The link between the lavish refurbishment of President Zuma's Nkandla homestead with its bunker and the passing of the Protection of State Information Bill and Cabinet's threat to transform the Judiciary should not be under-estimated. It is a portent of things to come.
The building of the bunker should not be our only worry, but its link to underground tunnels that connect it directly to a helipad, should fill us with horror. Political rulers, with life-long ambitions to stay in power, build bunkers. Ditto Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe and many dictators who have gone before. But dictators never learn. Hussein was found hidden in a hole, looking like a frightened rat. Gaddafi's maze of tunnels did not help either; he met his end in a sewer pipe! Should we prepare ourselves for more draconian rule in future? And, is government alone to blame for where we are today?
Newspaper editors have made a great hullabaloo about this Bill, have joined activists into Parliament, yet they have remained relatively passive about the SABC, our public broadcaster about which a dossier of scandals exist. They were worried about the appointment of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, but their concern did not end in Parliament. And the question is why?
The media acts when its own interests are threatened. When Ferial Haffajee, laments the passing of this Bill (City Press 27 November) claiming naively to have acquired her democratic training from the ANC, it is precisely this lack of political autonomy that makes her despair.
"And so, as I hung onto Parliament's balconies on Tuesday, watching the people who personify the era of openness and freedom for me press the "yes" button to vote to pass the first stage of the secrecy bill, I was deeply sad."
The ANC long ago ceased to personify these values. If anything the R69 to R400 million allegedly spent by Zuma on the expansion of his homestead, signifies the worst of conspicuous consumption and how much the ANC disrespects the poor. Widespread corruption and theft of state tenders have become the hallmark of governance in eight of the provinces under its rule.
When the Slabbert Report on our flawed Electoral System was dumped by President Mbeki that was the time when activists needed to march. The Proportional Representative electoral system is at the heart of the decline of our democracy. Any Party that declares it will govern "until Jesus comes" will mount an attack on the very pillars of constitutional democracy and the ANC has consistently done so with its control of all the levers of power.
The first step is to weaken Parliament. The ANC MPs who are there today, few of us know. They are there for the money and most are mostly asleep. The next is to weaken and discredit loyal Opposition. Tony Leon and Helen Zille have had to endure their fare share of acrimony from both the media and the ANC. That is not to say they are perfect but media attacks have often been racialised and unjustified. Here the media, especially of the English liberal and left establishments, have played a significant role.
The second target is the Judiciary and the Judicial Services Commission. With its henchman Dumisa Ntsebeza, it has fulfilled its role with Machiavellian precision. Under the pretext of transformation the judiciary has been considerably weakened and it has become embroiled in constant lawsuits of its own members against each other. Judge Hlophe is still Judge President of the Western Cape despite all his misdemeanours; Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng is an affirmative action disaster; and Judge Motata wants to return to work.
Disempowering democracy also includes the weakening of civil society. Much of its emasculation has been caused by civil society itself through self-censorship, the tyranny of political correctness, the tyranny of the LEFT, and political partisanship. In some instances the state was directly involved in blacklisting social commentators who criticise government, rewarding those with vested interests, promoting cronyism and the formation of the Native Club.
Lastly, all tyrannical governments assault the media through legislation as we have just witnessed, through the persecution of targeted journalists, and through withholding information. Our Public Broadcaster, the SABC, today is worse than it has ever been under apartheid. It has siphoned off millions of Rand through nefarious deal-making, yet activists have remained mute unlike with the print media. The question is, why?
This article was published with the assistance of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF). The views presented in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FNF.
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