Dear Onkgopotse JJ Tabane,
Let’s talk frankly.
I am not sure whether Cope leader Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota has responded to your open letter to him, published nearly a month ago in the Daily Maverick and Sunday Times. Even if he did, I would like to engage you on the issue he has raised: that our government should set up refugee camps. Disappointingly, your response to his call is not based on our immigration laws or global practices on immigration.
I found your letter to be more of a personal vendetta, which seems to stem from your days as a Cope member, against Ntate Lekota, not a critical engagement on his call.
Lekota having been an ANC member and waged a liberation struggle does and should not prevent him from holding and developing divergent views from those of the ANC or those he once held during the liberation struggle.
In “The Political Economy of State Capitalism and Shadow Banking in China” article, Kellee Tsai writes that “once-identified ingredients for developmental success can evolve into the barriers for future growth.” The same applies with political views, which should change with realities of times as part of a political maturity.
You reckon that Nelson Mandela “should be turning in his grave in shame over” Lekota’s call, which you describe as “anti-black consciousness views”. How can Mandela turn in his grave when he himself changed his political views relative to realities of the times? Examples abound and one shall suffice.
Mandela, whose political views were initially shaped by Anton Lembede and Ashby Mda, founding ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president and deputy president respectively, cut his teeth in politics as an African nationalist who was part of an ANCYL generation that tabled a motion to the ANC executive body to expel black communists from the party. They were concerned that co-operation between the ANC and the SACP would adulterate African nationalism.
The motion failed on account that the ANC is a big tent whose membership is open to Africans from different ideological convictions who work together for national liberation. Henceforth, Mandela changed his views towards the black communists. He went on to not only become a communist himself, but to serve on the SACP’s central committee.
Ironically, you want Ntate Lekota to remain true to his “black consciousness views,” but you have a problem with his statement that there is still an ANC in him.
I also find it ironic that you call Lekota senile while he is alive to a reality that refugees are becoming an insurmountable challenge, not only for Johannesburg executive mayor Herman Mashaba, but also for US President Donald Trump, who has taken a hard line against Muslim refugees in particular.
Unlike in most countries, including Europe, where asylum seekers are hosted in camps, South Africa issues them permits, which allow them to work and study while their applications for asylum are processed.
Most of the so-called refugees, especially from Pakistan and Somalia, both of which have a long history of terrorism, are economic migrants who work for a cartel that owns and operates tuck shops in townships across the country.
The cartel that has taken away an economic livelihood of many poor black South African families in the townships, engages in a capital flight in both the townships and the country, and mass kills the poor black South Africans with products that do not meet food standards.
In lieu of Lekota, lay the blame on your ANC-led government, which does not set a limit on a number of refugees the country can take, as many European countries hardest hit by a refugee crisis do.
Terrorism is but one of the reasons our government should heed Ntate Lekota’s call. In any case, the cartel is already mass killing poor black South Africans through unlicensed products.
Under the Transkei government, tuck shop owners paid £3 for a general dealer’s licence for a year and £2 for a patent medicine licence.
This is not happening under your ANC-led government.
At least the Department of Home Affairs has identified a few shortcomings in our immigration laws and is taking measures to address them. In the Green Paper of last year, the department proposes processing and detention centres for asylum seekers near the borders.
The department also proposes that asylum seekers should not be granted the right to work except in certain circumstances. While these proposals are steps in the right direction, I stand by Lekota’s call, which would help provide refugees with a support system.
Your views on the land issue are equally disappointing and inconsiderate of modern-day realities facing the country.
You seem to have adopted the destructive personality and race politics of the BLF and the EFF.
You question Lekota as to whether the “white people who stole land from our people must be left alone to own that land”. During a parliamentary debate on whether to amend Section 25 of the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation, former rural development minister Gugile Nkwinti warned against a notion that the whites have stolen the land.
It is irresponsible and dangerous to make a sweeping statement that every white person has stolen the land. How long has the ANC been in power? Why has land now become such a pressing issue for the ANC?
The answer is simple: unlike the DA, which prides itself on a good track record where it governs, the ANC cannot campaign on its track record in government over the past nine years, a period of Jacob Zuma’s neo-patrimonial coterie, which set our country into the making of a failed state, characterised by most, if not all, state-owned enterprises running on bail-outs, a collapsing health care system, a dysfunctional criminal justice system, economic mismanagement, and a technically bankrupt state.
Hence, it resorts to the emotive land issue to garner votes.
To start with, the ANC does not have a land plan. In May, the ANC held a two-day summit, where it resolved to put Section 25 to a constitutional test and consult traditional leaders. Not long ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed an Inter-Ministerial Committee to expedite the land issue while public hearings on land expropriation without compensation were under way.
These measures should have taken place shortly after the Fifth ANC National Policy Conference and concluded at its 54th National Conference, where the ANC ought to have emerged with a clear programme of action.
A post-Thabo Mbeki ANC has nothing to offer the country other than vapid slogans and political sentimentalism, such as “a new dawn” without a plan. It has never implemented a comprehensive plan. There is nothing to write home about the New Growth Path. The ANC’s failures and successes can be judged on Gear (Growth, Employment, and Redistribution) and the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa.
Molifi Tshabalala