In his Monday Morning Matters column in The Times this week - headed "Why should civil society shut up? Paralysed by fear of 'right-wing' liberals under every bed" - Justice Malala identified one of the most pervasive swearwords in current South African ideological discourse: the word "liberal". He placed his focus on the deputy general secretary of the South African Communist Party (and deputy Transport Minister), Jeremy Cronin.

The use of this word "liberal" as an attack weapon - by Cronin and many others - needs some further quiet investigation.

First, let us look at a sample of world political leaders during the historical lifespan of Jeremy Cronin's party from the time of its formation in 1921, who might by no stretch of imagination be described as "liberal".

Adolf Hitler.
Joseph Stalin.
Vladimir Lenin.
Pol Pot.
Benito Mussolini.
Mao Zedong.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Idi Amin Dada.
Kim Il-sung.

It's just a short-list. But it's noticeable that Jeremy Cronin's party was a very enthusiastic supporter of at least six of these ten political leaders at one or time or another, while for nearly two years (between September 1939 and July 1941) it supported the Pact between Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin which permitted Hitler to begin his wipe-out of the Jews of western Poland and invade Belgium, Holland, France, Denmark and Norway, as well as launch the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, while Stalin to his east massacred the Polish officer corps in his own death camps at Katyn and elsewhere.

This helps clarify where the attack on the word "liberal" might be coming from, and the nature of its intent.

What is also noticeable is that the Constitution of 1994 of the Republic of South Africa would have been unacceptable to the political leaders listed above, in its spirit and also in its letter. The Gukurahundi genocidal massacre of the amaNdebele in Zimbabwe by Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his Zanu party between 1983 and 1987 would have been permissible to a Pol Pot, or a Stalin, or a Hitler, but it is not acceptable in South Africa under its Constitution. In that sense, South Africa has a "liberal" Constitution, and defence of the Constitution is a defence of its "liberal" character.

This is interesting, because between 1953 and 1968 South Africa did have a Liberal Party, which has almost vanished from the historical memory. To the best of my knowledge, not a single political party now currently active in South Africa clearly and unambiguously traces its heritage to this vanished party.

In those years, of course, the word "liberal" was a swearword for the regime of that time and its supporters, just as it is today; and for similar reasons.

Strangely enough, for a party that proclaimed the swearword "liberal" in its own name, and which advocated universal franchise, there are appallingly few books about it and not one that makes a proper study of its demise. There is not one single accessible biography of H Selby Msimang (1886-1982): founder member of the Native National Congress in 1912, co-founder of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) with Clements Kadalie in 1919, subsequent secretary general of the African National Congress and a National Committee member of the South African Liberal Party from its inaugural party meeting to its final gathering.

A country without an adequate history of its past can only lack a compass in stormy times.

 Yet the two crucial features of this party remain of vital significance. They were, in its own words:

 * a rejection of "all forms of totalitarianism such as communism and fascism"; and

* to achieve the "responsible participation of all South Africans in government and the democratic processes of the country, and to this end to extend the right of franchise on the common roll to all adult persons." (Randolph Vigne, Liberals Against Apartheid: A History of the Liberal Party of South Africa, 1953-68, Macmillan, London/St Martin's Press, New York, 1997. pp.35-35)

In that sense, this vanished party was the ghost at the feast at the first democratic elections in 1994, and at all subsequent elections, since out of all South African political currents it was solely the opposition to "all forms of totalitarianism" of the Liberal Party that steered a path between the race dictatorship of the old regime and the rival model of the Soviet dictatorship, to which the ANC was wedded in exile, and to which the party of Jeremy Cronin remains wedded to this day.

That is enough reason for "liberal" to remain a swearword, in the mouths of the apostles of another creed.

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