The ANC seems hell-bent upon rendering parliament an irrelevant institution. As a political correspondent in the 1980s I was supposed to report on parliament, but most of my energy and time were spent on extra-parliamentary politics, where the real political action was.
I wholeheartedly agreed with Van Zyl Slabbert when he resigned from parliament in 1986. It was a talk shop, a sideshow. It had little influence over PW Botha, his cabinet and the all-powerful State Security Council. They all regarded parliament as an unavoidable nuisance.
We're almost back there. But there's a big difference. In 1986 parliament was an apartheid institution in which the majority of citizens had no say. Today it is supposed to be a true People's Parliament, because we have a proper democracy now.
But the real action is at Luthuli House, Cosatu House, SACP Headquarters, Nkandla, the Gupta compound in Saxonwold and the Union Buildings - and at the offices of activist groups like Section 27, the R2Know Campaign, Equal Education and Corruption Watch.
I'm not knocking good, hard-working members of the opposition in parliament who are fighting a gallant battle against draconian legislation and government incompetence and excesses. They need to soldier on, especially in the portfolio committees; parliament remains a "site of struggle" for a better democracy.
Parliament is where we citizens turn our attention to when matters of grave national importance come before us. Like sending our soldiers to die in a foreign land. Like a serious threat to our national pride, our security and our sovereignty. That's when we want the people whom we had elected as our representatives to speak on our behalf in our parliament.