The Consequence of Silence

 Living in a society that has dramatic moments ranging from racism, tribalism, xenophobia, economic exclusion, religious chauvinism, and many 'othering' human tendencies imposes a responsibility on the conscientious to act as who they are. In a country where the existence of these chauvinisms is an outcome of previously legislated intents by one of the world's state resources endowed human relations engineering project, apartheid, this becomes a perennial program of note. The ends of social engineering were of such a focus that the means to get there normalised into correctness chauvinisms and out of norm behaviour by organs of state, particularly in their human form and elected officials character.

The testimony or submission by President Ramaphosa at the Commission on State Capture, however plausible its intents were, revealed the power of the pursuit of power to delay and/or freeze the extent to which normative decisions can be taken by the politically ambitious. In acknowledging that he saw and lived with, and according to the commission's definition, state capture, the President's reasons indicate his capacity to allow his timing to define what is or should be normative. It was, and as the evidence was led, his prerogative to focus on staying on course to 'capturing' the political power that was 'facilitating' the capture of the state than taking a conscientious stance against it.

In his evidence the President does show instances where his distaste to what had supposedly been happening was registered, and the outcomes of him raising the matter included events such as the reversal of the reshuffling of Pravin Gordhan. Otherwise his role as chairperson of the deployment committee, as well as being leader of government business, could successfully be argued as having colluded to what the commission is all about. Whilst the predominating narrative is to foreground his interest in colluding as being a noble tactical manoeuvre on his part, society's acceptance of the narrative might be an approval of the basic value statement of corruption, 'the means will always justify the ends', differently put, RobinHoodism is correct because of its ends.

How the President has been trying to craft a path to extricate himself out of the then cesspool of, and again according to the commission's definition, corruption and its foregrounded adjunct state capture, is defining on how as a society we will define consequence management systems as a normative necessity and/or political economy prerogative. The continuation of a Ramaphosa Presidency has been successfully pegged with the behaviour of 'our markets' in a manner that 'markets of a special type' have concretised around the oscillating definitions of integrity depending on the end. This has unfortunately choked thinkers to genuine reflect on his performance against what this democracy is all about, the Constitution.

The plausible institutionalisation of integrity management systems in the governing party's disciplinary complex, and it facilitating the political support to anti-corruption efforts by organs of state, may have been, and in the medium to long term, compromised by the rational of 'waiting for your turn on power to act' as the President submitted. Should this not be the case, the Presidency should redirect this message into what he actually meant, otherwise integrity will henceforth be contextual with little to no consequence if the end is noble and plausible.

It is the collusion of the dominant civil society institutions with the rationale that needs to be interrogated. South Africa has in the past been on a similar contextual space before. A narrative of a centrist Mbeki Presidency, including defining him as being Putinist and thus third termist, created a political firmament within which thinkers were put into the binaries of either the one opposed to Mbeki or nothing. In that firmament, capability gave way for who could sustain the battle to wrestle power out of the then defined as '1994 Class Project'. The predominating dialectics of the time spawned a political environment that allowed 'breeds and creeds' of leadership to ascend onto offices our inherent normative architecture would be in perpetual variance with. 

In the thinking community, there were loud voices of individuals such as Njabulo Ndebele, Barney Pitjana, Reuel Khoza, and many others, on the precedence set by the firmament. Infinitesimal as these voices have been, the normative force lived to prevail as society grew in agreement that there was indeed a lot that was untoward in how the state was run and governed. It was these nodes of leadership that created communities of reasonable South Africans to angle on corruption and its adjuncts which have established a platform to have these matters ventilated. Society should encourage the proliferation of such nodes under any condition of leadership, including at times when benevolence is at the level of being a potential opiate to the masses. It should be principle and what would not be in variance with our normative being as a society and nation that defines what is of 'value to us'. 

The consequence of silence has ravaged many a democracies, and destroyed the value of economies. The silence, or muted tones of discontent by thinkers, when wrong prevails, has been found to be the bedrock upon which states fail or are in a perpetual state of fragility, and hanging on the whims and consensuses of 'markets of a special type'. The heritage of South Africa's liberation movement, generally led by the ANC as custodian of the Freedom Charter, remains that of a broad coalition of correctness marshalled against wrong. This coalition has been undergirded by the normative prescripts our nation has codified as arrangements with which we have agreed to allow those we assign to govern us to work within. 

In the apartheid years, 'thinkers-in-comfort' thought in a way that made the apartheid rationale acceptable, as its ends met certain of the theoretical criteria of a 'stable democracy'. In his last days in government Nelson Mandela reflected on the scourge of corruption and its adjunct state capture. The political report of a Mbeki ANC Presidency read in Polokwane reflected on corruption as a threat to the stability of our democracy, it was supportive to volumes of Public Protector reports and 'frozen criminal dockets' within the criminal justice system. The Mantashe Political report report at NASREC, which was presented within the period the Commission on State Capture was established also reflected on corruption and its adjunct state capture. Notwithstanding the knight our country might have found in the unwavering commitment of the President to deal with corruption, selective as his government may be, we cannot, and again, let our country to be the consequence of our silence. 

🤷🏽‍♂️A ndzo ti vulavulela, mina Kalanga 

🤷🏽‍♂️Be ngisho nje

🤷🏽‍♂️Ek sê maar net