[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Brutus on Democracy Now

[Mojalefa Murphy]

In his Sunday appearance on the Al Jazeera Egnlish TV service, MP Giyose,
Jubilee South Africa's Chairperson pointed out that  the departure of TM,
was unlikely to heal the ills of the embattled ruling party as we have been
made to believe. The veiled revenge of TM1 and his allies in the Cabinet
through ConCourt action and mass resignations suggest that MP was spot on.

MP's analysis rests on the simple fact that the concrete conditions that
caused the deep divisions between the factions that back the vying TM1 and
JZ still remain without a solution.

The one causal condition is ANC's commitment to the inherently corrupt
neoliberal economic policies that put big business interests before those of
the majority electorate. In view of the absence of checks and balances owing
to the weakness of the permissive constitutional institutions, which are
dominantly staffed by by the ruling party loyalists and the majority of the
civil society whore are poor and voiceless, the abuse of power and public
resources in boosting party coffers, self-enrichment and settling scores
with internal or external dissenters of the past 14 years is not likely to
change.

The other cause of the deep divisions is the apparent lack of agreement
within the influential circles across the ANC divide on how to manage the
scandals of corruption that are becoming a source of great concern to the
majority of the electorate. This electorate is largely the poor who continue
to be mobilized by the burgeoning social movement to demand the development
infrastructure and adequate access to basic social services including
housing, healthcare, education and personal security. It is reported that
last year alone, more than 10 000 protests related to the deficiency of the
service delivery were undertaken by the social movements across the country.


 Both MP Giyose and Dennis Brutus imply that the poor, who are the workers
and vast numbers of unemployed without access to land to grow their own
food, will be very disappointed if they expect a relief from the change of
guard that is dramatically taking place within the ANC. JZ's express
assurances to big business that the ANC economic policies that are anti-poor
wont change, illustrates the extent of ANC's commitment to neoliberalism
that has been demonstrated not to work in developing communities all over
the world!

Then how does one explain the dual nature of loyalty of TM1's disciples that
is manifest in the conflicting messages of their mass resignation?  Is it a
theatrical act of show of indispensable muscle or is there a real fear of
imminent humiliation of being fired by the incoming JZ-friendly head of the
executive? Or is there more fundamental reason for the apparent
schizophrenic exodus and offered explanations?

The bulk of the disciples have been implicated heavily in at least the
hitherto unresolved armsgate scandal. The Deputy President is not only the
wife, who may know too much, of the former chief prosecutor who told us that
JZ was corrupt, but was also appointed to replace him after his humiliating
dismissal! AE has been issuing conflicting statements about the dreaded
collateral benefits, a euphemism for kickbacks, of the arms deal. TM2
apparently signed the flawed arms deal contracts, plunging South Africa into
a long term odious debt.

Clearly TM1 and his disciples have reason to fear that JZ is likely to come
down on them like a ton of bricks. This fear coupled with the need to sit on
the lid in respect of the corruption scandals may explain the duality of
loyalty expressed by the resigning Cabinet ministers.

As ordinary ANC-unconnected, poor and unemployed citizens, our best bet is
to brace ourselves for the next economically repressive and politically
intolerant ANC term of "...rule until Jesus returns..."  We are likely to
gain some solace from being vindicated by the predictable continuity of
abuse of power and State organs in concealing the unresolved and probably
more corruption by stealth. This government pre-occupation with damage
control over and above the anti-poor economic policies, will accelerate the
country into an abyss of increased social unrest as the majority loses
patience with the lack of service delivery. We will continue to say, this is
not what we fought for all the years.