WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-03 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
This piece was written by ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe
Last Sunday, the installation of His Grace the Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, was celebrated at a ceremony in St George’s Cathedral, attended by a number of dignitaries and well-wishers.
Like the Anglican Church, which elected Archbishop Makgoba to occupy this august position, the ANC also has a right to choose its own leaders as it sees fit.
It is therefore disappointing that Professor Barney Pityana, an ordained Anglican minister and currently Vice-Chancellor of Unisa, should dismiss so readily the capacity of ANC members to determine who should lead them (Pretoria News April 2).
| ‘His comments betray a view of South African politics’ |
What is good for the Anglican Church, as with any other institution in society, should be good for the ANC.
Instead, Pityana pours scorn on the democratically expressed wishes of the delegates to the ANC National Conference in Polokwane. Perhaps if he were to recall the path his own life has taken, he wouldn’t be so dismissive of the general membership of the ANC.
A respected student activist in the 1970s, a contemporary of Steve Biko, Pityana went into exile, where he studied theology, and served as a parish priest in Britain.
Perhaps he should be reminded that it was these very ANC members who took up the fight inside the country against the apartheid regime, creating the conditions that allowed people like Pityana to return from exile and take up important positions in academia.
Is it too much to ask that Pityana now accords these masses the right to choose their own leader?
Is it too much to ask that the head of South Africa’s largest university make a bit more effort to understand and interpret the political features of the present?
“Should we not demand more of those who are held up as the leading intellectuals in our society? For if Barney Pityana had applied a bit more intellectual rigour in his assessment of the ANC since Polokwane he may have arrived at conclusions somewhat closer to reality.
Put aside for the moment that his statements about ANC president Jacob Zuma are unnecessarily personal and deeply offensive. His comments betray a view of South African politics that owes more to a decent stock of Press cuttings than it does to independent and incisive analysis.
Though he provides some useful insights into the South Africa of today and tomorrow, when it comes to the current ANC leadership, and particularly its president, Pityana is content merely to parrot what now passes for “conventional wisdom”.
We wish to challenge some of his assertions, not because we wish to silence dissenting views (in fact, his views are more representative of the norm).
Rather we wish to join the “argumentative lot” that Pityana calls South Africans.
We don’t want to shut down the debate. We want to open it up, and engage in it more vigorously.
We share with Pityana his concern at the position of intellectuals in our society. We agree with him that intellectual capacity cultivates a critical mentality “that refuses to take anything for granted”.
But we disagree that intellectuals are treated with scorn and disregard by the new “political elite”.
Intellectuals have played, and continue to play, a pivotal role in the struggle for liberation, not as armchair critics who dismiss with condescension the views of the masses, but as thinkers who are prepared to engage critically with the most challenging issues in our society.
Pityana speaks in glowing terms about the Constitution and the law, and correctly so. Together, they serve to uphold the values of our democratic society, they protect the rights of all citizens without fear or favour and they curb abuse of power.
Yet, while proclaiming himself a champion of justice, Pityana ignores some of the basic principle of justice in his assessment of Zuma. By describing Zuma as “a flawed character in his moral conduct who has been indicted for serious crimes that involve corruption and dishonesty”, Pityana finds himself guilty of hypocrisy.
A basic principle of justice, enshrined in our Constitution, is that all should be equal before the law. Another crucial principle is that an accused shall be presumed innocent until and unless found otherwise. Pityana doesn’t think that these principles apply to Jacob Zuma.
If, like other citizens, Zuma is to be presumed innocent, then it is not correct to assign to him characteristics of corruptness, dishonesty and flawed moral conduct.
There is no such thing as a partial presumption of innocence. A person is either presumed innocent, or not.
Had Pityana been more thorough in investigating what he describes as the ANC president’s policy “flip-flops”, by looking behind the headlines and Press reports, he would have discovered not only that Zuma has been consistent in his pronouncements, but that he has all along asserted the agreed ANC policy positions. And Pityana’s analysis is the poorer for it.
Had he paid more attention, Pityana would have noticed that the newly-elected National Executive Committee has moved swiftly to implement the decisions of Polokwane.
It has moved quickly to shift the organisation into campaign gear, having identified the need for mass work around health, education, electricity, crime and rural development and agrarian reform. These campaigns are all in the process of being launched.
He would have noticed also that this “new” ANC leadership is composed of a people who have been leaders of the movement for years. Jacob Zuma has served as an official of the organisation for close on 20 years. Others have been in the NEC itself for a number of terms.
The leadership has moved with determination to build the unity and cohesion of the movement, stressing the need to heal the divisions that emerged in the period before the conference. Instead of “settling scores”, as Pityana claims, all leaders and members have responded positively to the call.
The ANC’s agenda is not determined by the “see-saw game of upmanship” that Pityana describes.
It is determined by the organisation’s membership, expressed through a wide-ranging democratic process.
We would have hoped that Pityana had the integrity to acknowledge that principle and the intellectual curiosity to find out what lies behind the headlines.