President Jacob Zuma's remarks about the constitution in an interview this week are worrying.

]]> |||

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma’s remarks about the constitution in an interview this week are worrying.

The president’s statements, in an interview with Independent Newspapers on Sunday, leave the reader with the impression that he is unhappy with the current constitutional arrangement and would like to strengthen the power of the executive.

He made much of the fact that there are sometimes split judgments with one or more judges dissenting from the majority opinion. Yet, as DA MP Dene Smuts has noted, the Constitutional Court was given a large bench of judges precisely so that it would reflect a wide variety of views and it would avoid the pitfalls of the past when politically reliable judges were given certain matters to adjudicate.

“We don’t want to review the Constitutional Court,” Zuma went on to say: “we want to review its powers.”

The president may have been misunderstood by the many commentators who have expressed concern over his remarks. But some of his utterances in the past suggest that he does not really accept that the constitution is the highest power in the land.

Whatever Zuma’s spokesman may argue, the context of political discourse in South Africa is the fact that Parliament and the executive government are subject to the provisions of the constitution.

Since 1996 South Africa has enjoyed government under the law. Its people are no longer subject to the arbitrary action of the executive or the whim of a majority in Parliament. Does the president mean to tamper with the accord that brought peace to South Africa?

President Zuma should not take it amiss if he is asked to re-state the commitment he made on taking office as president to obey, observe, uphold and maintain the constitution and all the laws of the Republic.

Those who are speaking out are expressing legitimate concerns.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Much is being said about the Jobs, Land and Housing Summit planned for Rondebosch Common from January 27-29, 2012

Mario Wanza

Much is being said about the Jobs, Land and Housing Summit planned for Rondebosch Common from January 27-29, 2012. It is unfortunate that what the summit intended to achieve is not being talked about.

The summit has been in the making since October 2011. It has been organised by Communities for Social Change (a co-ordinating structure of civic organisations operating in predominantly coloured communities), Cosatu, Irasa (Institute for the Restoration of the Aborigines in South Africa), Women on Farms, Sangoco, Occupy Cape Town, Passop and the Struggle Veterans Action Committee, among others.

Invitations were sent as widely as possible including the Muslim Judicial Council, the SACC, Kairos South Africa and other civil society formations.

A meeting was also held with the Jewish Board of Deputies to sensitise them on the purpose and intention of the summit. The meeting was cordial and we agreed to keep talking to each other.

Invitations were sent to the premier and the provincial government, the mayor and the City of Cape Town. Both the premier and the mayor declined to participate and wished us well.

Notwithstanding them declining the invitation, we requested that the government officials attend. We also requested a meeting with the mayor to look at the logistics in preparations for the summit but received no response.

An invitation was also sent to the national Department of Human Settlements, to which no response was received.

The need for the summit arose because we have realised that the gap between the rich and poor is tearing us apart, our city is still racially divided and greed and violence is the order of the day.

Our primary objective is to see the integration of rich and poor and to deal with the apartheid legacy which continues to plague us.

We have also come to the realisation that government has failed the people and that it is only through creating space for people to talk to one another that we can bring about change.

Communities like Manenberg, Hanover Park, Mitchells Plain, Elsies River are facing the brunt of the onslaught of greed instilled by the rich.

The situation is exacerbated by the DA administration evicting our people from their homes instead of building houses.

We need relief from this attack on the poor as people go hungry every day.

We are calling for the following:

l A stop to evictions

l Scrapping of all arrears

l The council flats to be handed over to the people as we have been paying rent for the last 40 years.

l The return of our land, which was taken from us under apartheid.

l The building of a caring police service.

These are some of the pressing issues facing our communities.

Rondebosch Common is a piece of land strategically located in that it reflects the divide between the haves and the have not. It is also a piece of land which we are earmarking for development for the poor.

As the organisers of the summit we have held meetings weekly from January 7 to ensure all logistics and programme for the weekend were in place.

The plan was for people to march from their communities, in the case of Mitchells Plain, myself and 10 other comrades started marching from 8am.

The marches would meet up at Athlone stadium at 2pm; giving a break to Muslim marchers to first attend Friday mosque. It was our intention to march together at 3pm from Athlone Stadium and reach Rondebosch Common at 5pm with cultural activities planned for the evening with a vigil throughout the night.

The summit would proceed on January 28 and 29 and we had worked out commissions which would focus on the following themes: Jobs and economic development, land restitution, housing, education, health, the environment and a new governance model.

The summit would come out with a programme of action on January 29 which would be taken back to the people through the various organisations. It was our intention to leave the Common around 4pm on January 29.

The mayor now attempts to plead innocence for the fiasco which took place on January 27. We have the documentary evidence to show that the mayor and, by extension the DA, was going to ensure that the poor did not gather on the Common.

All attempts to meet with the mayor were ignored and we were sent on a wild goose chase. We do not wish to go into the substance of the abuse of power by the DA, suffice to say that we have approached the Human Rights Commission to set up a public enquiry into the behaviour of the City of Cape Town, so that the citizens of the city can decide for themselves whether a human rights violation had taken place.

The mayor denies authorising the use of force, denying us our right to protest and denies ignoring the poor. All we can say is – let the public enquiry speak for itself.

Our intention to occupy and take over Rondebosch Common for three days was also to raise awareness, there is nothing subversive or illegal about that.

It is time that we start a conversation, black and white, rich and poor, about the state our country is in. As stated before we cannot expect the government to get us out of this mess.

The irony of all of this is that we should be thanking the DA for its kragdadigheid on January 27 as it has opened the space for dialogue. More and more people are talking about what happened at the Common and different views, for and against, are being expressed which is what the summit intended.

While the summit proper could not proceed on January 28 and 29, participants gathered at the Manenberg waterfront on January 28 and discussed and agreed on how to move forward.

These discussions were further enhanced on January 30 and 31 when the Communities for Social Change met and agreed to participate in the planned protest by Cosatu on February 4.

This protest we turned into a celebration which was followed by the renaming of the Common by the KhoiSan on February 5 to Tsui//Goab, a name we hope will grow on the people of Cape Town.

A meeting of all organisations participating in the Jobs, Land and Housing Summit will be held on February 15 to discuss how to move forward given the disruptions of January 27.

Organisations like the Communities for Social Change will be meeting on February 11 to reflect on what has happened to date, review what worked and what failed and how we can improve on what we do.

This way of organising is born out of our experience when we organised under the UDF. It is the self-same spirit of the UDF which is bringing us together again as we aim to build unity among and across organisations.

The current system of governance has failed the people, and specifically the poor, miserably.

We believe that through building people’s power and implementing the Freedom Charter we can unite our very fractured society.

We invite all spheres of government to join us on this journey instead of trying to marginalise us.

l Wanza is Organiser: Communities for Social Change

President Jacob Zuma will deliver his State of the Nation speech at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town tomorrow, at the start of what promises to be a momentous year in South African politics.

Gerald Shaw

President Jacob Zuma will deliver his State of the Nation speech at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town tomorrow, at the start of what promises to be a momentous year in South African politics.

The president presides over a fractious ANC riven by a fierce succession contest. His appeals for unity in the organisation’s centenary year have scant hope of success. And now there is the Malema verdict adding to the ferment.

The business community remains positive – yet it is apprehensive about the future. The captains of commerce and industry watch anxiously to see whether the government’s proclaimed clean-up drive succeeds in restoring the dysfunctional provinces and municipalities and some failing state departments to a reasonable condition of order and efficiency.

No doubt the president will say many or most of the right things in his opening address. The country’s needs are desperately obvious.

As former president FW de Klerk suggested last Thursday, on the anniversary of his historic announcement on February 2, 1990, it is time for all South Africans to respond to President Zuma’s call for an inclusive national dialogue to address increasingly urgent needs. It is time the players stopped shouting past each other and began talking across historic lines of division.

And it seems to me that the slide downhill needs to be addressed without delay. As De Klerk has argued, a national dialogue should be as inclusive as possible. All those who can make a meaningful contribution to the debate – the government, business, labour, civil society and religious groups – should be at the table. There should be a real effort to find common ground and to reach agreement on effective solutions.

Such a dialogue would work towards answers to these questions:

l How is South Africa to restore human dignity to the masses of our people who are unemployed, poverty-stricken and badly housed?

l How are we to empower all our children through decent education?

l How are we to ensure rapid and sustained economic growth for the benefit of all our people?

l How are we to promote real equality so that all our people – and not just the 30 or 40 percent of the richest – benefit from our constitutional democracy?

It remains to be seen whether President Zuma has the political will and elbow room to translate his words into action. And can he bring the rather creaky machinery of state to bear effectively to get the country moving in a new direction?

He is preoccupied with the succession contest and appears keen to serve another term. If he wants it he can probably get it, although this may change in an increasingly volatile situation. The outcome will not be decided until the ANC’s December national conference.

Meanwhile, this is a good time to consider where the country stands and the possible trends ahead.

The bad news is that the degradation is far advanced of SA’s institutional structures of state. The good news is that we still have a model constitution, an independent judiciary and freedom of expression. Yet these fundamental pillars of a free society are under threat.

The constitution is not in direct danger of amendment. The threat is indirect and insidious. Some ANC leaders and spokespeople ignore provisions of the constitution in what they say and in what they do. Happily, the FW de Klerk Foundation and other civil society institutions are alerting public opinion to the need to safeguard our constitutional rights and freedoms. The foundation deserves powerful corporate and public support.

Thankfully, the judiciary is holding its own. Yet, an over-hasty process of transformation could become a concern. The danger of political appointments to the Bench looms in the future.

The threat to freedom of expression and freedom of the media – and particularly the print media – is rather more immediate.

The DA parliamentary opposition and civil society are rallying opposition to the Protection of State Information Bill, better known as the secrecy bill. Catholic Archbishop Steven Brislin of Cape Town is giving a timely lead to the churches in speaking out strongly to defend our constitutional rights and freedoms – and in urging the inclusion of a public interest clause.

As it stands, the bill could, and no doubt would, be used to protect corrupt individuals and institutions, sending whistle-blowers and investigative journalists to prison.

In spite of the sustained opposition, this obnoxious measure has already been passed in the House of Assembly. It is now on its way to the National Council of Provinces, where the ANC majority has an opportunity to back down, given the wide outcry of public opinion against the bill, even within the ranks of the ANC itself.

The ANC is split, and Struggle heroes like ex-cabinet ministers Pallo Jordan and Ronnie Kasrils have not been silent. Shortly before his recent death, a courageous member of the Mandela and Mbeki cabinets, Kader Asmal, led the moderate centre of the ANC in speaking out very strongly indeed. And Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe suggested in November that the ANC might yet heed the demand for a public interest defence to be written into the bill. But the National Assembly subsequently went ahead – without such a clause.

Yet there is a chance that the ANC elite may back off, realising how their own material interests will suffer if the bill is adopted without amendment. They will surely grasp that the adoption of such a measure would jolt investor confidence and the economy.

To top it all, the ANC is now reviving the proposal for a statutory media tribunal, arguing that self-regulation of the media is not working and needs to be given teeth. The apartheid regime of unhappy memory pursued the same course, but realised its folly at the last minute and stepped back. SA was on the point of issuing licences to approved journalists, while silencing the rest.

And the succession race? The ANC has a long-established tradition of conducting such affairs behind closed doors. Nobody, whether inside or outside the ANC, can at this stage say how it will pan out. Deputy President Motlanthe has not said in public whether he is throwing his hat into the ring. He is thought to be a strong candidate and he has broad-based support within the ANC, having a trade union background. He is probably the best man in sight.

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, with his common touch and business savvy, might also want to get into the race. Cyril Ramaphosa, likewise a former trade unionist, a seasoned businessman and negotiator and widely respected, would be ideal, but he is not likely to stand unless he is assured in advance of the top job. There are others of less account.

And the future? If President Zuma does stand and he is re-elected, we may expect a steady decline, with this congenial and well-liked figure seemingly impotent or unwilling to do what is needed.

South Africa’s best hope remains a realignment of party politics as the ANC squabbles and splits – and the DA moves ahead to present itself credibly as an alternative government.

A change of direction will need to be preceded by an open-hearted national dialogue, confronting the devils of racial prejudice, corruption, ethnic nationalist arrogance and materialist greed.

On the political front at the national level, the formidable DA leader of the opposition, Lindiwe Mazibuko, is establishing her authority firmly, reshuffling her shadow cabinet. She is strong and adroit, well able to deal with inane racist interjections from the ANC benches.

In the Western Cape, DA Premier Helen Zille is running the province smoothly and showing the others how it should be done. Yet Zille and Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille are in need of wiser media and strategy advisers. They have suffered unfortunate public relations reverses, infuriating the powerful environmental lobby over Chapman’s Peak and angering the housing and human rights activists and the broader public in the Rondebosch Common fiasco.

South Africa’s best hope lies in Zille’s prospects of welding together a powerful national coalition which will take in the best elements of the ANC’s social democratic, non-racial centre rather than its fat cat tender-grabbing capitalists and racially-chauvinist black nationalists of the right.

Such a development will probably need to be triggered by a political and economic crisis – as has happened before in South African history – taking the country in a new direction.

South Africa needs strong, principled leadership of unquestioned integrity. When the time is ripe, someone like Zille will build an opposition coalition, we may hope, paving the way for a broad-based government of national unity which will draw in the brightest and best of South African leaders in all communities.

l Shaw is a former assistant editor of the Cape Times.

Very serious allegations of bribery have been levelled against SA cellphone giant MTN by a Turkish rival.

VERY serious allegations of bribery have been levelled against SA cellphone giant MTN by a Turkish rival.

Turkcell, which lost out to MTN in a bid for a licence in Iran seven years ago, has said it will bring a case against MTN and its associate, Irancell, in a US court. Irancell, in which MTN has a 49 percent stake, was awarded the Iranian licence in 2005, and Turkcell claims that MTN bribed both an Iranian and an SA government official in 2004 and 2005 to get the licence.

Perhaps even more seriously, Turkcell also claims that MTN encouraged the SA government to favour Iran’s nuclear power programme at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Association in 2005, and that the company enlisted support from the SA government for the supply of military equipment – including uranium – to Iran.

MTN chairman Cyril Ramaphosa has reacted swiftly to the allegations, appointing a special committee to look into Turkcell’s claims and make recommendations.

The committee is to be headed by an SA-born judge, Lord Hoffman, and made up of non-executive members of the MTN board.

The matter may or may not go to court in the US. Turkcell believes it has a case under US law; MTN thinks not.

In the meantime, though, it is essential that the SA government institute its own independent inquiry.

There may, of course, be no truth in the allegations, and it is quite possible, as some have suggested, that the Iranian cellphone contract award was mainly a response to a Turkish decision to allow landing rights to American aircraft at a time when the US was at war with Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the task of SA government officials is to represent the nation’s interests and not those of any company.

SA’s diplomacy, especially in a complex region such as the Middle East, cannot be dictated by corporate imperatives.

When inspecting a building, you can't just look in one window and expect to get a feel for the whole place.

Patricia de Lille

When inspecting a building, you can’t just look in one window and expect to get a feel for the whole place. To understand every nook and cranny, every pipe and wall, you have to walk through the entire building and then give an assessment after careful study.

The issue of Rondebosch Common has lent itself to a series of brief glimpses through the ground-floor window of a very large building. At present, there seems to be a curious exercise of retrospective condemnation of the city taking place, especially in light of this last Saturday’s events on the common.

There, the leader of the opposition in the city council, Tony Ehrenreich, in his dual role as Cosatu provincial secretary, staged an event with Mario Wanza and a range of community organisations.

Their event, though sparsely attended, was lawful.

The city accepted the memorandum drafted.

People went home.

Now, this event is being used as a surrogate of the planned occupation the week before, an after-the-fact surety that the planned occupation the preceding weekend would have been equally lawful. Coupled with this, commentators have also taken every opportunity to rail against me for authorising the use of force, for denying the right to protest and for ignoring the city’s poor.

I take exception to all of these charges.

First, we cannot compare apples with oranges.

Councillor Ehrenreich’s event was hurriedly organised after the controversy of the failed occupation. Like many of his stunts, it cynically sought to capitalise on a divisive issue in the media and claim it for his political agenda.

Like many other such attempts, it failed and largely passed by unnoticed, dismissed as unrepresentative of the people who sought to occupy Rondebosch Common by many of those same people.

The only thing this event has in common with Mr Wanza’s occupation is that both involved Rondebosch Common.

Wanza’s event had a longer gestation period. For weeks, Wanza had been threatening an occupation, an illegal act under legislation. In that time, literature was circulated by using racially emotive and divisive language.

It was no peaceful “summit” as was later claimed by a slew of people. It was a political stunt utilising the bluntest forms of the politics of race.

Not only are such occupations illegal, they directly clash with the vision of an inclusive city, a vision endorsed by the vast majority of the electorate.

Second, I did not authorise the use of force. Local government is complicated enough without people muddying the waters with a false reporting of the facts.

The protesters were monitored and regulated by the SA Police Service (SAPS). All arrests on that day were undertaken by the SAPS.

The SAPS are a national competency. They execute the national commissioner’s mandate through a provincial commissioner.

As mayor, I have no authority over the SAPS; not their tactics, not their strategy, not their authority. I have no power, direct or indirect, to influence their decisions.

Third, I have never denied anyone the right to protest. I cherish the right to protest to achieve justice. I have spent most of my life protesting on behalf of the poor.

I sacrificed much for the right to protest.

The city respects the right to protest. In 2011, the total number of applications for marches was 418. Three hundred and ninety four applications were approved. That is an approval rating of 94 percent.

Furthermore, the approval or rejection of applications is presided over by an official in a neutral and apolitical process. No political authority has a say in that process. In terms of the Gatherings Act, the presiding official determines the conditions for the meeting.

Thus, neither the mayor nor any other politician had any authority over the outcome of Wanza’s application. Nor did we have any say in the presiding official’s attempts to get Wanza to reapply once he failed to abide by the conditions set out for his original application.

I made my remarks to council about stopping divisions in the city in the context of Wanza’s previous statements and literature. They were removed from a separate process of his failing to timeously apply for permission to march.

Finally, this city does all that it can to help the poor. It is central to our philosophy of becoming more inclusive and more caring.

That is why we have engaged in a national first by implementing a policy rolling out services to backyarders. It is why we continue to try and meet urbanisation challenges by installing services in informal settlements where there were none.

It is why we offer rates rebates for those who cannot afford to pay rates.

It’s why we cross-subsidise the poor by providing free services in the most extensive cross-subsidisation of rates in the country.

And it is why we continuously engage with the poor and those who have felt left behind. I know about summits. I hosted a historic one for backyarder communities last year. I have attended summits of informal settlement communities and sanitation issues, among others. They have raised difficult and pressing matters, issues that the city still needs to address.

But they are part of our wider process of engagement and participatory democracy, a process that sees us constantly working with NGOs and consulting ordinary members of the public.

Wanza’s occupation was not a summit. It was a strategy of division using racially divisive rhetoric. Let us not pretend that we have not seen such divisive strategies from certain quarters in this city before.

I think specifically of the invasions at Kapteinsklip last year just before the local government elections.

Motivated behind the scenes, people seemed to be used in the cruellest way to advance a narrow political agenda and narrative.

So let’s not divorce ourselves from the history and politics of our city and our country.

Instead, when we consider these issues, let’s widen our perspective.

Let’s look through more than just that window and tour the whole building before we find we didn’t really inspect anything at all before casting judgement.

l Alderman De Lille is executive mayor of Cape Town

Perhaps the most telling aspect of the so-called "brown envelope" saga is that two journalists implicated in the scandal are no longer in their jobs but politicians allegedly involved have been handsomely rewarded by the ANC.

PERHAPS the most telling aspect of the so-called “brown envelope” saga is that two journalists implicated in the scandal are no longer in their jobs but politicians allegedly involved have been handsomely rewarded by the ANC.

Cape Argus political editor Joseph Aranes and political writer Ashley Smith were allegedly paid in 2005 by the provincial government of then Premier Ebrahim Rasool for favourable coverage.

Smith has since confessed to receiving money through a front company and alleged that an MEC in Rasool’s government was the middle man in the deals.

Yesterday the newspaper succeeded with a Promotion of Access to Information Act application and was handed an interim report on the ANC’s 2006 investigation of the case.

The report repeats many of the allegations and evidence that the Cape Argus and other newspapers have already uncovered about the saga. It adds to the body of evidence that suggests there were indeed dark dealings going on between politicians and journalists at the time.

But it is clearly labelled as an interim report and ends with recommendations that more people need to be interviewed to gain clarity on a number of issues. These include Rasool and two members of his office.

The Cape Argus had applied for all documentation concerning the ANC’s investigation, but only received the interim report. This suggests that the probe either petered out at the interim stage or was swept under a carpet.

Today Rasool sits in Washington as the country’s ambassador to the United States and the “middle man” MEC occupies a senior position in the ANC in the Western Cape.

The grave nature of the allegations – and the fact that the ANC has itself pointed to this saga as justification for acting against the media – demands that the party itself comes clean on the issue.

It is not too late to interview Rasool and company now, and to act against them if they erred.

What are we to make of the remarks last week by President Jacob Zuma's wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, on child support grants?

WHAT are we to make of the remarks last week by President Jacob Zuma’s wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, on child support grants?

Ntuli-Zuma was quoted in the New Age as saying at a function in KwaZulu-Natal: “Most young teen mothers dump their babies with their grandmothers while gallivanting around and abusing the grant money on luxury items like airtime.” She suggested that young mothers trying to buy airtime should first be screened to find out whether they were using grant money to do so. And she went so far as to propose that the Rica system be used to monitor this.

The president’s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, was quick to explain that Ntuli-Zuma was merely “emphasising that the child support grant should not be abused” and that the grants should be used “for the purpose for which they were intended, to support children”. This, he said, was “a standard government message”.

Of course it is. But research by the Black Sash and others has debunked the easy myth of the “irresponsible mother” and found a link between the child support grant, a decrease in child hunger and child labour, and an increase in school attendance. Maharaj himself admitted that research over the years has shown that “the majority of child support grant beneficiaries use it appropriately and that there are children who would not go to school if it was not for social grants”.

Ntuli-Zuma’s blame-the-victim rhetoric and her suggestion that the Rica system should be used to spy on young mothers do her no credit.

As UCT researchers Di Cooper, Simone Honikman and Ingrid Meintjies pointed out last year when debunking other myths – among them the myth that young women deliberately fall pregnant in order to get a child support grant – history has shown that economic crises and periods of insecurity prompt a search for “ a common enemy, a deviant, someone to blame”. And often the focus of moral outrage is women: the times always produce their “witches”.

It is much easier to moralise and to point fingers than to tackle the growing problems of poverty, teenage pregnancy and violence against women.

Fortunately, Ntuli-Zuma does not have political power. We must just hope that the president doesn’t listen to her rantings.

We're all human. That's why it's better together. "As a prelude, whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior." - Steve Biko quoted in the Boston Globe, 25 October 1977

Helen Zille

We’re all human. That’s why it’s better together.

“As a prelude, whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.” – Steve Biko quoted in the Boston Globe, October 25, 1977.

This quote captures the basic premise of Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness Movement, which began a new chapter in South African politics over 40 years ago. Before then, political analysis had focused on race, or class – or both. Biko suggested it was about something else: At the heart of South Africa’s social and political trauma, he suggested, was the issue of self-esteem. Only when South Africans had “freed their minds” would it be possible to build a truly non-racial society.

Biko’s insight did not deny the existence, or the legacy of, structural oppression and entrenched racial discrimination. But, he argued, to overcome this legacy people had to wage a struggle inside their heads. They had to stop seeing themselves as either victors or victims, and start believing in their own (and other people’s) value and legitimacy as equal human beings.

Only when they had “freed their minds” would they be able to change their own circumstances and the world and give others the space to do so too. Human beings are not merely passive victims of structural or social forces. They can choose to become agents of development and progress in their environment.

Today, 35 years after Biko’s murder, many white South Africans see themselves as victims. Victimhood gives them a sense of identity and entitlement, allows them to disengage from the project of nation building and justifies their creating a “comfort zone” with other victims in which to reinforce a sense of grievance through constant complaint.

These people are “professional whites”. Their whiteness is their identity and defines their alienation. It keeps them in denial, which is where they choose to be.

Equally, there are South Africans of colour who cannot face abandoning the comfort of victimhood, or seize the responsibility for becoming agents of their own destiny. Both categories are constantly on the lookout for any incident that can reinforce their alienation. Every interaction is interpreted through the lens of their own psychological expectations of prejudice.

A recent example of this was the “Reverend” Kemo Waters who used Twitter to threaten to kill a “material number of whites” after being kept waiting at the bar of a busy Camps Bay restaurant for 30 minutes when he arrived without a booking at the height of the tourist season. He attributed the request to wait at the bar as racism. (He has subsequently withdrawn and apologised for his threat to “kill whites”.)

This is an extreme example of a mindset that puts the brakes on South Africa’s development because it creates a paralysis that prevents people from recognising or using their opportunities.

Having said this, it is still sadly true that some people have far more opportunities than others. It is also true that some people do much more with the limited opportunities they have than many who are born with the proverbial silver-spoon-in-the-mouth. Paradoxically, the more opportunities many people have, the less they recognise or use them.

What is the government’s role in addressing the legacy of disadvantage and inequality? The primary role is to ensure that every person has real opportunities and resources are directed towards equalising opportunities as rapidly as possible. This is the only sustainable form of affirmative action, because it enables people to use their opportunities and requires them to contribute to development and progress in order to live a life they value.

This is the polar opposite of manipulating outcomes for the politically connected few. Affirmative action that degenerates into political patronage is the fastest road to the failed state. The goal of rapidly expanding opportunities depends on government playing a key role, particularly through providing excellent education, health care, and an environment for economic growth – the most effective way of increasing job opportunities.

But even the best government in the world cannot change the circumstances of people who are determined to remain victims. A government can provide opportunity but it cannot save a person from the chains of his own psyche.

In the years I have been in government, I have seen how disproportionately resources are used to pamper passive victims and reinforce their marginalisation – rather than extend opportunities for those who will use them well.

I vividly recall an experience when I was the provincial minister of education in 2000. I visited a state-of-the-art school called Eureka in Rawsonville. It was designated a “special school”, accepting only pupils who had been convicted of crimes in court, but given a second chance because of their youth, in what used to be called a “reform” school. I had never seen a school so well equipped with everything from computers to technical equipment and vocational apparatus of all types. The buildings and boarding facilities were in mint condition. The young people had every possible facility they might require to have a second chance at a decent start in life. I was delighted to learn of the school’s successes, but saddened to hear that a certain rate of recidivism remained.

Afterwards, I visited a local primary school on a farm in the area and was stunned by the contrast. This school did not even have running water or flush toilets, let alone the best facilities, equipment and technology. But it felt like a stab in the heart when one of the mothers approached me and asked:

“Mev Zille, ek wil weet hoe ek my kind in Eureka skool kan kry sonder dat hy ’n misdaad pleeg.” (Mrs Zille, I want to know how I can get my child into Eureka school without him having to commit a crime.)

Here was a responsible mother, seeking to give her child every opportunity, and wondering how it would be possible if he remained in a school without even rudimentary facilities. She could not understand how it could be that young people first had to commit a serious crime, and notch up a criminal conviction, before being able to get access to a state-of-the-art education facility.

It did not make sense to her, and in that moment, although I believe in the importance of a “second chance”, it did not make sense to me either.

The most difficult aspect of governance is deciding how limited resources should be spent. There is always a difficult trade-off. And the best policy analysts battle to weigh up the consequences of budget decisions, both intended and unintended.

Over the years, this conversation has played itself over and again in my head at budget time: should we be spending more to create good opportunities for people who will recognise them and use them? Or are the needs of the “second chance” too pressing, from juvenile criminals to drug rehabilitation? This question is complicated by the fact that most of the “second chance” expenditure has to compensate for dysfunctional parenting, especially fathers who refuse to take responsibility for, or maintain, their children. This failure costs the state billions each year.

I also recall from my brief tenure as MEC the special schools in Constantia that were then still called “reformatories”, one for boys and one for girls. Working on the annual budget, it became apparent that we were spending 10 times as much per child in the Constantia reform schools than we were on children in ordinary public schools.

And the outcomes of our efforts were not particularly encouraging. We then took the decision to turn the “Constantia School for Boys” into the Cape Academy of Maths and Science in order to give real opportunities to children from disadvantaged communities who showed aptitude and ability in these disciplines.

In my years in government, I have come to the conclusion that our policies and budgets must aim to create more opportunity, and support people who are prepared to use their opportunities. Progress happens when people, who are active agents, reinforce each other in using and creating opportunities.

And while we must always seek to ensure that young people have a “second chance” we must avoid a situation where policies and budgets entrench permanent victimhood. That is why we must work to prevent diseases that are preventable, so that more resources are available for treating unpreventable conditions. That is why we must partner with families and communities so that they play their part, with the state, in developing sustainable settlements. That is why we must look at the key levers – such as a broadband backbone – that will open more opportunities in every area, from job-seeking to business expansion.

This is what we mean when we say “Better Together”. It is the basis of sustainable progress and requires us to free our minds, recognising that we are all only human, not superior or inferior, engaging each other in the great project of building one nation with one future.

l Zille is leader of the DA. This article appears in her online newsletter and is published as part of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation/Cape Times series on race and identity.

I really thought they were better politicians than this.

A WEEK is a long time in politics, former British prime minister, Harold Wilson famously said in 1964. Well, a month is even longer, and the month of January has been a very long, and a very bad month for the DA/ID alliance in the Western Cape.

The alliance has, with all due respect, behaved like a bunch of bungling amateurs with regard to two of the most emotive of all possible local landmarks – Chapman’s Peak Drive and the Rondebosch Common – and on that most fundamental of democratic rights, the right to protest. It’s right there in the Bill of Rights, section 17: “Everyone has the right, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions.”

And section 21 states “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement” while section 12 of our Bill of Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right... (a) not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause; (b) not to be detained without trial; (and) (c) to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources”.

Last Friday, about 100 (according to reports) protesters tried to march to Rondebosch Common. Despite being fully within their constitutional rights, the City of Cape Town had declared their march “illegal”, apparently because representatives of the group arrived late for a meeting with some or other bureaucrat and/or committee which then declined permission for the march, despite what the Bill of Rights says.

I saw the aftermath: Klipfontein Road a lurid blue, with a second patch of blue in Campground Road; a massive police presence surrounding a very small group of protesters; Casspir tracks on Rondebosch Common; and, above all, a massive loss of political face for Patricia de Lille and the DA.

Why didn’t De Lille just shut up instead of – well in advance of the planned protest action – calling Mario Wanza and his comrades “agents of destruction”? Why did she, again in advance of the action, deny them their constitutional rights by saying “I tell the people of Cape Town this; they will not succeed because we will not let them”?

This was not a “land invasion”. This was a symbolic march to the Common to hold what amounted to a seminar on public land. If the Council and the police had simply ignored the event, it would have been the political equivalent of a tree falling in an uninhabited forest: a few paragraphs and perhaps a picture in the weekend newspapers, by Monday it would have been old news and not worth reporting.

Instead it made headlines and went out on national television: heavily armoured police, water cannons with dye, women protesters being arrested; all against the backdrop of Devil’s Peak – that’s what’s known in the television business as “sexy pictures”.

What a monumental political blunder.

And then there’s the handling by Western Cape Transport MEC, Robin Carlisle, of the Chapman’s Peak saga. I like Robin Carlisle. I think he is a very effective politician. But Helen Zille should know by now that, a bit like the high pressure water hoses on those police Casspirs on Rondebosch Common, he is a bit of a loose cannon, the proverbial bull in the China shop.

For heaven’s sake – if there is one lesson to learn about Cape Town, it’s that you mess with The Mountain at your peril. And Chapman’s Peak is very much part of The Mountain.

Has the DA, and Carlisle, forgotten the massively tortuous process that had to be gone through to proclaim the Table Mountain National Park? It was a long and tough negotiation that involved among others the then Municipalities of Cape Town, Fish Hoek, Simon’s Town, Hout Bay, the Navy, CapeNature, the Mountain Club of SA and scores of private landowners and organisations. It was a compromise deal which had at its core a citizen advisory board specifically to allay fears that SANParks, a national entity, would act unilaterally against the interests of the people of Cape Town.

And now TMNP, in apparent cahoots with the Western Cape government and Entilini, have done just that, unilaterally and without a transparent process of consultation, alienated a piece of National Parks land to build a permanent office block structure.

The DA can thank its lucky trinkets that 2012 is not an election year. It will take a long time for their voting public to forget two blunders quite so egregious as these.

I really thought they were better politicians than this.

tony.weaver@inl.co.za

Heyneke Meyer has only been the Springbok coach for four days but has already shown an ability to avoid several of the landmines which his predecessor managed to detonate in spectacular fashion over four years.

HEYNEKE Meyer has only been the Springbok coach for four days but has already shown an ability to avoid several of the landmines which his predecessor managed to detonate in spectacular fashion over four years.

Meyer was at pains this weekend to reassure rugby fans that he will not pick a captain who does not deserve his place, refused to make rash predictions about his gameplan and indicated that he – not the players – will dictate strategy. And he has not mangled a single metaphor.

In short, he is not Peter de Villiers, and South African rugby fans might be tempted to breathe a large sigh of relief.

But what can we expect from Meyer? The indications – from his career and from interviews he has given since being appointed Bok coach – are most heartening.

The fact that he turned the Bulls franchise around so spectacularly after taking over as coach has been well-documented. His success there seems to have been built on a combination of pragmatism, attention to detail and a ruthless streak.

The outstanding players he nurtured at the Bulls are unanimous in their respect for Meyer: most, if not all, regard him as the best coach they have ever played under.

The coach’s public comments on his new job since it was announced suggest that he is not going to let his ego get in the way of the team. He has been cautious about making commitments that could come back to bite him and is obviously happy to listen to advice.

It is also encouraging that just about all the rugby experts – perhaps the most difficult constituency to please in the entire country – have welcomed the appointment.

But coaching the Springboks is not an easy job: pressure will come at Meyer from impatient supporters, from the game’s notoriously self-serving administrators and from politicians anxious to see the game transformed. Few, if any, of his predecessors have managed to deal competently with all of these factors.

We wish him the requisite patience and strength to handle it all while simultaneously putting the Boks back where they belong: on top of the world.