Publications
Partners
Ed Herbst provides fascinating insight to readers as his work transcends the 1994 barrier between what was and what is. And the sad state of affairs is that a lot of what was done, is being repeated in a similar vein. Herbst makes a comparison between the current Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini, and the minister of health in 1981 Lapa Munnik.
Both had their say on what others can afford to live on, while they live a life of luxury. Munnik said R20 a month was enough for the elderly, while 35 years later, Dlamini says social grant beneficiaries can live on R753 a month.
A classic look in the mirror case. And this comment carries more of a stench, as claims by the Democratic Alliance allege Dlamini stayed in a luxury, ocean facing suite in Umhlanga costing R11 000. Again highlighting the constant wastage of taxpayer funds.
While the majority must live on peanuts so the snouts at the trough continue to feast. And given the historical comments from former Nationalists, it’s a tradition that seems to have been carried through time. – Stuart Lowman
By Ed Herbst*
“Bloemfontein – Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane on Friday called for the resignation of Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini following her comments that social grant beneficiaries can live on R753 per month.” News24 10/6/2016
The article was headlined “Archbishop calls for Bathabile Dlamini’s resignation” and, in it, Ndungane said her suggestion was an insult to the poor and called on her to step down.
“‘Minister Dlamini shows through this statement that she is completely out of touch with reality. Indeed, her remark is akin to the famous one by Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution who, when told there was no bread for the poor, dismissively told them to eat cake,’ said Archbishop Ndungane in a statement.”
In so doing he displayed the courage of crusading theologians of the apartheid era such as Archbishop Dennis Hurley and Beyers Naude.
I feel, however, that the Ndungane could have used an additional example, more appropriate to our situation and circumstances, because there seems to be a growing perception that the African National Congress, increasingly more beleaguered, is increasingly adopting the attitudes and policies of its National Party predecessors.
R20 a month
His remark took me back to the eve of the 1981 election campaign when the then Minister of Health, Dr Lapa Munnik, to the delight of the NP opposition parties – the Progressive Federal Party and the New Republic Party – as well as the Rand Daily Mail, suggested that the elderly and the infirm could happily exist on R20 a month.
The RDM, responding with alacrity, was happy to exploit this well-timed National Party own goal and its front page lead the next day was headlined “Nats say pensioners must survive on R20 a month”.
Urgent National Party reaction was called for and, to do the necessary damage control, Johan Pretorius, as head of the SABC’s news team in p
arliament, was called upon. I was roped in to do the camera work.
The meeting with the Groot Krokodil was a fascinating experience. After the whitewash interview was over, Botha was in an ebullient mood and, in all, we must have spent an hour in his company.
During the conversation he showed us a bronze dagger, several thousands of years old, which he had been given by Moshe Dayan and I felt an uncanny sense of history holding in my hand something which had been forged with consummate skill into an object of deadly beauty so far away and so many centuries ago.
My retrospective impression was that, while he was clearly a consummate political practitioner, he was no intellectual – not that he needed to be – and it is tragically ironic that 35 years later the sentiments of Lapa Munnik should find new expression within the African National Congress.
Deployed cadres
To give further context to the suggestion of the similarities between the National Party and the ANC let me point to the 2003 floor crossing which saw the National Party being absorbed by the ANC.
It was engineered by the National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk and he and his party members were warmly welcomed by the Afrikaans-speaking Mosiuoa Lekota who assured them, correctly as it turned out, that they, as politicians, would feel completely at home within the ANC.
Van Schalkwyk was subsequently rewarded by President Thabo Mbeki with a ministerial post because he had given the ANC municipal and provincial control in the Western Cape.
At municipal level Van Schalkwyk’s decision to merge the National Party with the ANC was to hugely enrich the ANC’s deployed cadres in Cape Town and to diminish civic coffers – much as it has done elsewhere in the country. At provincial level it was to sunder the party and leave wounds which fester to this day.
In 1994 the National Party had 20.4% of the vote but it was defenestrated by the floor crossing. A decade later, in April 2004, as a reporter for SABC television news, I sat in the IEC headquarters on the Cape Town foreshore watching the reaction of Riaan Aucamp, a good and competent man, who was Van Schalkwyk’s PA.
As the results came in from former National Party strongholds it became obvious, from his haunted expression and increasingly ashen-faced countenance, that his party had been deserted en masse by Afrikaans-speaking voters, the majority of whom were not white. What was regarded by Afrikaans-speaking voters at the time as a betrayal saw the party’s support slump to 1.7% of the final 2004 tally.
Today, if anything, the 2004 mistrust has radically increased with the TNS survey a few months ago indicating that just 3% of coloureds and 8% of whites feel that President Jacob Zuma is doing a credible job.
What is significant however is that some of the original floor crossers are still there in the ANC caucus, still welcome, still very much at home.
Hypocrisy and the race card
The ANC is also happily emulating the National Party scare tactics of the Vorster and Botha eras with wit gevaar replacing swart gevaar and, with an election coming up, the ANC constantly plays off a 52 race card deck.
Its relentless use of this racially divisive tactic – the antithesis of Nelson Mandela’s policy of nation building through reconciliation – reeks, however, of hypocrisy.
Its manufactured outrage to ratchet up tension against a dwindling white minority is outrageously selective and unashamedly so.
One only has to look at the difference between the ANC’s response to the Brett Murray painting and its silence over the painting of Ayanda Mabulu to see evidence of that. Both paintings depicted President Zuma disprespectfully but Murray, as a white artist suffered excoriating ANC criticism while Mabulu as a black artist suffered what is derisively known as absolutely no consequences.
To add to this shame the ANC did not condemn the #RMF activists who, by spray-painting the words “F**k white people” on the war memorial monument at the University of Cape Town in April, desecrated the memories of the black soldiers who lost their lives in the sinking of the SS Mendi in February 1917.
More recently the ANC welcomed a fine of R150 000 levied against Penny Sparrow.
No action
It took no action, however, against its member of parliament, Bongani Mkongi who called for Democratic Alliance members to be burnt to death. Given what Gareth van Onselen correctly describes as the “ANC’s internal culture of violence and death” , this failure to apply any effective sanction to Mkongi is disturbing
In 2011 the Equality Court found that a homophobic column written by John Qwelane, constituted hate speech and imposed a R100, 000 fine – which, so far, he has refused to pay. Qwelane was the former High Commissioner at the South African embassy in Uganda which was notorious for corruption and incompetence.
If the Qwelane column constituted hate speech why has the ANC not referred Mkongi to the Equality Court or the South African Human Rights Commission for a call, which if implemented, would put lives at risk? Suitably encouraged by the ANC’s failure to do this, Mkongi said: “I am not going to be censored. I speak what I like.” He remains a member of the ANC and a member of parliament.
Bathabile Dlamini expects poor to get by on R753 per month yet feels nothing to blow R11k on a one night hotel stay! pic.twitter.com/eKrdWNFihn
— John Steenhuisen (@jsteenhuisen) June 13, 2016
Another example: When Democratic Alliance MP, Dianne Kohler Barnard posted a Facebook message last year which suggested that the National Party’s governance was more effective than that of the governing party, a sentiment which, in terms of education, was given credence by Wits University academic, Professor Rabelani Dagada – she was crucified, but the ANC singularly failed to censure Dagada.
Could that be because he is neither white nor a member of an opposition party? Dagada’s sentiments were subsequently echoed by Statistician-General Pali Lehohla and Jonathan Jansen and again the ANC was silent. They were, after all, not white.
Sharply etched
The difference between the manufactured outrage against Kohler Barnard and the ANC’s silence over the far more injurious statements of Enoch Godongwana, chairperson of the party’s economic transformation committee, is sharply etched and unsurprisingly so.
Kohler Barnard has never been implicated in any form of corruption and has never done anything to disadvantage people from lower income groups but she has been very effectively demonised by the ANC for a Facebook post.
In stark contrast, Godongwana suffered absolutely no consequences as a result of the appalling and morally reprehensible Canyon Springs scam which will see textile industry employees spending their twilight years in penury. He also suffered absolutely no consequences when he lauded apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd for his “quota system”.
Verwoerd’s “quota system”, in a total rejection of the concept of merit, sought to deny people access to opportunity on the basis of their ethnicity – the essence of the legislation passed by the Nazis in April 1933 which restricted the number of Jewish students at schools and universities to 1.5% of their demographic total in German society.
Minister Bathabile "Let them live on R753 per month" Dlamini needs R11 000 a night. Sounds legit. https://t.co/QKAtfX3eJW
— Jacques Maree (@JacquesMaree73) June 13, 2016
The convergence between the policies and statements of the ANC and the NP holds few favourable portents or auguries for a once-esteemed political party or, indeed, for the country – as Archbishop Ndungane’s call for the resignation of Bathabile Dhlamini indicates.
• Ed Herbst is a pensioner and former reporter who writes in his own capacity.
* For more in-depth business news, visit biznews.com or simply sign up for the daily newsletter.
