SOLIDARITY has compiled a raft of cases which, if successful, will expose the irrationality of employment decisions by the state. Yet it also seems Solidarity is casting its strategic net way too wide. It is wrong if it thinks it can put affirmative action on trial. That will fail, legally and politically.
The smarter, narrower strategy should be to challenge state decisions that do not meet legally required standards of rationality. That matters particularly with public-service employment decisions that speak to the security of our society. But calling the state’s bluff on irrationality in these instances does not amount to a moral or legal challenge of affirmative action in general. Here is why.
First, let us take as an illustrative example the case of the police captain Renata Barnard, who was, by her account, overlooked twice for promotion to superintendent, despite being qualified for the job she applied for. Her contention is that she was overlooked because she is white.
The post for which she applied is essentially frozen until a suitable black candidate arrives, however long that might take.
It is worth stating that material facts are disputed by the state, so for purposes of analysis we are here assuming the captain’s version to be true. If this is true, it seems the state has taken a decision that is not rational.
If the rationale is there is no suitable black candidate, but after a few years no such candidate is found or head-hunted, then in reality it seems to be a case of exclusion by racial fiat rather than one grounded in a legitimate end that is served by the exclusion.
If the state could prove the management position for which Barnard applied is not important (and hence there is no public risk in waiting to fill it), and that it had, say, some sort of programme through which suitable candidates from other underrepresented designated groups are shortly to pass, then perhaps the freezing of the post could be legally defended. But in the absence of such facts, it is an irrational decision and one whose legality surely cannot be sustained in light of section 9(1) of the constitution, which imposes such a requirement.
Still, the legal case will be difficult to prove. There is constitutional precedent (in the case of former Grahamstown police station commissioner Vuyile Gcaba) establishing the principle that employment and labour relationship matters do not generally amount to administrative action, and so are not governed by the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. This means the case cannot be fought on grounds of administrative injustice.
Of course, the legal folks engaged by Solidarity understand all this, which is why Barnard’s case found itself in the Labour Court on Monday. However, while sitting in the right jurisdictional space, the legal arguments mounted must now be chosen carefully. This is where distinguishing between affirmative action in general and the facts of particular cases is crucial.
Affirmative action, quite apart from the moral justification in its favour, is constitutionally provided for in terms of section 9(2) of the bill of rights. For better or worse, such policies are legally unassailable.
So while it is politically tempting for Solidarity to use these cases (despite claiming otherwise) as a way of stimulating public debate on affirmative action in general, it is barking up the wrong tree.
Ten cases — even if all succeed, which is unlikely — do not amount to either a moral or legal defeat of affirmative action.
Solidarity’s argument should be more nuanced. It should be based on the fact that in cases where affirmative action decisions are not at issue, and where the alternative is to leave important public posts empty, excluding whites is irrational and so illegal.
In such cases, affirmative action is not at issue because the employer is not faced with candidates from designated groups who might otherwise be up for employment or promotion.
But it is worth noting that even if the real genesis of such injustices might be some state official’s wrongful understanding of affirmative action, or even such an official’s racist interpretation of affirmative action, the gist of the legal challenge is a demand for state rationality in cases in which affirmative action is not at stake. This kind of legal challenge is likely to succeed.
First, it does not dispute the legal and moral legitimacy of affirmative action in general.
Second, it does not fundamentally tie the case to demands that the state should take an employment decision based on the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act.
Third, the requirement of fair labour practice provides a sufficient basis to demand a rational justification from the state.
Fourth, the Gcaba case does offer a small window of constitutional opportunity. A key element of the court’s rationale for its decision was that an employment decision not directly affecting other citizens is a labour matter between the complaining party and the state. If a case can be mounted that some of these decisions do indeed affect other citizens directly — not an unreasonable contention — we may well be interestingly back on constitutional ground.
It is still not likely that the Constitutional Court (should it have to consider this strand of argumentation) would declare affirmative action unconstitutional, but it might well have to provide further guidance on the general application of affirmative-action principles in cases where direct effects on other citizens (unlike the Gcaba case) do come into possible play. Barnard’s case may not fall within such a line of argument, but the assessment of candidates for a post such as national police commissioner, for example, surely does.
So what should we make of this legal ping- pong match?
Solidarity deserves credit for highlighting these cases and stimulating public debate on the application of affirmative action. Of course the organisation has its own ideological agenda, but it is a legitimate voice in a political landscape dominated all too often by centre-left politics.
However, these cases will not succeed in morally, legally or politically defeating affirmative action in general. What they should hopefully do is to force the state to be more rational when it takes decisions that affect you and me individually and all of us collectively.
Furthermore, the blanket exclusion of a group on the basis of race, in cases in which affirmative action decisions are not even at stake, should be legally condemned.
But for these positive outcomes to be realised, Solidarity and its lawyers should be careful which legal arguments they choose. They should also not overreach politically.
Nuanced, narrower arguments about the irrationality of particular decisions are more likely to stand the test of time than rehearsals of general, tired and defeated arguments on affirmative action’s overall desirability.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=87370
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
System could collapse like a house of race cards
HAS anyone seen my race card? I have been looking for it everywhere, but just can’t find it. My biggest fear is that Julius Malema or Jimmy Manyi may have stolen it. They seem to have way too many race cards.
If yours has gone missing too, fellow race card-less darkie, perhaps we could organise a violent protest and toyi-toyi until these cats return our cards? If I do not get mine back soon, I will have to rely solely on competence to achieve my career goals. Heaven forbid! I was hoping to play my card to ensure promotion or to scare a white boss into resigning before I can get my friends in very high places to kick him out. Now I have to rethink my strategy. I am really annoyed that the race card system’s effectiveness is being undermined by Malema et al.
As my mom would have said, the abuse of the system puts jam in the mouths of critics of race-based policies. Just as a heartless conservative might selectively cite anecdotal examples of welfare abuse as proof that welfare breeds dependency, so too can opponents of race-based policies now use Malema et al’s abuse of the race card as a false basis to assert that we should move beyond race.
We should not move “beyond race”. We should rather move beyond fetishising nonracialism. Even though race is a social construct that has been moulded on a political template over the course of an accidental history of racism, it continues to be a determinant of one’s chances of successful living long after apartheid’s official death. It is therefore critical that we look out for non- violent forms of racism in both the corporate and public sectors. We will not deal these lingering racisms a death blow by remaining enthralled by nonracialism.
I wonder if proponents of nonracialism ever asked themselves: “Why is nonracialism important?” If they did, they would puzzle away for a while. Just because race is a dodgy biological notion does not mean we do not use the socially constructed version of the category in our daily interactions. Racialism is alive and well. Racism is also alive and well. The race card can be an effective tool for spotting and rooting out racism.
But when exactly can the race card be used legitimately? Well, when you have been a genuine victim of racism or when you have witnessed a racist act and want to expose the perpetrator.
Racism is the possession or display of ill-will towards another on the basis of their phenotypical features. There is no evidence that Eishkom’s Jacob Maroga received ill-treatment by Eishkom’s board on the basis of his gorgeous complexion. He received no ill- treatment, let alone racism. The same goes for Transnet’s Siyabonga Gama. These are case studies in the abuse of the race card for personal and political gain.
There are also rules and responsibilities that flow from the right to use the race card. One rule is that the race-card game — sorry Malema et al — is open to all South Africans. Just like sporting codes have now been deracialised, so too the game of race-card playing is open to folks from all communities, black or white, poor or rich.
There is a moral obligation to play the race card in circumstances where doing so is the only available form of expressing and fighting for one’s dignity. Bobby Godsell could have shown his own race card in the direction of the Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League.
Unfortunately, like soccer, the race card game is not one that South African whites are good at. In fact, most do not realise they have race card rights also. The explanation has to do with guilt. Many white South Africans feel bound by the history of an immoral past to which their skin colour is connected. Assert your right to also play the race-card game, I say. If racists can come in all colours, why should race-card players come in one shade only?
A second rule is that you should not abuse the system. Take this analogy. A rule book with the title “ministerial handbook” allows you to buy luxury vehicles. Does this mean you are compelled to buy these cars? Nope.
The careful exercise of discretion by a public official is a mark of political virtue. Similarly, just because you have the race card in your back pocket (and ones you stole from unsuspecting others, who were grinding away more honestly than you ever do) does not mean you have to play it every other day.
Those who play the race-card game excessively look more tragic than someone wearing a Bafana Bafana shirt. Furthermore, the race-card system will collapse if these abuses continue unabated. This will make it difficult for genuine victims of racism (both black and white) to expose real racial discrimination for fear of being seen to “play the race card”.
So, Malema et al, please leave at least some of your race cards at home when you leave for press conferences in the morning. Please? This will help, not hinder, the fight against racism. Seriously, boss.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=87002
If yours has gone missing too, fellow race card-less darkie, perhaps we could organise a violent protest and toyi-toyi until these cats return our cards? If I do not get mine back soon, I will have to rely solely on competence to achieve my career goals. Heaven forbid! I was hoping to play my card to ensure promotion or to scare a white boss into resigning before I can get my friends in very high places to kick him out. Now I have to rethink my strategy. I am really annoyed that the race card system’s effectiveness is being undermined by Malema et al.
As my mom would have said, the abuse of the system puts jam in the mouths of critics of race-based policies. Just as a heartless conservative might selectively cite anecdotal examples of welfare abuse as proof that welfare breeds dependency, so too can opponents of race-based policies now use Malema et al’s abuse of the race card as a false basis to assert that we should move beyond race.
We should not move “beyond race”. We should rather move beyond fetishising nonracialism. Even though race is a social construct that has been moulded on a political template over the course of an accidental history of racism, it continues to be a determinant of one’s chances of successful living long after apartheid’s official death. It is therefore critical that we look out for non- violent forms of racism in both the corporate and public sectors. We will not deal these lingering racisms a death blow by remaining enthralled by nonracialism.
I wonder if proponents of nonracialism ever asked themselves: “Why is nonracialism important?” If they did, they would puzzle away for a while. Just because race is a dodgy biological notion does not mean we do not use the socially constructed version of the category in our daily interactions. Racialism is alive and well. Racism is also alive and well. The race card can be an effective tool for spotting and rooting out racism.
But when exactly can the race card be used legitimately? Well, when you have been a genuine victim of racism or when you have witnessed a racist act and want to expose the perpetrator.
Racism is the possession or display of ill-will towards another on the basis of their phenotypical features. There is no evidence that Eishkom’s Jacob Maroga received ill-treatment by Eishkom’s board on the basis of his gorgeous complexion. He received no ill- treatment, let alone racism. The same goes for Transnet’s Siyabonga Gama. These are case studies in the abuse of the race card for personal and political gain.
There are also rules and responsibilities that flow from the right to use the race card. One rule is that the race-card game — sorry Malema et al — is open to all South Africans. Just like sporting codes have now been deracialised, so too the game of race-card playing is open to folks from all communities, black or white, poor or rich.
There is a moral obligation to play the race card in circumstances where doing so is the only available form of expressing and fighting for one’s dignity. Bobby Godsell could have shown his own race card in the direction of the Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League.
Unfortunately, like soccer, the race card game is not one that South African whites are good at. In fact, most do not realise they have race card rights also. The explanation has to do with guilt. Many white South Africans feel bound by the history of an immoral past to which their skin colour is connected. Assert your right to also play the race-card game, I say. If racists can come in all colours, why should race-card players come in one shade only?
A second rule is that you should not abuse the system. Take this analogy. A rule book with the title “ministerial handbook” allows you to buy luxury vehicles. Does this mean you are compelled to buy these cars? Nope.
The careful exercise of discretion by a public official is a mark of political virtue. Similarly, just because you have the race card in your back pocket (and ones you stole from unsuspecting others, who were grinding away more honestly than you ever do) does not mean you have to play it every other day.
Those who play the race-card game excessively look more tragic than someone wearing a Bafana Bafana shirt. Furthermore, the race-card system will collapse if these abuses continue unabated. This will make it difficult for genuine victims of racism (both black and white) to expose real racial discrimination for fear of being seen to “play the race card”.
So, Malema et al, please leave at least some of your race cards at home when you leave for press conferences in the morning. Please? This will help, not hinder, the fight against racism. Seriously, boss.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=87002
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Citizen groups need to grow deeper roots among the poor
Eusebius McKaiser & Steven Friedman
CITIZENS’ organisations in SA may have more influence than they believe — but only if they think more strategically and try harder to represent people at the grassroots. This is the key finding of a study of civil society organisations undertaken by the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg and funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
The centre felt the study was needed as democracy is a system in which government is meant to serve citizens and respond to their needs. This is not possible unless citizens organise to tell government (and fellow citizens) what they want and need and campaign for their concerns to be acted on.
The ability of civil society organisations (CSOs) to influence law and policy is a crucial test of democracy’s health. Dramatic changes in the African National Congress’ (ANC’s) leadership at Polokwane altered the political climate and ensured CSOs were operating in a new environment. Opinion on what this means for organised citizens’ ability to influence the government, differs sharply.
For some, Polokwane was a setback for civil society, because it brought to power leaders more interested in strengthening the ANC’s hold on power than in listening to citizens. For others, it created new opportunities for citizen influence, either because the new leaders were more willing to listen than those they replaced or because the defeat of the previous leadership created a more open and fluid environment, which would be more open to citizen influence.
Civil society’s effectiveness relies largely on whether CSOs read the climate accurately. So we convened discussions among civil society activists to analyse the climate and suggest responses.
Our report analysed the discussions and suggested a way forward to ensure CSOs wield as much influence as possible on public debate and government decisions. We found CSOs, particularly those committed to human rights and social equity, largely pessimistic about life after Polokwane. Most felt the change in ANC leadership promoted a social conservatism that threatened key rights protected by the constitution. They complained of what they saw as increased pressure for loyalty to the government and ruling party, and argued government talk of a new willingness to listen was an illusion.
Interestingly, given minorities’ fears after Polokwane, probably the most optimistic participants were white Afrikaners, who felt new opportunities had opened for them. But among CSOs sharing the values that inspired the fight against apartheid, the mood was largely pessimistic.
This sense that the government is now more hostile to CSO campaigns for rights and equity is based on experience. There are legitimate fears for the future of some human rights gains enshrined in the constitution. Despite that, we believe current thinking among much of civil society ignores important opportunities for citizen influence.
Civil society seems to see as new the negative trends that have been with us for some time. CSOs have felt for years that the government only pretends to listen. They also seem to rely far too much on whether the government is well disposed to them. This prompts two strategic misreadings.
One is to ignore difference and fluidity within government. All participants agreed that there were significant differences within the new government leadership, yet this was not always seen as an opportunity. But this it surely is, as leaders who have not agreed where they want to go are likely to be more open to independent ideas. It also ignores the new government’s need to distinguish itself from the previous one, which shows itself in, for example, new attitudes to HIV/AIDS. This creates opportunities for citizen influence.
Another is a tendency to assume citizens’ organisations can influence events only if the government wants to listen to them. One reason may be that too many “progressive” CSOs wrongly have assumed former civil society colleagues now in government would be natural allies; this may have created an unwarranted dependence on the sympathy of the government.
But, as the experience of CSOs such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) shows, government sympathy is often a result, not a cause, of CSO influence; governments are more likely to listen to organisations because they have built strong support in society. This suggests CSOs should be paying far more attention to ways in which they can enhance their influence in society.
If they did, they may well find that a society in which grassroots citizens have been protesting for four years against unaccountable government, and in which their frustrations are shared by many more affluent citizens, is a climate in which opportunities for winning support — and getting the government to listen — may be far more favourable than they believe.
But this requires that CSOs pay far more attention to the key constraint on their influence, as identified by the report: their shallow roots among the poor.
While it is fashionable to complain about the declining influence of citizens’ organisations in SA, we find civil society remains diverse, vigorous and vocal — it engages regularly in public debate and wields real influence. While CSOs closest to the ANC, such as Cosatu, are most influential, the TAC has shown it is possible to remain independent of the ANC and still influence events.
But civil society is also shallow. It is the preserve of the better off and better connected as most citizens lack the resources and access to organisation to participate in CSOs. This ensures that CSOs purporting to speak for the poor often lack roots among those whose concerns they champion. This stunts their influence, and makes it harder for them to mobilise the citizen support needed to influence decisions.
The problem is not that CSOs ignore the poor: there are real obstacles to building democratic organisation at the grassroots of society. But, unless CSOs begin to find ways to help grassroots citizens enter the national debate by joining organisations that speak for citizens, civil society influence will be much weaker than it need be.
One other facet of current civil society thinking may need to change for CSOs to enable citizens to influence decisions that shape their lives. Citizen influence is impossible without democracy, and so the future of civil society influence depends on preserving democratic freedoms and institutions. All too often, CSOs are deeply concerned about the issue that motivates them, but not about the democracy that makes it possible for them to pursue these concerns.
Thus, attacks on grassroots social movements critical of the government — such as recent violence against Durban shack-dweller activists — are ignored by CSOs, despite the fact that they are a clear danger to citizen participation in decisions. Few CSOs are concerned enough about appointments to the judiciary and statutory human rights institutions or the vigour of Parliament, although all these issues determine whether CSOs can operate in the democratic environment they need if they are to be effective.
Just as citizen organisation is crucial to democracy, so too is democracy essential to citizen organisation. If CSOs ignore the need to defend and deepen democracy, the bleaker period some fear may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
n McKaiser is an associate of the Centre for the Study of Democracy. Prof Friedman, who led the research, is the centre’s director. The report mentioned in this article can be found at http://www.boell.org.za/.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=86545
CITIZENS’ organisations in SA may have more influence than they believe — but only if they think more strategically and try harder to represent people at the grassroots. This is the key finding of a study of civil society organisations undertaken by the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg and funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
The centre felt the study was needed as democracy is a system in which government is meant to serve citizens and respond to their needs. This is not possible unless citizens organise to tell government (and fellow citizens) what they want and need and campaign for their concerns to be acted on.
The ability of civil society organisations (CSOs) to influence law and policy is a crucial test of democracy’s health. Dramatic changes in the African National Congress’ (ANC’s) leadership at Polokwane altered the political climate and ensured CSOs were operating in a new environment. Opinion on what this means for organised citizens’ ability to influence the government, differs sharply.
For some, Polokwane was a setback for civil society, because it brought to power leaders more interested in strengthening the ANC’s hold on power than in listening to citizens. For others, it created new opportunities for citizen influence, either because the new leaders were more willing to listen than those they replaced or because the defeat of the previous leadership created a more open and fluid environment, which would be more open to citizen influence.
Civil society’s effectiveness relies largely on whether CSOs read the climate accurately. So we convened discussions among civil society activists to analyse the climate and suggest responses.
Our report analysed the discussions and suggested a way forward to ensure CSOs wield as much influence as possible on public debate and government decisions. We found CSOs, particularly those committed to human rights and social equity, largely pessimistic about life after Polokwane. Most felt the change in ANC leadership promoted a social conservatism that threatened key rights protected by the constitution. They complained of what they saw as increased pressure for loyalty to the government and ruling party, and argued government talk of a new willingness to listen was an illusion.
Interestingly, given minorities’ fears after Polokwane, probably the most optimistic participants were white Afrikaners, who felt new opportunities had opened for them. But among CSOs sharing the values that inspired the fight against apartheid, the mood was largely pessimistic.
This sense that the government is now more hostile to CSO campaigns for rights and equity is based on experience. There are legitimate fears for the future of some human rights gains enshrined in the constitution. Despite that, we believe current thinking among much of civil society ignores important opportunities for citizen influence.
Civil society seems to see as new the negative trends that have been with us for some time. CSOs have felt for years that the government only pretends to listen. They also seem to rely far too much on whether the government is well disposed to them. This prompts two strategic misreadings.
One is to ignore difference and fluidity within government. All participants agreed that there were significant differences within the new government leadership, yet this was not always seen as an opportunity. But this it surely is, as leaders who have not agreed where they want to go are likely to be more open to independent ideas. It also ignores the new government’s need to distinguish itself from the previous one, which shows itself in, for example, new attitudes to HIV/AIDS. This creates opportunities for citizen influence.
Another is a tendency to assume citizens’ organisations can influence events only if the government wants to listen to them. One reason may be that too many “progressive” CSOs wrongly have assumed former civil society colleagues now in government would be natural allies; this may have created an unwarranted dependence on the sympathy of the government.
But, as the experience of CSOs such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) shows, government sympathy is often a result, not a cause, of CSO influence; governments are more likely to listen to organisations because they have built strong support in society. This suggests CSOs should be paying far more attention to ways in which they can enhance their influence in society.
If they did, they may well find that a society in which grassroots citizens have been protesting for four years against unaccountable government, and in which their frustrations are shared by many more affluent citizens, is a climate in which opportunities for winning support — and getting the government to listen — may be far more favourable than they believe.
But this requires that CSOs pay far more attention to the key constraint on their influence, as identified by the report: their shallow roots among the poor.
While it is fashionable to complain about the declining influence of citizens’ organisations in SA, we find civil society remains diverse, vigorous and vocal — it engages regularly in public debate and wields real influence. While CSOs closest to the ANC, such as Cosatu, are most influential, the TAC has shown it is possible to remain independent of the ANC and still influence events.
But civil society is also shallow. It is the preserve of the better off and better connected as most citizens lack the resources and access to organisation to participate in CSOs. This ensures that CSOs purporting to speak for the poor often lack roots among those whose concerns they champion. This stunts their influence, and makes it harder for them to mobilise the citizen support needed to influence decisions.
The problem is not that CSOs ignore the poor: there are real obstacles to building democratic organisation at the grassroots of society. But, unless CSOs begin to find ways to help grassroots citizens enter the national debate by joining organisations that speak for citizens, civil society influence will be much weaker than it need be.
One other facet of current civil society thinking may need to change for CSOs to enable citizens to influence decisions that shape their lives. Citizen influence is impossible without democracy, and so the future of civil society influence depends on preserving democratic freedoms and institutions. All too often, CSOs are deeply concerned about the issue that motivates them, but not about the democracy that makes it possible for them to pursue these concerns.
Thus, attacks on grassroots social movements critical of the government — such as recent violence against Durban shack-dweller activists — are ignored by CSOs, despite the fact that they are a clear danger to citizen participation in decisions. Few CSOs are concerned enough about appointments to the judiciary and statutory human rights institutions or the vigour of Parliament, although all these issues determine whether CSOs can operate in the democratic environment they need if they are to be effective.
Just as citizen organisation is crucial to democracy, so too is democracy essential to citizen organisation. If CSOs ignore the need to defend and deepen democracy, the bleaker period some fear may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
n McKaiser is an associate of the Centre for the Study of Democracy. Prof Friedman, who led the research, is the centre’s director. The report mentioned in this article can be found at http://www.boell.org.za/.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=86545
Saturday, November 7, 2009
An open letter to local political parties
Dear local political parties, I turned 30 this year. When I grow up I want to be a politician. Don’t laugh. I am fully aware that growing up may well bar me from membership. I would like to join one of your ranks.
Call me naive or optimistic or both, but I believe that there may yet come a time when our — your — political culture is one that is not averse to a crop of young, interested politicos who want to openly declare a desire to lead, to be allowed to express that desire and to debate the merits and demerits of party views openly and frankly without fear of being sent into the political wilderness through the various crafty tactics you use to crush dissent.
Unfortunately, there is a massive disincentive for many of us youngish South Africans to seriously consider the honourable, or what should be honourable, business of law making and public service as career paths. Perhaps it would be useful to be party specific about my lament, since each of you contribute to that unglamorous reality in differing ways.
The African National Congress (ANC) is the worst sinner of the lot. Here is a party whose vision I endorse more than any other. I regard it as something of an ideological home. It is the most liberal party on social policy and lifestyle. While the Democratic Alliance (DA) folk running Cape Town harass sex workers, the ANC leads discussions on improving the lot of sex workers and rendering their rights to dignity, bodily integrity and economic freedom, meaningful. The ANC similarly had the most liberal attitude towards same-sex marriage, unlike the DA, which copped out by giving its MPs a cowardly free vote.
On the economic and socioeconomic fronts, I am attracted to the ANC too. Here a combination of market friendliness (thanks, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, for reducing cost of business through relaxed exchange controls) and serious investment in social projects and welfare signal a classic commitment to social democracy.
Yet the ANC’s internal political culture leaves me cold. I cannot, Comrade Jacob Zuma , imagine joining your ranks. I am bilingual, and the two languages do not include struggle-speak. That alone would cost me. I am also all too eager to debate openly and to declare support for this or that idea. I would want my right to sometimes step outside “the structures of the party” to be respected. Yet, as was the case with old Kader Asmal, violent language would follow suit, or I would be dedeployed or redeployed away from the action. I therefore cannot in good conscience join your party at this time.
DA, you do not perform much better, so it will not do to chuckle quietly at my criticism of the ANC’s organisational culture. In your case, to be fair, there is the appearance of less internal acrimony. I often wonder if this is genuine, since Madam Zille’s dominance does make one question whether the rest of the leadership has real influence — even the farmer in charge of your parliamentary team has already faded into oblivion. (Curious readers who do not recall his name will easily find it through a Google search for old articles published around election time, when said farmer gained momentary fame for being Xhosa-speaking, among other new-SA accolades.) But, even if I assumed that you have a perfect, internal democratic culture, I could still not join your ranks.
My interest in party politics is motivated by ideological conviction. Seriously. Of course, I would get a kick out of debate, public speaking and the like — any politician claiming otherwise is lying. But I could not join just any party. It must be one, like the ANC, whose vision I endorse. Alas, DA, you remain morally conservative (do not think your name or historical lineage fools me) and economically right wing. No South African with a sense of historicity and social justice intuitions could seriously be attracted to this vision for our country. So, Zille et al, while I commend your seemingly decent internal political culture, I’m afraid your ideological convictions, in their turn, leave me cold.
Since smaller parties, such as the Independent Democrats, have squabbled themselves out of political relevance, only the Congress of the People (COPE) remains as a party I might join. COPE has no vision, unfortunately, and so joining it is a bit problematic for a committed social democrat and moral liberal. Until they have an identity, and an agreeable one at that, I cannot claim to be attracted to them. It would also help, of course, if they demonstrated a preference for open contestation of ideas and leadership. Alas, they remain a grumpy Mini-Me duplicate of the ANC, taking the Mini-Me role so seriously that they resist growing up.
I look forward to the day any of you parties gives me a decisive reason to ditch the easy business of analysis for the tougher, more honourable one of law making and public service — before I turn 40.
Surprise me.
Sincerely,
Optimistically grumpy,
Eusebius “would- be-politician” McKaiser.
Call me naive or optimistic or both, but I believe that there may yet come a time when our — your — political culture is one that is not averse to a crop of young, interested politicos who want to openly declare a desire to lead, to be allowed to express that desire and to debate the merits and demerits of party views openly and frankly without fear of being sent into the political wilderness through the various crafty tactics you use to crush dissent.
Unfortunately, there is a massive disincentive for many of us youngish South Africans to seriously consider the honourable, or what should be honourable, business of law making and public service as career paths. Perhaps it would be useful to be party specific about my lament, since each of you contribute to that unglamorous reality in differing ways.
The African National Congress (ANC) is the worst sinner of the lot. Here is a party whose vision I endorse more than any other. I regard it as something of an ideological home. It is the most liberal party on social policy and lifestyle. While the Democratic Alliance (DA) folk running Cape Town harass sex workers, the ANC leads discussions on improving the lot of sex workers and rendering their rights to dignity, bodily integrity and economic freedom, meaningful. The ANC similarly had the most liberal attitude towards same-sex marriage, unlike the DA, which copped out by giving its MPs a cowardly free vote.
On the economic and socioeconomic fronts, I am attracted to the ANC too. Here a combination of market friendliness (thanks, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, for reducing cost of business through relaxed exchange controls) and serious investment in social projects and welfare signal a classic commitment to social democracy.
Yet the ANC’s internal political culture leaves me cold. I cannot, Comrade Jacob Zuma , imagine joining your ranks. I am bilingual, and the two languages do not include struggle-speak. That alone would cost me. I am also all too eager to debate openly and to declare support for this or that idea. I would want my right to sometimes step outside “the structures of the party” to be respected. Yet, as was the case with old Kader Asmal, violent language would follow suit, or I would be dedeployed or redeployed away from the action. I therefore cannot in good conscience join your party at this time.
DA, you do not perform much better, so it will not do to chuckle quietly at my criticism of the ANC’s organisational culture. In your case, to be fair, there is the appearance of less internal acrimony. I often wonder if this is genuine, since Madam Zille’s dominance does make one question whether the rest of the leadership has real influence — even the farmer in charge of your parliamentary team has already faded into oblivion. (Curious readers who do not recall his name will easily find it through a Google search for old articles published around election time, when said farmer gained momentary fame for being Xhosa-speaking, among other new-SA accolades.) But, even if I assumed that you have a perfect, internal democratic culture, I could still not join your ranks.
My interest in party politics is motivated by ideological conviction. Seriously. Of course, I would get a kick out of debate, public speaking and the like — any politician claiming otherwise is lying. But I could not join just any party. It must be one, like the ANC, whose vision I endorse. Alas, DA, you remain morally conservative (do not think your name or historical lineage fools me) and economically right wing. No South African with a sense of historicity and social justice intuitions could seriously be attracted to this vision for our country. So, Zille et al, while I commend your seemingly decent internal political culture, I’m afraid your ideological convictions, in their turn, leave me cold.
Since smaller parties, such as the Independent Democrats, have squabbled themselves out of political relevance, only the Congress of the People (COPE) remains as a party I might join. COPE has no vision, unfortunately, and so joining it is a bit problematic for a committed social democrat and moral liberal. Until they have an identity, and an agreeable one at that, I cannot claim to be attracted to them. It would also help, of course, if they demonstrated a preference for open contestation of ideas and leadership. Alas, they remain a grumpy Mini-Me duplicate of the ANC, taking the Mini-Me role so seriously that they resist growing up.
I look forward to the day any of you parties gives me a decisive reason to ditch the easy business of analysis for the tougher, more honourable one of law making and public service — before I turn 40.
Surprise me.
Sincerely,
Optimistically grumpy,
Eusebius “would- be-politician” McKaiser.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Why I just lost all respect for our deputy president...
I actually cannot believe the most pathetic defence I just heard from our deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, as to why government ministers were right to purchase a fleet of expensive cars between them even in the face of a recession. In an excellent interview conducted by Nikiwe Bikitsha on e-tv (she really has become a great anchor...), Motlanthe has just put the following argument (I kid you not):
The justification for the cars that were bought is that doing so is government's contribution to helping to halt the recession. The government was motivated, he says, by the fact that it wanted to make absolutely sure that manufacturers don't move their production plants from Uitenhage and East London to neighbouring countries. That can only happen if dealers order cars from car manufacturers. This in turn requires government to buy the cars .... so, ultimately, government is buying the cars in order to make sure that jobs are not shed in the automotive industry.
Holy cow! What warped - and no doubt insincere - reasoning.
1. A handful of luxury vehicles will not make or break the sector.
2. It is laughable to imagine that these manufacturers, like BMW, would think of hastily relocating their plants to Zim or Botswana or Namibia. This would be foolish because the cost of relocation relative to the risk of facing more volative economic conditions there, conditions that entail even more depressive demand for vehicles in these regions, make the net present value of any such investment almost certainly negative.
3. Government's failure to weigh the non-financial benefit (not to downplay the fiscal saving which is a decisive consideration at any rate) of showing citizens how to live frugally in times of a recession speaks to unimaginative and unempathetic leadership.
[Presumably that is also the reason why minister Nathi Mthwethwa decided to live in luxurious hotels - no doubt stimulating economic growth by injecting much needed cash into the tourism sector, ne?]
I find this defence by the deputy president not just unconvincing but callous. It is particularly callous when one thinks of the wording of the question on the part of the anchor, to the effect of, "Do you not think it is in bad taste to be buying such cars when the government is asking the poor to be frugal and accept austerity measures the government is introducing?"
At no stage did Motlanthe even bother to engage the salient point about the *perception* of government ministers' spending on non-essential goods even when such spending is permitted by the infamous 'ministerial handbook'. It is hard to believe that he is sincere in thinking that a million rand car is bought in the selfless name of saving the job of some poor oke living in the townships of Uitenhage and East London.
In fact, he added insult to the poor's injury by adding that they - the poor that is - would at any rate regard even a car of R200 000 as being in bad taste. [ ERGO: UHM....buy one FIVE times R200 000?!]
A good coup for Nikiwe and e-tv. A deep embarrassment for Motlanthe and a shocking reflection of political immorality even in those leaders we sometimes think are the exception to the rotten rule.
Shame on you, mr deputy president!
The justification for the cars that were bought is that doing so is government's contribution to helping to halt the recession. The government was motivated, he says, by the fact that it wanted to make absolutely sure that manufacturers don't move their production plants from Uitenhage and East London to neighbouring countries. That can only happen if dealers order cars from car manufacturers. This in turn requires government to buy the cars .... so, ultimately, government is buying the cars in order to make sure that jobs are not shed in the automotive industry.
Holy cow! What warped - and no doubt insincere - reasoning.
1. A handful of luxury vehicles will not make or break the sector.
2. It is laughable to imagine that these manufacturers, like BMW, would think of hastily relocating their plants to Zim or Botswana or Namibia. This would be foolish because the cost of relocation relative to the risk of facing more volative economic conditions there, conditions that entail even more depressive demand for vehicles in these regions, make the net present value of any such investment almost certainly negative.
3. Government's failure to weigh the non-financial benefit (not to downplay the fiscal saving which is a decisive consideration at any rate) of showing citizens how to live frugally in times of a recession speaks to unimaginative and unempathetic leadership.
[Presumably that is also the reason why minister Nathi Mthwethwa decided to live in luxurious hotels - no doubt stimulating economic growth by injecting much needed cash into the tourism sector, ne?]
I find this defence by the deputy president not just unconvincing but callous. It is particularly callous when one thinks of the wording of the question on the part of the anchor, to the effect of, "Do you not think it is in bad taste to be buying such cars when the government is asking the poor to be frugal and accept austerity measures the government is introducing?"
At no stage did Motlanthe even bother to engage the salient point about the *perception* of government ministers' spending on non-essential goods even when such spending is permitted by the infamous 'ministerial handbook'. It is hard to believe that he is sincere in thinking that a million rand car is bought in the selfless name of saving the job of some poor oke living in the townships of Uitenhage and East London.
In fact, he added insult to the poor's injury by adding that they - the poor that is - would at any rate regard even a car of R200 000 as being in bad taste. [ ERGO: UHM....buy one FIVE times R200 000?!]
A good coup for Nikiwe and e-tv. A deep embarrassment for Motlanthe and a shocking reflection of political immorality even in those leaders we sometimes think are the exception to the rotten rule.
Shame on you, mr deputy president!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Ubuntu depends on what you had for breakfast
I STILL often cheekily quote, without acknowledgement, the definition of “public morality”, given by one of my undergraduate law lecturers, as stuff that “depends on what a judge had for breakfast”. I wonder whether my lecturer also had ubuntu in mind?
Our Constitutional Court, in particular, references ubuntu with gay abandon.
This invocation of a supposedly distinctive African moral principle reveals the court’s desire to add a touch of the African to an otherwise western jurisprudential brew.
The truth is that ubuntu is a terribly opaque notion not fit as a normative moral principle that can guide our actions, let alone be a transparent and substantive basis for legal adjudication. In fact, it reminds one of the “African renaissance” motif. African renaissance is a concept similarly devoid of conceptual precision.
It is interesting to try to make sense of ubuntu and to reflect on why many of us feel compelled to render it meaningful.
Rather shamefully, it has taken an American philosopher, Thaddeus Metz who is now based at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), to force the wider South African philosophical community to invest some brain power into making sense of African ethics.
His first attempt to cut through various possible definitions, led Metz with the help of writing by folks like one Desmond Tutu of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fame, defines ubuntu roughly as follows: ubuntu means that an action performed by someone is morally right if that action constitutes a way of living harmoniously or places value on communal relationships.
These are actions, in other words, in which people identify with each other and exhibit solidarity with one another. Behaviour that lack these features are not consistent with the spirit of ubuntu.
This definition is certainly a good start. Even though it refers to actions, the emphasis is clearly on relationships. Relationships, with some exaggeration, are deemed more important than one’s selfish interests. This is also why ubuntu is often cashed out in the form of a maxim to the effect that “a person is a person through other people”.
Your identity is partly dependent on, and constituted by, relationships with others.
And, if you desire to be a moral person, your actions had better demonstrate an appreciation of the requirement that morality’s fundamental point is to value relationships.
The critical question is whether this philosophising succeeds in getting us closer to a doctrine that can be practically useful in both our personal lives and in the public space, including the tricky enterprise of legal adjudication? The most optimistic answer must be, “Not yet.”
For one thing, this definition of ubuntu does not give us a doctrine that is unique to sub-Saharan Africa. To his credit, Metz comes close to acknowledging this fact but does some fancy philosophical footwork in shifting his claim to saying that the general emphasis on relationships is more widespread in sub-Saharan Africa than it is in western societies.
But it is surely anthropologically false to imagine that notions of “love” or “friendship” are not at the core of actual relationships between folks living in London or Berlin just because a couple of western academic philosophers had written texts that prioritise detached moral principles over more complex, relationship-focused ethics.
Western doctrines such as communitarianism can reasonably be interpreted, surely, as emphasising community not only for the sake of benefiting the individual but because community bonds — that is, relationships — are intrinsically valuable.
Ubuntu still appears like some kind of synonym for at least some versions of communitarianism, despite claims to the contrary by ubuntu’s loyal friends. This means that ubuntu does not capture anything in ethics or law that does not exist elsewhere in the world.
Besides not being unique, it is also not clear that we had succeeded in stating the content of ubuntu clearly and comprehensively enough to be useful for practical purposes. As Metz argues in his most recent work, the Constitutional Court relied on at least eight different definitions of ubuntu in the case of The State vs Makwanya, in which it declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional. Each of these definitions seemed rather ad hoc. Each one, if used consistently in other areas of law, would lead to counterintuitive results.
Two examples from the list of eight will suffice to illustrate the point. One judge argued that the death penalty violates ubuntu because ubuntu requires that we respect someone else’s life at least as much as we respect our own. But this cannot be so. Presumably when we kill in self-defence, doing so is okay? It is probably also morally acceptable to intentionally kill someone to save the lives of others, in circumstances such as when the offending person is committing genocide and refusing to stop? This particular definition of ubuntu would render killing in these cases immoral.
Another judge argued that ubuntu requires that one always try to rehabilitate someone in order to restore their humanity. Again, this colourful invocation of ubuntu as an African foundation for restorative justice intuitions is laudable, but surely incorrect since it desperately marries ubuntu to rehabilitation simply to give rehabilitation a more powerful aura than it naturally might carry. This is not great legal analysis, just deceptive usage of ubuntu for ulterior (though certainly agreeable) hermeneutical purposes.
What these random and rather wide definitions of ubuntu from a landmark Constitutional Court judgment demonstrate is that the very notion of ubuntu is elusive. This does not, of course, imply that ubuntu cannot be stated clearly and more narrowly. Indeed, there seems to be admirable normative philosophical projects at both the University of SA and UJ that do just that.
So far, however, these project are still very much works in progress. Until they yield substantive results, our reference to the notion of ubuntu will continue to say more about our desire to be clearly African than about our commitment to only use words and concepts whose meaning we actually understand.
This last thought explains why some of us are desperate to render ubuntu meaningful. There is a yearning — not restricted to the Constitutional Court — to find values and principles that we can think of as “African”. This, in turn, stems from a deeper need to have an identity that is not wholly handed down from our colonial forbears.
While these motivations are understandable, it is equally important that our identity crises do not get in the way of designing laws and policies that are sensible, but which might get set aside on the spurious basis that they are w estern rather than African.
If a philosophical value is most common in Europe, and has been explained and justified as a great and useful moral principle by someone of European descent, so what? We are free to import concepts that can help improve our lot as Africans, surely? We should dismiss western concepts only if the logic for them is poor or if they will not benefit us.
It is important that we balance our yearning and search for an African identity and ethics with a prudential acceptance that many western concepts are benign and some are even useful.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85698
Our Constitutional Court, in particular, references ubuntu with gay abandon.
This invocation of a supposedly distinctive African moral principle reveals the court’s desire to add a touch of the African to an otherwise western jurisprudential brew.
The truth is that ubuntu is a terribly opaque notion not fit as a normative moral principle that can guide our actions, let alone be a transparent and substantive basis for legal adjudication. In fact, it reminds one of the “African renaissance” motif. African renaissance is a concept similarly devoid of conceptual precision.
It is interesting to try to make sense of ubuntu and to reflect on why many of us feel compelled to render it meaningful.
Rather shamefully, it has taken an American philosopher, Thaddeus Metz who is now based at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), to force the wider South African philosophical community to invest some brain power into making sense of African ethics.
His first attempt to cut through various possible definitions, led Metz with the help of writing by folks like one Desmond Tutu of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fame, defines ubuntu roughly as follows: ubuntu means that an action performed by someone is morally right if that action constitutes a way of living harmoniously or places value on communal relationships.
These are actions, in other words, in which people identify with each other and exhibit solidarity with one another. Behaviour that lack these features are not consistent with the spirit of ubuntu.
This definition is certainly a good start. Even though it refers to actions, the emphasis is clearly on relationships. Relationships, with some exaggeration, are deemed more important than one’s selfish interests. This is also why ubuntu is often cashed out in the form of a maxim to the effect that “a person is a person through other people”.
Your identity is partly dependent on, and constituted by, relationships with others.
And, if you desire to be a moral person, your actions had better demonstrate an appreciation of the requirement that morality’s fundamental point is to value relationships.
The critical question is whether this philosophising succeeds in getting us closer to a doctrine that can be practically useful in both our personal lives and in the public space, including the tricky enterprise of legal adjudication? The most optimistic answer must be, “Not yet.”
For one thing, this definition of ubuntu does not give us a doctrine that is unique to sub-Saharan Africa. To his credit, Metz comes close to acknowledging this fact but does some fancy philosophical footwork in shifting his claim to saying that the general emphasis on relationships is more widespread in sub-Saharan Africa than it is in western societies.
But it is surely anthropologically false to imagine that notions of “love” or “friendship” are not at the core of actual relationships between folks living in London or Berlin just because a couple of western academic philosophers had written texts that prioritise detached moral principles over more complex, relationship-focused ethics.
Western doctrines such as communitarianism can reasonably be interpreted, surely, as emphasising community not only for the sake of benefiting the individual but because community bonds — that is, relationships — are intrinsically valuable.
Ubuntu still appears like some kind of synonym for at least some versions of communitarianism, despite claims to the contrary by ubuntu’s loyal friends. This means that ubuntu does not capture anything in ethics or law that does not exist elsewhere in the world.
Besides not being unique, it is also not clear that we had succeeded in stating the content of ubuntu clearly and comprehensively enough to be useful for practical purposes. As Metz argues in his most recent work, the Constitutional Court relied on at least eight different definitions of ubuntu in the case of The State vs Makwanya, in which it declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional. Each of these definitions seemed rather ad hoc. Each one, if used consistently in other areas of law, would lead to counterintuitive results.
Two examples from the list of eight will suffice to illustrate the point. One judge argued that the death penalty violates ubuntu because ubuntu requires that we respect someone else’s life at least as much as we respect our own. But this cannot be so. Presumably when we kill in self-defence, doing so is okay? It is probably also morally acceptable to intentionally kill someone to save the lives of others, in circumstances such as when the offending person is committing genocide and refusing to stop? This particular definition of ubuntu would render killing in these cases immoral.
Another judge argued that ubuntu requires that one always try to rehabilitate someone in order to restore their humanity. Again, this colourful invocation of ubuntu as an African foundation for restorative justice intuitions is laudable, but surely incorrect since it desperately marries ubuntu to rehabilitation simply to give rehabilitation a more powerful aura than it naturally might carry. This is not great legal analysis, just deceptive usage of ubuntu for ulterior (though certainly agreeable) hermeneutical purposes.
What these random and rather wide definitions of ubuntu from a landmark Constitutional Court judgment demonstrate is that the very notion of ubuntu is elusive. This does not, of course, imply that ubuntu cannot be stated clearly and more narrowly. Indeed, there seems to be admirable normative philosophical projects at both the University of SA and UJ that do just that.
So far, however, these project are still very much works in progress. Until they yield substantive results, our reference to the notion of ubuntu will continue to say more about our desire to be clearly African than about our commitment to only use words and concepts whose meaning we actually understand.
This last thought explains why some of us are desperate to render ubuntu meaningful. There is a yearning — not restricted to the Constitutional Court — to find values and principles that we can think of as “African”. This, in turn, stems from a deeper need to have an identity that is not wholly handed down from our colonial forbears.
While these motivations are understandable, it is equally important that our identity crises do not get in the way of designing laws and policies that are sensible, but which might get set aside on the spurious basis that they are w estern rather than African.
If a philosophical value is most common in Europe, and has been explained and justified as a great and useful moral principle by someone of European descent, so what? We are free to import concepts that can help improve our lot as Africans, surely? We should dismiss western concepts only if the logic for them is poor or if they will not benefit us.
It is important that we balance our yearning and search for an African identity and ethics with a prudential acceptance that many western concepts are benign and some are even useful.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85698
Friday, October 30, 2009
No place for the immorality of violent polemics
POLITICAL morality should not be regarded as an oxymoron. Unfortunately, some South African politicians and their henchmen disagree. They include Kebby Maphatsoe, national chairman of Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association, Thebe Meeko, chairman of the African National Congress Youth League in the Free State, and Gwede Mantashe, African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general. These gentlemen have performed speech acts that are politically immoral. The lessons are twofold. First, it is important we hold public figures to decent ethical standards, not just legal ones. Second, there is a desperate need for the grammar of politics to change from violent struggle speak to nonviolent, rational speech.
Maphatsoe reportedly told former education minister Kader Asmal to “go to the nearest cemetery and die”. This was in response to Asmal’s very thorny criticism of the new government’s strategy for fighting crime. Opposition political parties are seizing the opportunity to put together a legal case against the military veterans, claiming that the speech amounts to hate speech. Legal pundits are joining the debate by whipping out sources of law and precedent that set out the test for hate speech.
This is not unimportant. If a law has been violated, then due punishment should be meted out. But a bigger issue might get lost in this legal fracas. It is the difference between law and political morality. Requirements of morality are often different to those of law. Not all that is morally desirable can or should be legally enforced. Not all that is legally permissible is morally permissible. A discretionary rule may let you buy a luxury car, but doing so might still not be morally acceptable at a given time. Morality, in a sense, is more fundamental than legal precepts.
There are two senses in which politicians need to act morally. They should behave morally in the same sense in which us ordinary mortals should: do not cheat, try to treat other people with due respect, etc. In addition, they need to act with a sense of political morality, which refers to ethical rules designed to guide the behaviour of those wielding public power. These rules derive from our collective desire to ensure that public space conduces to fair political dialogue and responsive government.
One rule is that public officials should not utter speech that can reasonably be construed as violent. Another is that they should not express speech that is intolerant of disagreement. Maphatsoe’s speech violates these rules. It both expresses and constitutes violent intolerance of Asmal’s right to engage in political discourse. That makes it politically immoral regardless of whether or not a legal case of intimidation or hate speech could be successfully argued in an equality court. The legal debate is a moral red herring.
Mantashe half-heartedly conceded that Asmal had a right to engage the ANC, but ended his speech with the perplexing and somewhat incoherent warning that “in taking on issues, self-destruction can bleed you to death”. To be fair, this is too vague to constitute a clear expression of violent intolerance, but it does have a sinister ring to it which, coupled with delivery in Mantashe’s trademark cough mixture-averse voice and tone, amounts to speech that is politically immoral quite apart from mundane questions of legality.
Meeko, too, uttered violent speech when he reportedly said of the new rector of the University of the Free State (UFS), Prof Jonathan Jansen, that he should be “shot and killed”. He denies this now, claiming to have said that “racism should be killed”. Both of these phrases are politically immoral. The first is a clear incitement to kill the new rector. The second constitutes violent grammar, which is particularly macabre in the context of a volatile race debate playing out at UFS. Meeko has no sense of political morality.
Sadly these examples are typical of political discourse in contemporary SA, and so cannot be wished away as exceptional. One source of this political immorality is the inheritance of a grammar of violence from the heyday of the liberation struggle. But in a liberal democracy we should develop, promote and cherish deliberative politics rather than violent intolerance. One starting point is to eliminate physical violence between political groups. We have largely done that. The next step is to substitute the grammar of violence with reasoned debate. This is desirable not just because political courtesy is nice but more importantly because violent grammar begets political violence.
These changes in political language require party leaders who understand the requirements of political morality and can show how to respectfully engage opponents inside and outside one’s political home. Only time will tell whether our political leaders are up to the challenge . The deepening of our teenage democracy requires them to be.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85493
Maphatsoe reportedly told former education minister Kader Asmal to “go to the nearest cemetery and die”. This was in response to Asmal’s very thorny criticism of the new government’s strategy for fighting crime. Opposition political parties are seizing the opportunity to put together a legal case against the military veterans, claiming that the speech amounts to hate speech. Legal pundits are joining the debate by whipping out sources of law and precedent that set out the test for hate speech.
This is not unimportant. If a law has been violated, then due punishment should be meted out. But a bigger issue might get lost in this legal fracas. It is the difference between law and political morality. Requirements of morality are often different to those of law. Not all that is morally desirable can or should be legally enforced. Not all that is legally permissible is morally permissible. A discretionary rule may let you buy a luxury car, but doing so might still not be morally acceptable at a given time. Morality, in a sense, is more fundamental than legal precepts.
There are two senses in which politicians need to act morally. They should behave morally in the same sense in which us ordinary mortals should: do not cheat, try to treat other people with due respect, etc. In addition, they need to act with a sense of political morality, which refers to ethical rules designed to guide the behaviour of those wielding public power. These rules derive from our collective desire to ensure that public space conduces to fair political dialogue and responsive government.
One rule is that public officials should not utter speech that can reasonably be construed as violent. Another is that they should not express speech that is intolerant of disagreement. Maphatsoe’s speech violates these rules. It both expresses and constitutes violent intolerance of Asmal’s right to engage in political discourse. That makes it politically immoral regardless of whether or not a legal case of intimidation or hate speech could be successfully argued in an equality court. The legal debate is a moral red herring.
Mantashe half-heartedly conceded that Asmal had a right to engage the ANC, but ended his speech with the perplexing and somewhat incoherent warning that “in taking on issues, self-destruction can bleed you to death”. To be fair, this is too vague to constitute a clear expression of violent intolerance, but it does have a sinister ring to it which, coupled with delivery in Mantashe’s trademark cough mixture-averse voice and tone, amounts to speech that is politically immoral quite apart from mundane questions of legality.
Meeko, too, uttered violent speech when he reportedly said of the new rector of the University of the Free State (UFS), Prof Jonathan Jansen, that he should be “shot and killed”. He denies this now, claiming to have said that “racism should be killed”. Both of these phrases are politically immoral. The first is a clear incitement to kill the new rector. The second constitutes violent grammar, which is particularly macabre in the context of a volatile race debate playing out at UFS. Meeko has no sense of political morality.
Sadly these examples are typical of political discourse in contemporary SA, and so cannot be wished away as exceptional. One source of this political immorality is the inheritance of a grammar of violence from the heyday of the liberation struggle. But in a liberal democracy we should develop, promote and cherish deliberative politics rather than violent intolerance. One starting point is to eliminate physical violence between political groups. We have largely done that. The next step is to substitute the grammar of violence with reasoned debate. This is desirable not just because political courtesy is nice but more importantly because violent grammar begets political violence.
These changes in political language require party leaders who understand the requirements of political morality and can show how to respectfully engage opponents inside and outside one’s political home. Only time will tell whether our political leaders are up to the challenge . The deepening of our teenage democracy requires them to be.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85493
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