FASCIST THREATS IN RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF ZUMA

With the exception of The City Press and "Politicsweb", the media have joined the ANC/SACP mob in waging a massive assault on the integrity of the DA by targeting Helen Zille. She is being depicted as an ingrate and a spoiler to spurn the hand of friendship offered by Jacob Zuma.

Zuma's offer of friendship:

People have short memories. Remember how Zuma gushed all over Mbeki after defeating him at Polokwane..."MY LEADER, MY BROTHER!" and then promptly unleashes a bloody purge of Mbeki-ites. He could not even wait for Mbeki's term as president to expiry in 8 months before he had him thrown out.

The lesson is: Beware of Zuma's offer of friendship!

The olive branch offered would have made sense if the persons and parties to whom it was offered had been guilty of serious transgressions or of wrongs against Zuma, one would understand the sense of forgiveness and reconciliation contained. But in this case it is the other way round. It is Zuma who has been accused of having committed serious wrongs against society, against the constitution and the law. The offer of the olive branch comes from the arch transgressor. The meaning of the offer is clear. It says: Here is the olive branch. It is my offer of friendship.

• Do not spurn it by making reference to the 783 criminal counts the NPA had charged me with.
• By the same token refrain from mentioning my attitude to:
• Women
• Sex with a woman who called me "Father"
• The efficacy of a shower against HIV/AIDS infection
• Homosexual men
• Do not mention my involvement with Schabir Shaik
• Do not make reference to the suspicion that I was responsible for Shaik's very early release from Prison
• Make no reference to the fact that I am incapable of managing my personal finances let alone the affairs of the most developed country in Africa.
• Kindly refrain from pursuing the Supreme Court action which seeks a review of the decision by the NPA to drop, not one, but all 783 charges against me.

To put it differently, the offer of friendship was a request to all interested parties, especially the Opposition parties to expunge all reference to Zuma's previous transgressions.

Let it be TABULA RASA.

In all this there is not even the slightest hint ON Zuma's part

of a quid pro quo to do soul searching and engage in self reformation.

WAS ZILLE'S CRITICISM OF ZUMA A PERSONAL ATTACK?

1. When a person enters the public domain as a principal actor, there is very little of the "personal" left. A public figure's life has to be an open book. The public is entitled to know everything, past and present, about him. It is only way the public can judge him. It also seeks to put the public figure on his/her toes about proper conduct and behaviour both in public and private.

2. It is in this context one must understand the deep humiliation former president of the US , Bill Clinton had to undergo because of his propensity to behave improperly towards women in general and those who worked with him in particular. Ms Paula Johnson, an employee, became richer by what in South African terms today would be about R72 million. Ms Monica Lewinsky caused Clinton to be impeached! Clinton's involvement with these women was done in private and on the face of it nothing to do with politics. Yet Clinton's conduct was subjected to full public scrutiny and the media fed on Clinton to a point of surfeit!

3. It must be remembered that Helen Zille did not get up one fine morning and say: "Today I am going to take a swipe at Zuma by mentioning his past indiscretions." It was the ANC which started the whole thing. It accused Zille of having an all male cabinet and thereby accused her of discriminating against women. In a retaliatory letter Zille made mention of the double standards practised by the ANC when they did not say a word when Zuma put his wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman. Nor did the ANC come out in defence of the complainant when enraged mobs made violent threats against her.

In a debate it is perfectly permissible to accuse an opponent of inconsistency and practising double standards.

In this instance, where the attack involves conduct which impinges on a raging pandemic which is killing millions of people, it cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered as personal!

It is public and political through and through!

The immediate follow-up question is: Was it a wise way of responding? In other words was the manner of responding a tactically correct decision? The answers to these questions has little to do with the correctness or otherwise of the substance of the respond. Substance-wise the respond is valid but Zille herself now feels that she may have erred. Well, that was her decision and she bore the consequences.

WHAT IS SOUTH AFRICA'S PRIORITY NUMBER ONE - GENDER REPRESENTATIVITY IN PUBLIC BODIES OR BASIC SERVICE DELIVERY?

1. There was a time when a matter of greatest importance was referred to a PRIORITY. There it rested.

2. But when there is turbulence in society giving rise to a large number of serious problems, all crying out to be solved as a matter of urgency, you then have a string of priorities. Even among those priorities there is usually one which requires the most immediate attention. That is called PRIORITY NUMBER ONE!

3. South Africa has emerged from centuries of oppression and exploitation. At every turn the oppressed and marginalized require reform and remedy. Of all the aspects which require alleviation and reform, PRIORITY NUMBER ONE is SERVICE DELIVERY! This service refers primarily to satisfaction of physical needs - housing, food, medical care, health, protection from criminals, protection against the elements (rain, cold, rain heat), employment, potable water, affordable electricity, transport to and from place of work. Add to that the need for decent and free education and proper care and treatment of the mentally ill.

4. One of the key promises or threats by the DA (depends on how it is looked at) was to make the governing of the Western Cape a success by ensuring effective service delivery. There is no such thing as government for the sake of government and most certainly not a government to enrich the elite and the corrupt. Its reason for existence is to provide proper service delivery of those needs referred to above.

5. To ensure that the priority number one, viz., service delivery is successful, you need to get the best people for the job. Bear in mind that gender parity on the level of representivity though a priority is NOT priority Number One! Where is the sense of having FIVE women members out of a cabinet of ten when those women do not know the work they are appointed to do or where they engage in dishonest practices resulting in a massive failure of service delivery. The gender parity has been achieved but the priority number one has been sacrificed.

6. The ideal would have been to have gender parity AND service delivery. But the reader must bear in mind that skills in South Africa is determined both by race and gender. By and large industrial, commercial and managerial skills lay with the whites. Because of the existence of a patriarchal social system, women have been marginlised and the pool of managerial, commercial and industrial skill amongst the female section of the population has been very small, even smaller when it came to black females.

7. Helen Zille is not a patriarch. What possible aim can she have in excluding qualified women from the cabinet? While in the final analysis the decision as to choice is hers as premier, we know that there is a democratic process at work which ultimately makes the decision a collective one. The choice was made by the DA not just Zille.

THE INDECENT HASTE TO ACCEPT TABULA RASA FOR ZUMA

1. Whether it is fatigue from uninterrupted political strife or from spinelessness, many political players - newspaper editors, politicians, journalists and political commentators- rose to a man/woman to give Zuma a standing ovation for his offer of friendship and forgiveness. That man, according to them, was interested in peace and progress and the hint was to refrain mentioning his transgressions. One got a whiff of that in the Sunday Times editorial; one got it from Dave Dalling and from Michael Worsnip. The meaning was clear. If you make mention of those transgressions, you will in fact be spurning the hand of friendship held out by Zuma.

2. The message was unmistakable. Forget about Zuma's past. Don't provoke him. Don't give him cause to unleash the mobs of Zuma supporters to cause chaos and mayhem in this country.

3. In effect the nation was being blackmailed into silence and forced amnesia on the subject matter of Zuma's transgressions.

REACTIONS TO ZILLE'S ATTACK ON ZUMA

For the kind of allegations made by Zille about Zuma's past misconduct, the reaction was grotesquely out of proportion. Firstly, those allegations were not made for the first time. When the contents of the allegations were first made public, a mountain of imprecations and calumny were poured on Zuma's head - from the judge who found him not guilty of rape and all the leading newspapers of country.

We commend the reader to the well researched and referenced article written by Gareth van Onselen on this matter (see here).

Compared to what was said then, Zille's remarks are mild and matter of fact.

So what changed?

Zuma is now president of South Africa and there is a growing demand by his supporters that Zuma must not be criticised!

1. The ANCYL predictable issued a torrent of vile abuse against Zille. Totally untrue and highly defamatory.

2. The worthless MK Veterans Association which to the best of writer's knowledge did not fire a single shot against the oppressors when they were not veterans, have now threatened to render the Western Cape ungovernable.

3. The good Shepherd Mdadlana with his typical brainless malice called Zille a witch in a country where those accused of being witches are usually burnt alive.

4. Gwede Mantashe, with no track record of active militant political involvement, but with an impressive list of appointments in the corporate world, called Zille an "enemy." For Stalinists, "enemy" meant having a compulsory appointment with the firing squad!

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE REACTIONS

1. The ANC has publicly criticised the ANCYL's remarks against Zille as "deeply embarrassing." What strange choice of words! Why "embarrassing"? Why not "outrageous"? We believe that the ANC was embarrassed because of the low level of formulation of the abuse which brought the ANC family into disrepute.

2. By their silence on the contents of the abuse, the ANC can be said to have accepted what the ANCYL stated.

When a military formation like the MKVA threatens to make a region ungovernable and thereby denies the DA the right to govern, that conduct in a democracy would be considered as an act of High Treason. The opposition parties complaint that had the threat of ungovernability been made by any of the opposition parties, there would been swift retaliation by the State.

4. We have had occasion in the past of drawing the attention of the reader of the emergence of fascistic conduct by components of the ANC alliance. That conduct is a favourite resort whenever the ANC or its partners are painted in to a corner. WE are seeing it once again.

5. Knowing the manner in which the ANC/SACP functions, it is most unlikely that the ANCYL and the MKVA would have hurled the abuse or made the threats of ungovernability without the authorization of the ANC as part of a carefully orchestrated counter attack.

The ANC had no answer to a tit for tat encounter. Zille is accused of having an all male cabinet, thereby discriminating against women. Zille retorts by reminding the ANC how its own president had endangered the health of his various wives.

That retort was considered as an insult to President Zuma despite the truth of the allegation. The ANC through its minions engaged in a vile and abuse-laden counter-attack known to the whole world as a pack of lies and worthy of the heaviest censure. To do that however would mean tilting the scales of justice in Zille's favour. According to them, Zille must at no cost be allowed to escape condemnation. The Saturday Star then chose to condemn both sides - the ANC camp as well as Zille by calling the exchange "SA's dirtiest gutter fight"

Calling the reaction of the ANC camp as a "gutter fight" is justifiable. But how do they justify labeling Zille's reaction (In an exchange and being factual and truthful) as gutter fight?

There was no justification whatsoever. The fact of the matter is that the Saturday Star by calling the altercation "SA's Dirtiest Gutter Fight" descended to the gutter to keep the ANC camp company!

The Human Rights Commission also sought to get a streak of glory by entering the fray and called the altercation a "circus." That is an unfortunate choice of phrase since for years now that is precisely what the public called the HRC. Remember how Malema and Vavi ran tricks round the HRC when they had publicly made threats to "kill for Zuma."

It is hardly a circus to:

• Call a person a "witch"
• Describe a person as the "enemy"
• To defame (the essence of which is falsehood) by accusing her infidelity and of engaging in a polyandrous relationship
• To accuse a person of being a whore.

Mr Kollapen must have a sick sense of humour if he finds these allegations funny and humorous which is what a circus is supposed to be.

There is nothing but deep shame that a chapter 9 institution which exists to defend human rights should react in this manner.

If the HRC cannot perform its function, the least it can do is to properly account for the 10 million pounds given to it by donors.

To ignore the abuse of the ANCYL and the MK crowd and not dignify it with a response is one way of dealing with the matter.

The other way is to follow the route of the brave and highly principled Professor Margaret Orr.

1, During 2002 Professor Orr then from UNISA was being pursued and sexually harassed by an Advocate McCaps Motimele, who had burrowed his way to the Chairmanship of the University Council

2. After Professor Orr successfully resisted Motimele's various crude endeavours, he organised a students' demonstration which, inter alia, targeted Professor Orr. There was at least one placard which read;

"Professor Orr - Racist Bitch"

3. Professor Orr had had enough. She resigned her post from Unisa; was snatched by Wits.

4. She then sued Mr Advocate Motimele for damages.

5. In a sad but moving account Professor Orr gave an account of her travails at the hands of the Chairman of the University Council.

6. Motimele was thoroughly punished by the trial. UNISA refused to pay his legal costs.

7. In addition to his own legal costs and those of Professor Orr (believed to be about R400 000), he had to pay R150 000 as damages.

8. Professor Orr donated her award to a trust to provide scholarships to deserving students.

9. It is a lesson that Mr Advocate McCaps Motimele is not likely to forget for the remaining years of his life.

Conclusion: Is there a lesson to be learnt here?

This article first appeared in "Apdusa Views" No 95 June 2009

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