LETTER: RADICAL CLASH WITH THE CONSTITUTION
2015-08-12
We welcome reassurances by South African Communist Party (SACP) deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin of his devotion to the Constitution (A distortion to stir the demagogues, Letters, Business Day, August 11.
However, his criticism of Paul Hoffman’s view that “those who subscribe to the values of the national democratic revolution (NDR)” are “anticonstitutionalists” is disingenuous. The NDR is, in fact, profoundly irreconcilable with the Constitution – and particularly with its foundational value of non-racialism (and thus by extension with the foundational values of human dignity and equality as well).
The Department of Trade and Industry has just published the latest version of the Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill. The Bill has its origins in the government’s wish to reassure foreign investors who were alarmed by South Africa’s decision three years ago to terminate its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with a number of European countries. Its purpose is supposedly to provide for “the legislative protection of investors” and the “promotion of investment”.
There has recently been a revealing polemical exchange between Joel Netshitenzhe, the former chief ideologist of the National Democratic Revolution, and the SACP’s chief ideologist, Jeremy Cronin.
Every now and then it is necessary to summon up the fortitude to read what the SACP is saying to its own support base in the Alliance. It was in this spirit that I recently delved into the 3 100 word message of Jeremy Cronin, the SACP’s 1st Deputy General Secretary, to the National Union of Mineworkers 15th National Congress.
On 1 May, South Africa will once again celebrate Workers’ Day – although, in truth, there is nothing to celebrate.
Race relations in South Africa are more fractious now than they have been at any time since 1994.
Many South Africans were charmed by the more conciliatory tone that President Zuma adopted in his response last week during to the State of the Nation (SONA) Debate.
The Foundation has been asked by a number of friends to comment on Magnus Heystek’s recent, very gloomy, article about South Africa’s prospects.
People who are sceptical about big government sometimes observe that society can afford lazy and ineffective public servants because, on the whole, they do little harm – apart from consuming taxpayers’ money.