ARTICLE: POLITICS BY INSULT
2019-06-18
Recent judgments and current court cases involving Julius Malema, the leader of the EFF, are helping to clarify the acceptable limits of political comment.
Recent judgments and current court cases involving Julius Malema, the leader of the EFF, are helping to clarify the acceptable limits of political comment.
The 8 May 2019 elections were held at a time and in a climate that saw most South Africans collectively concerned about the economy, corruption and State capture.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) recently announced that 48 parties will contest the national elections on 8 May. That is more than the 29 that took part in 2014 – a 65% increase! Will greater participation, however, give South Africa a better democracy?
The astonishing fact is that according to the IEC’s website, there are 312 parties registered at national level, and 294 at provincial level. The number of parties at national level shrank to 48 due to two factors. The first is the IEC’s own selection process, which led to 118 parties being de-registered and 29 applications being rejected. The second factor is that some parties (117) did not pay the registration fee needed to participate in the election. These costs are quite high – R200 000 to participate at national level, and then R45 000 per province. A party that wishes to participate at national level and in all the provinces will therefore have to pay R605 000. A smaller party could find it challenging to raise such a sum.
It is with the greatest concern that the FW de Klerk Foundation notes the 8 March 2019 finding of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in which it dismisses the Foundation’s complaint of November 2016 against Julius Malema. The Foundation lodged a complaint against Malema regarding a statement that he had made outside the Newcastle Magistrate Court, in which he had said, inter alia, that “…White people found peaceful Africans here. They killed them. They slaughtered them like animals. We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now. What we are calling for is the peaceful occupation of land and we don’t owe anyone an apology for that.”
Everywhere people are on the move.
One of the inescapable implications of globalisation is an enormous increase in the interaction between people from different backgrounds, cultures, languages and religions. The management of the resulting cultural, language and religious diversity will be one of this century’s greatest challenges.
For many South Africans, the daily news cycle feels like more of the same: body blows to the economy, bailouts to state-owned enterprises despite a revenue undershoot, and a governing party at war with itself, taking the rest of the country hostage in the process.
State capture, repurposing of state institutions, shadow state, mafia state…
As with other historical events, many South Africans still remember 27 April 1994 very well. A day of long voting queues and goodwill, the feeling of a new beginning. It was the birth of the “New South Africa”.
After that, many Freedom Days followed. Numerous South Africans, especially those who experienced 1994, will regard this year’s Freedom Day as the lowest point of all Freedom Days.
Why? Because we see what is happening to us in the political, economic and social arena. There is great tension in the ruling party – about the current President, but also in the leadership struggle for a new President. There is talk of corruption and state capture by government leaders and officials. We see the economy stagnate and that our country’s financial system has basically been downgraded to junk status. We experience racial tension and an apparent total lack of reconciliation and shared values.
“This Court and the country as a whole are now confronted with a situation where the executive admitted that it is unable to perform its constitutional and statutory responsibilities to provide social assistance to its people. And in the deepest and most humiliating irony it places its hopes in a private corporate entity to get out of this situation”
– Justice Johan Froneman, the Black Sash pronunciation, March 17, 2017
“The problem is that Hlaudi on went a campaign to appoint freelancers on a permanent basis. Now we are left with an exorbitant wage bill… They do not know what to do with all these people, because they do not have the skills to be moved to critical areas such as television and sales”
– Unknown senior SABC employee, Rapport, March 19, 2017