Shooting the Messenger

Judge Hilary Squires found “overwhelming evidence” of a generally corrupt relationship between Schabir Shaik and then-Deputy President Zuma.  So then-President Thabo Mbeki (himself suspected of receiving a  kickback in a notorious arms deal) “released” his Deputy.  In the end, Zuma’s financial advisor for a decade, Shaik, ended up in jail – for fraud.

But this caused a backlash.  Discontent with Thabo Mbeki’s leadership converged like a lightning rod on Zuma.  In a breath-taking comeback, Mbeki was elbowed out as ANC cadres rallied around the underdog during the every-5-year ANC convention at Polokwane.  Delegates at the same convention voted to close the Scorpions – the independent anti-corruption unit that had nailed Shaik as part of its 94 per cent conviction rate.  It was hot on Zuma’s trail.

According to Bantu Holomisa, leader of one opposition party, there was only one reason that the Scorpions were closed – to avoid any glitches in Zuma’s ascent to the presidency.  Enter Hugh Glenister, a private citizen, who challenged the ANC’s decision to close the Scorpions.  He argued that, to effectively control corruption, an independent unit was required.  He ended up in the Constitutional Court, which recently ruled in his favour.  At long last.  The court has given Parliament 18 months to replace the Hawks – which were formed to replace the Scorpions, but which were subordinated to politicians! – with an independent unit.  It is hard to disagree with Bantu Holomisa’s analysis in the light of this decision.

Meanwhile, Shaik only served two years of his 15-year sentence.  Then they let him out on the grounds that he is terminally ill.  Aren’t we all?!  So far the human race has a 100 per cent mortality rate!  This did not seem to embarrass Zuma.  It gave the signal loud and clear that some people are above the law.  Until Shaik started misbehaving while out on parole.  He was recently re-arrested, but then released after only two days in detention.  It is obvious that he just knows too much.  The risks that he will blow the whistle are just too high.

Before being sidelined by Zuma, former President Mbeki had done his best to protect Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi from an investigation by the Scorpions.  After Mbeki’s fall from grace, but before the Scorpions could be closed, they did get Selebi.  His subsequent trial was arduous and cost taxpayers a fortune.  But in the end he was convicted of corruption.

Now the Minister of Police Cele is under huge pressure to resign.  He cannot answer questions raised by the Public Protector about why a terribly expensive lease was signed for the new police headquarters – against legal advice that advised him not to sign it.  If the head of law enforcement is above the law, then we are all in trouble!

Cele has done one thing right this year, though.  He recently appointed a 12-person team of investigators to deal with the “January murders” here in Mpumalanga province.  Since 1998, seventeen key leaders have been shot, most of them fatally.  In many cases this occurred in January, as noted several years in a row in C4L’s Childermas Letters, which called them the Epiphany murders until the media at large dubbed them the January murders.  Many of these were on the verge of exposing corruption – bringing light into darkness.

Lucky for Schabir Shaik that he does not live in Mpumalanga!  Knowing too much in this province can be hazardous to your health!  (Could that be what he calls terminal illness?!) 

Voices in the media suggest that at least some of these murders were ordered at the highest level.  A party that will take unConstitutional measures to close down a whole anti-corruption unit, lest its candidate for president be sidelined, should not take offense at mention of this plausibility.

But impunity reigns.  Hugh Glenister may be a folk hero, but who is going to speak out in a province where death squads appear to be operating?  And in a culture of silence.

A Sunday Times editorial recently lamented how few “fearless voices” there are now that Desmond Tutu is bowing out of public life: “Others who protect against the failure to deliver basic services are demonized…  The response of those in power to these voices, old and new, has been arrogant and dismissive.  Tutu has been called names and others have been simply ignored, or worse, cast as racists or reactionaries serving the interests of those who are against social change.  The arrogant dismissal of the voices of civil society is the first cousin of the brand of “big man” politics which has recently been the subject of a mass uprising in several North African states… Acknowledgement of this problem is a necessary first step towards eliminating them.”

In Mpumalanga, it goes beyond character assassination - to shooting the messenger.

In Democracy, there has to be separation of powers – checks and balances.  Independent non-state actors should be free to voice their concerns – including the press and civil society organizations.  One analysis of history suggests that the Reformation in Europe caused some states like Germany and England – where church and state were separated – to develop much faster than the states that maintained church-state alliance.  Not to mention the rise of America!

This thinking has been applied to what is now happening in North Africa and the Middle East.  The line of thinking goes that Sunni and Shia are roughly contiguous to Catholic and Protestant. One clings to the alliance of religion and state, and the other prefers some distance between them.  Some Muslim states are thus called “fundamentalist” and others are called “secular”.

Freedom of thought and expression needs to be built into societies.  One analysis is that youth in Arab states have now traveled so much and been exposed to the media (including Al Jezeera) for so long, that a huge “expectations gap” has emerged.  This line of thinking suggests that despotic leaders can no longer function in such a context – they have to make space for dissent – or depart.  So it is totally ironic that in a democratic country, impunity and silence are prevalent.  And that government starves its critics and feathers its own nest. 

In the Passion, we recall that Jesus was given a corrupt trial by religious fanatics.  The political leader, Pilate, publicly washed his hands - to distance himself from it.  He was married to the Emperor’s daughter, so you have this odd reversal; fanaticism got Jesus crucified, in spite of Roman justice.  Jesus was a Jew and threatened Judaism not the Caesar.  Perhaps that kind of scenario explains why government can be so denigrating of non-state actors?  It is a reminder that criticism should be constructive, protests should be non-violent and leaders should listen.