adminA warrant of arrest was issued against him on Friday, clearing the way for the 31-year-old firebrand’s possible seizure. Officially, the South African faces charges of tax evasion, corruption and so on. He could also be charged for incitement, an “offence” he allegedly committed when he addressed survivors of the 16 August Marikana Mine Massacre and other poorly-paid mine workers across that country.
But the real reasons why he is being haunted might be his robust attack on the ANC hierarchy for acquiescing with western capital and the party’s poverty of ideas and action in addressing inequality, 18 years after independence.
South Africa under the ANC is touted as a model democracy for the rest of Africa to follow, with a stable and growing economy. Resources are plenty — platinum, gold, diamonds and the like. These factors make that country attractive to investment capital, which is invariably western.
Under that façade lie some of the civilised world’s worst inequalities. A World Bank report released in July said South Africa has, since independence in 1994, failed to close the imbalances that are based on race.
“This inequality of opportunity, particularly in the labour market, is the highest for the youngest age group,” a World Bank economist said while unveiling the report South Africa Economic Update: Inequality of Opportunity.
Comparing the realities of three young South Africans, the World Bank stated that South Africa had an entrenched “inequality of opportunity” that threatened the country’s immediate future. Of the three youths surveyed, two are blacks from rural and urban township backgrounds and one is white from a suburban background.
“Our results show that a (black) South African child not only has to work harder to overcome the disadvantages at birth due to circumstances, but having done so, finds these re-emerge when seeking employment later in life,” the World Bank said.
The white child, according to the report will, on average, receive better access to electricity, primary and secondary education and sanitation than the two blacks, posing drastic effects on their long-term development and chances of future growth. The black-white inequality extends to the job market, access to credit and other conditions of life. The World Bank study is one of the many done or being done on the same subject by many scholars and institutions.
Findings from the studies always highlight the general marginalised status of black South Africans in their own country. But what makes a bad situation worse is an apparent willingness by the ANC to simply leave those inequalities intact, even deepening them by punishing those who speak against them. It is actually strange that a party that fought apartheid for so long is failing to recognise that apartheid — the worst form of domination of man by man (far worse than colonialism) — did not and will not go away simply because they declared independence, raised a flag, are singing a new national anthem and have one of their own in office as president.
Marikana should have awakened the ANC to these hard facts, but the party seems happy to lead a client state, overseeing its black compatriots wallowing in poverty with whites entrenching themselves in luxury.
Instead of fighting racial inequality which even western-controlled World Bank warns threatens South Africa’s immediate future, the ANC is fighting a champion fighter against the same — Mr Malema.
He is being humiliated by his own party (he remains ANC at heart despite his expulsion) and might end up in jail for speaking out against those disparities. By seeking to silence Mr Malema and not addressing the basic issues he articulates, the ANC is behaving as if they don’t see anything wrong with the evils of the post-apartheid era. If indeed they don’t see them, they are committing an unforgivable crime against their own people who look up to them as liberators who must deliver the dividends of the struggle.
It should be enlightening to the ANC that when it suspended and expelled Mr Malema and more recently issued a warrant of arrest against him, some of the more generous praise they got was from their bitterest rivals (on paper perhaps), the Democratic Alliance (DA), a party that defends apartheid interests. DA is what the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe was to us after our independence in 1980, and by and large what MDC is now.
DA’s Dianne Kohler-Barnard said stern action must be taken against Mr Malema.
AfriForum, which is offering legal advice to white former commercial farmers in Zimbabwe in attempts to frustrate the land reform programme, said the arrest warrant sends a “clear message to politicians who think they are untouchable.”
The ANC chiefs must really search their souls and understand that hoping to address the vestiges of apartheid by simply doing nothing about them, cannot work. In fact, their people will turn against them at some point.
derick.khumalo
Online Reporter