for often failing to distinguish between his role as a secular head of a state institution, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and as a priest, he should be respected and lauded for never reneging on his calling. Boesak strayed and refuses to take responsibility for his actions. What’s more, he gets support from key people in society whose rise to power have equally blinded them to what is right and what is wrong.
Boesak deserved the sentence meted out to him because he stole from the poor to enrich himself. Analogies with the sentence meted out to Angelina Zwane’s killer are opportunistic at best. When Freddie Steenkamp was jailed for six years for a similar offence, there was not a peep of support from politicians and sympathisers. No, because he was the skelm, not Boesak, and he was responsible for Boesak’s downfall.
But now that Judge Foxcroft has proven otherwise, the analogy is expediently used in the media to urge the transformation of the judiciary. So the judge becomes the villain, and is implied to be racist, an instrument of the untransformed judiciary.
The judiciary is there precisely to guard against public pressure and mob justice. All who are found guilty of crime should be treated fairly, a basic tenet of the constitution. Justice is no respecter of title, and one’s struggle credentials should in no way exonerate one from the application of the law.
To suggest Boesak is the ‘fall guy’ is to deny his own agency in his downfall. To link his sentence with Cassinga, Lusaka, Gaborone, Sharpeville, etcetera, and amnesty for murderers and political criminals, is to miss the point and blame the judiciary for the political compromise made at the World Trade Centre.
It is precisely because of the amnesty provision that it is incumbent upon us, especially on human rights activists, to uphold the rule of law and to seek its enforcement equitably.
Esack fails dismally in trying to make a case for Boesak by invoking inappropriate analogies. In this exercise he deliberately suspends his logic for reasons that are understandable, but totally unacceptable.
Boesak is not the first great man who has fallen. The great king David also did, but he said, ‘Woe is me for I have sinned.’
Boesak seems to have forgotten Christ’s warning that what you sow you shall reap. Hopefully he will ruminate upon these words during his quiet times in prison. Or perhaps, by some stroke of political manoeuvring, incarceration might escape him too. This, I fear, is the intention of Esack’s article.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
