you pontificate about the land issue as if it has some kind of exclusivity for the people you refer to as “black”.
Admittedly, the “colonisers” have usurped productive and viable land for their exclusive usage during their criminal sojourn onto the “dark continent” of Africa, as it was colloquially referred to.
Consequentially, restorative justice must be seen to happen, not at the expense of any diminution of our democratic causeway, but as a means of creating an equilibrium of the past, against the present and the future of a country, once considered the bread basket of the entire continent.
Certainly, ill-gotten wealth became the prerogative of those considered interlopers of the land that did not belong to them and of course, many enjoy the fruits of such ill-gotten gains to this day, but here is a conundrum that will need introspective attention.
If land has to be restored to its “original owners”, who then becomes such beneficiaries?
Do you not believe that this will give rise to further conflict as to who shall inherit what land and where – after all, many generations down the line, and with aspirations the way they have escalated, how are the title deeds going to be shared among the millions of the “previously disenfranchised” (which is a polite misnomer for black only)?
I do not for a moment detract from the fact that this has to be done in a manner befitting common civility, but we all have to brace ourselves for further conflict when allocations are going to be made.
As you rightly point out, we are the most unequal society in the world, but how will it be possible for an unemployed person to service the maintenance of property allocated to him without the necessary funds?
Or will it be a case of the state becoming the preferred supplier of free housing and free utilities at the expense of the hard-working taxpayer - again?
The preponderance to correct the imbalances of the past has to be juxtaposed onto the realities of the here and the now, and cognisance must be paid to same or else we descend into another higgledy-piggledy state, leading to possible insurrection and anarchy – which seem to be a brewing ambition amongst some currently.
You have been in government since 1994 (compare President Ramaphosa’s silence during former President Zuma’s catastrophic nine years as head of state).
I have repeatedly called for a revamp of our Constitution as far back as 2006, noting that with the evolution of our democratic order, some clauses had already by then passed their expiry date and were, as such, exhausted.
But, be that as it may, the corrupt bureaucracy that you belong to, as evidenced by the shenanigans of the last two decades, has not elicited a word of abhorrence or disdain from you – why?
Have you ever uttered any derision or denouncement of corruption or against the corrupt within your ranks that have depleted what should have been the “people’s wealth” and which has deprived millions of much-needed help while shamelessly enriching themselves?
Surely, you would have known of the goings-on that were reported in all media – surely it would have aroused your principled mind to speak out – or could it have been a case that to upset the apple cart, politically speaking, would have meant sacrificing any future ambition that you may have covertly or overtly harboured?
You, like many others, have become outliers of the very system you carry the banner for – denying or distancing yourselves from the desideratum that is so desperately needed by a country governed by those who promised so much but delivered so little.
Our Constitution, with all its flaws, is not an incantation or a panacea – it is very much the lodestar upon which we ride into the future, the navigation of which is determined by skilful captains who truly believe that “we, the people”, means something – that it is not simply smoke and mirrors that glorify what should be universally acceptable.
Finally, I take particular umbrage at your reference with regards to the unrest of July 2021.
You falsely claim that there was “hypocritical silence” from a “particular group of high-heeled foundations in our country” when you referred to “racist attacks on blacks (as we saw with the Phoenix massacre).
What massacre Ms Sisulu – what racist attacks?
Clearly, you are either highly misinformed or grossly ignorant of the facts, buying into a “nice narrative” that would suit your purposes, because if you even bothered to look at what actually transpired during those dark days, you will certainly find that “racism” was never at play, but a higher political agenda that was rooted in a power play, that you may or not have been a significant player in.
Have you ever considered events, in retrospect, of what happened in 1949 and 1985 in KwaZulu-Natal, when you so readily invoke the "racism" ticket?
Is your omission due to ignorance or malicious denial in trying to exacerbate a racial narrative for very obvious reasons?
Sadly, by even suggesting “racist attacks”, as an accomplished Cabinet minister, you have laid bare your susceptibility to someone who has clutched her pearls simply to undergird a supposition that is far removed from the actual realities or the truth.
In any event, who are the “racists” that you are actually referring to?
It has become clear that your correspondence to Ronald Lamola was very much akin to “an ill-favoured thing, but your own” (with apologies to William Shakespeare).
I trust that I have, respectfully, made my point of view clear to you on a matter that invited my demurring.
Narendh Ganesh, Durban North.
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