days, a Member of the Executive Council (MEC) in one province shrugs off an unaccounted expenditure of R750 million, of which R450 million purportedly disappeared in the procurement tender system, and then, in a different province, 53 teachers are dismissed for fake qualifications that cost the department R14.5 million in inflated salaries;
• in the space of two years, a national commissioner of police is jailed for corruption, and his successor, suspended for mismanagement, with suspected corruption;
• in one fell swoop, two national ministers are fired, one for corruption and the other for mismanagement, with suspected corruption;
• a province is placed under administration after running down its annual budget in the midst of alleged gross corruption in the tender system;
• in another province, the national department of education steps in because the provincial department is about to bring the entire system to the ground; and
• a commission of enquiry is appointed to investigate alleged corruption in the procurement of arms for the national defence force.
• at the time of going to print parliament is embroiled in controversy over an expenditure of over R200 million on purported security improvements to the private residence of the state president in Nkandla. The South African state president has two official residences, one in Pretoria and one in Cape Town. What confounds the nation is that the Department of Public Works which is responsible for the construction refuses to provide detail claiming that the state president’s private residence is a national key point and that releasing detail would constitute a security risk.
In the words of Hamlet, all is not well in the state of Denmark.
And the incidents cited are typical day-to-day events, as reported in the media. This deluge of negative reporting about the moral health of our nation was punctuated by a wave of patriotism during the FIFA World Cup tournament from the 11th of June to the 11th of July 2010. No sooner had the international contingent boarded the last flight out, than corruption, nepotism, and cronyism in Government and avarice and profligacy among the political elite were dominating news headlines as before. Indeed, there is a disconnect between those in political office and the general citizenry, a disconnect which, arises from a politics which “lacks the animating vision of the good society, and of the shared values of citizenship.”1
Some in Government and some analysts have complained about negative reporting. The Access to Information Bill together with the envisaged Media Tribunal are seen in some quarters as official attempts to muzzle the media and prevent the publication of negative activities by politicians and government officials, while government feels the media – especially the print media – often exceed their ethical bounds. However, as the amaXhosa say, “ayinuki ingosiwe” (literally translated, “meat does not smell unless roasted”); the English equivalent is, “there is no smoke without fire”. Indeed, research shows – and government itself, with the African National Congress (ANC) as the governing party, admits openly – that corruption and mismanagement afflict Government and the country at large. And as our leaders, the Government bears the brunt for the good and bad that happens. This book, therefore, addresses the present political leadership and South Africans in general on the problem of the moral issues that tarnish our democracy and threaten to demolish the achievements of 1994 and destroy the future of our children.
This book is not intended as a lamentation over the ills of the children of liberation. However, it invites the inheritors of ubuntu, Christian social teaching, the Koran, Buddhism and other major religious and philosophical traditions to come together and reflect on their moral and civic duties. We should all retrace the journey from Kliptown and before and in the process realise the extent of the alienation that we have collectively caused through errors of commission and omission. Much resentment prevails, resentment that the liberation movement has betrayed us. The dream is deferred. A better life for all has translated into a better life for the political and bureaucratic elite. We eat in a descending hierarchical order and those at the bottom have to contend with empty pots.
The book takes us on a journey around a future museum of the first nineteen years of post-liberation moral history. When tragedy strikes, the good is often interred with history and only the evil of men and women lives on. My hope and purpose in writing this book is that the tragedy can yet be averted. Without that hope, it serves no purpose. The ANC of the founding fathers and mothers is a beloved moral beacon to South Africans. Naturally, it takes resolve and conviction to be critical of your own beloved moral beacon. But we dare not muddy this paragon of liberation with filthy feet, and we dare not present ourselves before the sacred ancestry with perfume to mask the stench.
Finally, a country’s human rights record is not judged by the GDP per capita that it generates nor by conspicuous consumption, but rather by the absence of beggars in the streets.
Introduction
A guide to this book
THIS BOOK examines the tension between justice and democracy in South Africa’s transition. From the French revolution to almost all subsequent transitions, ‘revolutionary’ or otherwise, societies have upheld three principles as pivotal to democracy: liberty, equality and fraternity. Liberty refers to the freedom to be human, and to act within specific constraints. In other words, we are free on condition that we recognise and respect the freedom of others. Equality refers to equal treatment of all. In nature and in life, the distribution of natural endowments is arbitrary, i.e. there is no natural law that prescribes equal attributes – physical, intellectual and motivational – so society calls for equality of opportunity as an expression of the principle of equality. In human rights terms, fraternity recognises the freedom to belong, to form and join organisations, fraternities and movements of your choice. However, in moral philosophy, fraternity goes beyond the instrumental social formations and encompasses spiritual aspects of being such as empathy expressed in organic solidarity and the willingness to engage in activities involving mutual benefits and reciprocal relationships. It is critical for democracy that the recognition of these three pillars stems not only from the provisions of a constitution, which is often a negotiated document, but from a concept of justice reflected in the moral conscience of the nation. The rationale is simple. Like all human provisions, constitutions may, and usually do, reflect the power relations operating at a given point and time. So it is necessary for justice to take eminence, providing the gold standard for assessing all values including the three pillars of democracy.
A close analysis of the South African transition shows that, despite the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, there are problems with equality. Our public representatives (both elected and appointed) have engaged with the principle of equality more in the breach than in the observance. Empirical evidence shows that inequalities do not only exist materially, but legally. Surprisingly, the same observations characterised apartheid and, therefore, predate the transition. Which begs the question: what was the struggle to end apartheid for? I was once part of a serious conversation between Peter Berger, an eminent sociologist from Boston, and Fatima Meer, a political activist and an incisive sociologist in her own right. Berger posited poverty as a cause for popular disaffection and probably rebellion. “It is not poverty per se” retorted Meer. “When everyone is poor, people live peacefully side by side. It is when poverty is juxtaposed to wealth that the poor riot.” Nineteen years into democracy, South Africa’s Gini-coefficient – a measure of material inequalities between rich and poor – is at its highest level. While South Africa has historically been a country of mansions and shacks, the post-apartheid persistence of the same inequalities calls for deep introspection.
The most often pronounced term in South Africa is “human rights.” There is seldom if ever any mention of “obligations.” The approach of this book is that a human rights-based conception of democracy without the corresponding obligations could become problematic when pitted against the principles of
