Marikana: we need justice, and we need change

The following remarks were delivered today in Marikana by the Leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), Mmusi Maimane, at the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the Marikana massacre.

Today six years ago, 34 mineworkers were killed and 78 injured, many of them critically, because they dared to stand up and speak out about their living conditions and their wages.

These men were shot down, some at point blank range, in these fields and koppies by a government and its police force whose only response to protest is brutality.

A police force that was urged to take strong action against the protesting miners by the man who would go on to be elected ANC president, and by default our president.

This day six years ago was the shameful moment that exposed our government to the world for what it was: not the visionary, compassionate government of Nelson Mandela, but a brutal and authoritarian ANC government that won’t hesitate to turn on its own people.

I have written to President Ramaphosa and asked that he declare 16 August “Marikana Memorial Day” in honour of the workers killed here six years ago. His predecessor, Jacob Zuma, refused to do this, but given President Ramaphosa’s pledge to “play whatever role he can”, I trust that he will agree to this.

This was our country’s great moment of shame. It was a moment for deep self-reflection and remorse. “Never again” said our government, and many of us believed them. We desperately wanted to believe them.

But a few years later this belief was shattered when this same government’s callous actions led to the deaths of 143 mental health patients in Gauteng.

It is now six years since the Marikana killings, and two years since the Esidimeni tragedy was uncovered, and we are yet to see any people or government departments held responsible for all these deaths.

Why not? When will the families of those who died at the hands of this government be given closure through justice? That’s the first question we need to ask.

The second question we need to ask is: What has changed since Marikana? What have we learnt? What are we doing differently? And the answer to this is “not a lot”.

When the miners downed tools in protest back in 2012, times were bleak. Our economy was in trouble, unemployment was high and mining was losing jobs.

Today, six years later, conditions are far worse. We have new record levels of unemployment and poverty, and the mining sector, as a provider of jobs, is in deep crisis.

Implats is about to close down five mines and shed 13,000 jobs, and this week we learnt that Goldfields is looking to cut more than 1,500 jobs at its South Deep mine. South Africa used to be the largest gold producer in the world. We have now dropped all the way down to eighth place.

This is a time when we need to do all we can to keep our mines open and profitable, but instead our government is doing the exact opposite. Through bad legislation and the crony enrichment scheme they call BEE, they have made it very hard for anyone to keep a mining operation open.

While the ANC’s version of BEE has made a handful of connected people very, very rich, it has been a disaster for the thousands of workers who have lost, and will continue to lose their jobs.

Take the BEE deal that Goldfields struck to get their mining licence. Hundreds of millions of Rands ended up the pockets of ANC politicians and their friends. Even the ANC Speaker Baleka Mbete scored R25 million in what was clearly a massive bribe deal.

That’s not empowerment. That’s just plain theft, and this was confirmed in a report by a respected New York law firm. But because they gave it the name “Black Economic Empowerment” the ANC has gotten away with it for decades.

I can assure you, that won’t happen under a DA government. Our empowerment policy will be for the benefit of ordinary South Africans. Instead of making politicians and their friends filthy rich from mining shares, we will give those empowerment shares to the workers on these mines.

Another way to empower these workers is for the money that would have ended up in the pockets of connected cronies through BEE deals to instead be paid into a pension fund for mineworkers. That’s how you empower people through long-term financial independence.

And we will repeat this in every sector of the economy. Empowerment will be for those disempowered by our country’s history, and not for those with the right names and connections.

I can also assure you, a DA government will seek and deliver justice for every life that was lost at the hands of the police here in Marikana.

We will bring change to our beautiful country and return it to the path set back in 1994 by Nelson Mandela. A path which will lead to one common destiny for all South Africans.

Thank you.

Labour laws must protect most vulnerable South Africans

The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by DA Shadow Minister of Labour, Michael Bagraim MP, during the debate on a National Minimum Wage.

We are here today to celebrate May Day and labour freedom. It is with a heavy heart that I need to say that the labour freedom was short-lived.

In 1995 under the wisdom and guidance of President Nelson Mandela, we hailed the implementation of our Labour Relations Act in a plethora of forward thinking labour laws.

However, since the implementation of these laws we have gone backwards. In this very Parliament four years ago, The President of the ANC and unfortunately of the country, Jacob Zuma, announced that the government would be creating 5 million jobs.

Under Zuma’s leadership, we have seen a steady loss of 5 million jobs.

Our labour laws have acted as a handbrake to job creation and the labour regulatory authority appears to have done everything in its power to not only cause our workforce to dwindle but to stop businesses from creating more employment positions.

Today we have an astounding 9.2 million people unemployed and we are about to embark upon disastrous legislation which will cause at least a further 715 000 jobs to be lost.

The Treasury tells us that they can forecast these losses so it ill behooves us to say this is an unintended consequence.

Although there are some progressive and forward thinking imminent changes to both the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Labour Relations Act, the overall import of the changes will be negative.

It doesn’t help to have some of the best and innovative laws in the world if these laws are not going to have an effect on those at the workplace.

We have over 16 million people employed in South Africa today but only 1200 inspectors from the Department of Labour.

These inspectors are underpaid, overworked and certainly under-resourced.

Invariably small business, with all sorts of pressures, don’t even know what the labour laws are and the majority of our workforce is not unionised.

All the labour federations acknowledge that their numbers are dwindling and the unions confirm that their reach into the small business sector is minimal.

Our labour laws can be compared to a brand new beautiful shining car which has no engine and no driver.

Our government’s answer to its inability to enforce the law is merely to make more law and make the regulations more onerous and complicated.

There is no incentive for anyone to even consider the implementation of the laws that we already have, let alone the new laws and the burdensome regulations we are about to face.

When a staff member is first engaged at the workplace, the very basis of our labour legislation requires that the staff member receives a letter of appointment or a contract of employment.

From that contract the rest of the rights flow in terms of the implementation of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Labour Relations Act and the many other pieces of labour legislation on our statute book today.

When we enquire as to how many workers in South Africa actually do have letters of appointment or contracts of employment we are astonished to see that thousands of our workers don’t even have that simple document from which the enforcement of their rights flow.

Unfortunately, the message that we are receiving from the employers is the same.

Hundreds of companies tell us that they have difficulty trying to register for Workmen’s Compensation and UIF.

Many more tell us when they try to claim from Workmen’s Compensation and UIF they hit a dead end.

The most vulnerable people in our society are those who have been injured at work and who are unable to continue working.

They have insurance for which they handsomely pay every month.

This insurance, workmen’s compensation, supposedly is there to compensate them for these injuries and to pay for their medical expenses.

Only last week, I received a further 27 complaints of claims that have been outstanding for years.

These complaints are a drop in the ocean as I receive regular daily pleas for help from these vulnerable people who are left bereft and non-functioning.

Despite the fact that we have insurance which is heavily resourced and over-funded, they receive nothing.

I have just read an application to The High Court where the applicant is seeking to have a warrant of arrest put out for the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner.

One can only shudder at this abuse when in fact the PIC is holding billions of rands in reserves to enable the commissioner to pay out our injured workforce.

The real elephant in the room is the ongoing mismanagement of just about every section of our Department of Labour.

We have just had current feedback from the Auditor General who talks about material non-compliance, irregular expenditure, inadequate contract management, wasteful expenditure, lack of skills at various levels, high number of fraud and financial management investigations, duplicate payments made and loans issued to medical service providers in prior years not recovered and many recent suspected fraud incidents.

I can go on, however, there is a culture of poor performance and a weak internal control environment.

It is horrific to read about the lack of urgency and commitment to improve the control environment which may lead to increased instances of fraud and could also result in the possible depletion of funds which would negatively impact service delivery.

All this when the service delivery is at an all-time low. It should be pointed out that there are some existing dedicated hard-working staff who are probably over-worked and who often get discouraged and eventually leave the entity or adapt to the culture of poor performance.

We have entities such as the compensation fund who keep purchasing IT systems but somehow never integrate them properly or learn how to use them.

It should be mentioned that the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) is the one sparkling jewel in the broken crown of the Department of Labour.

The CCMA has managed to a large degree to try and keep labour peace and ensure that disputes are managed both timeously and efficiently.

Unfortunately, we are going to see this jewel have its shine taken off within the next year when the burdensome national minimum wage lands on its lap.

The CCMA performance has been sterling but that are running at full capacity with their budget utilised to the fullest. The CCMA investigated its future workload and has been conservative in stating that its workload will be increased by over 30% with the advent of the new legislation.

There is no budget earmarked for this increase and they are over a year away from being able to train commissioners to handle the tidal wave (no, tsunami) of referred disputes.

NEDLAC, the toy telephone, spent over two years debating the national minimum wage and its modalities.

Many of these issues are going to have an enormous effect on the unemployed in South Africa and the future workforce.

There was no voice of the unemployed and there was certainly no thought with regard to job creation.

This is the true story of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. As talk shops go, NEDLAC is good for those who are entrenched in the workplace and seen as the labour aristocracy.

Even now when a new trade union formation seeks a place at the table, greedy wolves around that table are trying their utmost to deny them a seat.

It is really rich to see that the auditor general has raised a concern about HR management within NEDLAC.

It would be laughable as these are the very people who purport to guide human resources in South Africa.

Over and above this enormous levels of concern have been earmarked within NEDLAC such as appliance management, procurement and contract management, performance management, financial management and oversight and monitoring.

They have been warned they are about to face an audit failure. Collective bargaining in South Africa is about to take another knock with these future amendments where the Minister may extend a collective agreement where either employer parties or the trade union parties are representative.

In other words, big business and big trade unions can extend agreements to destroy small business.

There are some positive amendments which need applause. Firstly, the provision for a secret ballot is intended to ensure that individual union members are able to exercise their right to decide about strike action in a democratic manner.

Furthermore, every strike must have picketing rules and parties may agree on their own rules or the default rules will apply.

At this point I must congratulate Honourable Ian Ollis of the DA who proposed this very amendment in a private Members Bill three years ago to the day.

At that point the motion of a secret ballot was struck down by the ANC as being anti-worker.  Honourable Ollis certainly needs the accolades for this forward thinking.

The intention of the amendment to allow for further extension of a conciliation period is intended to provide for more time where there are reasonable prospects of reaching an agreement.

In essence our law is trying its utmost to find areas of conciliation rather than to resort to strike action.

This is not there to frustrate trade unions and workers but to provide an opportunity for a settlement to be reached. This can be praised as forward thinking.

Anyone materially affected by a strike or a lock out may apply to the Labour Court for an Order to have an advisory arbitration panel appointed.

This is intended to come into effect after a strike has commenced and only in particular circumstances. It does not interfere with the right to strike and nor can it be used to stop strikes.

Again, this decisive piece of legislation will help find solutions to destructive and non-functional strike action. It is intended as constructive and non-binding and will be a means to facilitate a settlement.

These proposed amendments are intended to provide a way in resolving strikes that are intractable, violent or may cause a local or national crisis.  This is in line with the International Labour Organisation.

Unfortunately, the general import of a universal national minimum wage will indeed have costly consequences and will lead to the inflexibility of our labour laws and regulatory bias against employment of low schooled workers.

The reality of our complex regulations will be universal avoidance and unfortunately will also be impossible to implement, monitor and enforce.

Today we face the scourge of unemployment which is increasing monthly and already in the youth category over 50% are unemployed, many of whom are unemployable.

The Democratic Alliance hereby speaks for the unemployed and for those who face imminent retrenchment. The DA will always speak on behalf of the most vulnerable in our society.

 

BOKAMOSO | Let’s rewrite our future, not our past

In 1962, during his Commencement Address at Yale University, John F Kennedy had this to say about the danger of substituting myths for truths: “The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

More than half a century later, we are seeing first-hand in our own democracy how myths – “widely held but false ideas” – are employed to capture the narrative and deflect attention away from failures. This is something the ANC is very fond of doing. The longer it can keep the public attention away from its many failures, the better. But in recent weeks the practice has been turbocharged, with a more brazen rewriting of our history than ever.

We’ve had to hear, from some, how Nelson Mandela was a “sell-out”. How his project of reconciling our fractured nation was somehow responsible for the injustice, inequality and exclusion that still characterises our society today. It is difficult to imagine a more preposterous suggestion. 

We’ve had to witness Desmond Tutu’s name being dragged through the mud, and aspersions cast over the important work he and the Commissioners of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did in the 90’s.

We’ve had to watch as principled journalists – men and women who fought for truth and exposed the apartheid government – were summarily rebranded as apartheid spies in the service of the notorious Stratcom division.

We’ve had to hear repeated lies about Judge Ramon Leon following his death – newspapers incorrectly calling him the “hanging judge”, and influential commentators and politicians happily going along with the lie.

The big question is: Why? Why is there this desire to rewrite our history? Why is it deemed necessary to tarnish the names of honourable men and women in order to establish a new set of myths as the “truth”? Post-truth politics is a very slippery slope that doesn’t end well for society. Why would we risk going there?

The answer is simple. The South Africa of today has fallen far short of the promises made to millions of our people. And the people that delivered us here, a quarter of a century into our democracy, have run out of credible explanations for our present and believable promises for our future. The only option that remains is to rewrite our past to conjure up new enemies that could explain the failure of the ANC today.

George Orwell famously wrote in his 1984 novel: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” In other words, if you can determine how history is remembered and retold, you can secure your power going forward. And if you have power right now, you can ensure that you are the writer of this history.

This explains the obsessive arguing over past narratives. If South Africans can be convinced that the 1994 consensus was actually a deal with the devil, then this can be used to excuse the present mess and lay claim to the future.

And so we see, from the ANC, a fixation with symbolism over substance. This allows them to avoid the hard work of changing people’s lives. It buys them leeway when it comes to delivering services, holding poor performance to account, tackling corruption, fixing education and creating an environment in which South Africa’s entrepreneurial spirit can awaken.

It’s a self-serving tactic that is used at great cost to the people of this country. It ignores their lived reality and it offers them no plan to improve this reality. Instead, it just conjures up more scapegoats and enemies to blame.

Unfortunately our media are often complicit in this. They allow narratives to be framed by the ANC, and they accept their rewritten version of the past as the truth. These debates then dominate our discourse, at the expense of real stories about the failures of government in our schools, our hospitals and our communities – stories that tell of the lived experience of millions of South Africans.

It’s not easy to shift the narrative back to the issues that matter. The DA is constantly accused of not having a plan for South Africa. But the truth is that there is no other party with as many detailed and costed policies as the DA, as any cursory visit to our website would show. The trouble is that in the world of clickbait and social media soundbite politics, our plans and our policy are typically not deemed newsworthy when held up against the myths of the ANC. 

This will not deter us though. The DA is the party for the future. We are not concerned with owning and rewriting the past. Our job is to convince enough people that we have a vision and a plan to build a future that works for all.

I’m talking about a truly democratic era where people go to the ballot to express their future ideals and not their race. I’m talking about a future with a healthy, inclusive economy that can wipe out the inequalities in our society derived from race. A future where our country is a sought-after investment destination and the gateway to Africa. A future where all young people receive an education that enables them to compete for a better tomorrow; where the landless can be owners and where the hungry can escape poverty.

This is the South Africa we have to build together. Because if we continue down the path we’re currently on, then we have to accept that our future is already written for us. And that is not a future I want for my children. That’s why we need total change.

Forget about rewriting the past – we need to rewrite our future.

The need to unite our people is as important now as it has always been

28 years ago to the day, the father of our nation, Nelson Mandela, was released from Victor Verster Prison following more than a quarter-century behind bars for fighting for the freedom we all enjoy today.
We remain grateful for all that Madiba did for our nation, and for the values he espoused. His vision of a united, democratic, and non-racial South Africa that is prosperous is a vision the DA shares and fights for each and every day.
Madiba saluted the ANC in his speech on his release from prison for having ‘fulfilled our every expectation in its role as leader of the great march to freedom.’ 28 years ago, so did every other South African, myself included. But since then the ANC abandoned that expectation and they chose to leave the people of South Africa behind.
The DA made a different choice. We chose to meet Madiba’s expectation and continued his long walk to freedom.
We are now the only party in South Africa committed to the values of reconciliation that Madiba espoused. Where others actively mobilise race against race, community against community, we are devoted to the idea espoused in the opening words of our Constitution, that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
The use of violence as a means of protest that continues to flare up across the country should be condemned in the strongest terms. The ANC has spent 20 years straying from Madiba’s values and now find their organisation paralysed by corruption and division. This is the cost of straying from founding values.
ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa’s extended exit negotiations with President Jacob Zuma are beginning to seem a lot like mediating to protect Zuma from the consequences of his ruinous presidency and his corruption. This mediation cannot continue. Jacob Zuma must face the full consequences of his actions whatever they may be, and there can be no deal or leniency for him or his family.
Madiba’s ‘ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities’ is an ideal that the DA strives to live for and achieve. It is an ideal that should be shared all South Africans.
Today we remember Madiba’s release from prison and his inspiring vision of a united, reconciled country. We recommit ourselves to the attainment of that vision in our lifetimes.

We will build the South Africa envisaged by Mandela and Kathrada

The following remarks were made today by DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, at a press conference following a visit to Robben Island, which was hosted by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to thank the Kathrada Foundation for inviting us on this trip to one of our country’s most meaningful historical sites. It is deeply moving to know that Uncle Kathy wanted us to understand what Robben Island meant in the context of our struggle history, and had wanted to take us there himself. His absence here today was felt by all.
Those, like Uncle Kathy, who were imprisoned on the island paid an enormous price so that our country could escape the oppression of the Apartheid government. It was their freedom for ours. And it is their stories of sacrifice and leadership that we must turn to for guidance when it seems that we have so little left to guide us today.
Anyone who has ever crossed these 12km of water and set foot on Robben Island will know what the place symbolises for us as a nation. We often speak of the negotiators of our democracy and the authors of our Constitution in the early 90s as the people who wrote the crucial early chapters of our new nation, but many of those conversations started far earlier in the cells and on the grounds of the island.
Many of the concepts of freedom and justice that define us as a nation – and that eventually found their way into our progressive Constitution – were discussed and debated, agreed and disagreed on, for many years by the likes of Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Dennis Goldberg and Laloo Chiba, who today serves on the Kathrada Foundation Board.
It is an honour for me to make this trip along with people like Mr Chiba, and Barbara Hogan, who was jailed in the 1980s for her role in the fight against Apartheid. Those who were imprisoned on Robben Island sacrificed more than we can imagine. They were subjected to the most inhumane conditions, and parts of their lives were stolen from them and their families. But they helped anchor our struggle to build a free and just society today in the selfless struggle of our history. It is for that sacrifice were are most grateful for.
But today wasn’t only about remembering history. It was also about reflecting on our present. There would be no point in remembering the sacrifices of Mandela, Kathdrada, Sisulu and many others if we don’t ask ourselves: Are we honouring those sacrifices today? Have we made all those decades spent on that island in service of a better South Africa count? Would Ahmed Kathdrada and Nelson Mandela be satisfied with the state of our democracy and the quality of our leadership today?
Every single person in this country knows the answers to these questions. The juxtaposition between what we saw and remembered today and what we read in the Sunday newspapers yesterday was not lost on anyone. The contrast could not possibly be bigger.
Yesterday’s reports that our President has had ongoing relationships with gangsters and smugglers, that he received enormous payments from a private firm while he was president, that he used every means possible to evade his tax obligation and that he used his presidential powers to shut down investigations into his tax crimes are an indictment on the legacy of those who gave their freedom for ours.
You could not turn a page in the newspaper without reading of the corrupt activities, the crimes and the scandals of members of our government and their deployed cadres, including those hoping to take over their reins from Zuma at the end of the year. The organisation that once personified selfless struggle could not have fallen further from grace. The heroes we remembered today could not have been more betrayed.
It is time for every South African to take a stand for these heroes and their vision for our country. It is time for all of us to fix the mess this government under Jacob Zuma and his friends, his family, his handlers and his supporters have gotten us into. None of us can afford to sit on the fence any longer. We simply don’t have the luxury of time.
We made this trip to Robben Island today to fulfil Uncle Kathy’s wishes. But what he also wished for was a South Africa that works for all her people. A South Africa free from oppression, free from poverty and free from the greed of bad leaders. I intend to work to fulfil that wish.
Thank you.

Madiba’s dream will come after 2019

This op-ed first appeared in the City Press on 22 July 2017
This past Tuesday we celebrated Mandela Day, and millions of South Africans committed 67 minutes of their day to selfless work in honour of an extraordinary man whose generosity of spirit and unshakable commitment to the common good of our nation were so powerful that the very thought of him produces visceral emotion from even the hardest of hearts.
For our 67 minutes, my wife Natalie and I chose to visit and assist Tumelo Home in Ivory Park, Johannesburg – a home that cares for mentally handicapped children.
Our time there served as a stark reminder of the deep levels of injustice in our society that result in many people being left behind.
I was quickly reminded that South Africa is still a deeply divided nation of insiders and outsiders, the cared-for and the forgotten. A nation of haves and have-nots.
It was Madiba’s dream to see this unjust system of insiders and outsiders dismantled.
In the solitude of his small cell on Robben Island, he dreamt of a united, reconciled and nonracial South Africa belonging to all who live in it.
He dreamt of a country where injustice would make us uncomfortable, a country in which we would unite and fight for each other’s future – regardless of the colour of our skin or the circumstances of our birth.
My visit to Tumelo Home reminded me that this dream of Madiba’s is still alive.
I witnessed staff members and volunteers selflessly serving individuals whom society has forgotten.
But it cannot be the role of the nongovernmental or nonprofit organisation sector to single-handedly change the fabric of our society.
It is going to take all of us. Government, civil society, business, religious bodies. All of us.
Mandela’s legacy cannot be reduced to 67 minutes of random acts of kindness once a year.
Mandela’s legacy speaks to a life spent fighting injustice and fighting for outsiders.
The dream which Madiba birthed has not yet come to fruition. In truth, his long walk has not ended and it is for us to take up the baton.
What he began is now ours to complete.
Hopeful for the future
We must ask ourselves why, after 23 years of democracy, millions of South Africans are still treated as second-class citizens.
We must ask ourselves why quality healthcare is reserved for a small handful, or why more than 100 children die every month of malnutrition.
The status quo which produces haves and have-nots is being perpetuated by a toxic mix of poor governance and grand corruption.
This injustice should shake us to our core. It should make us uncomfortable.
In fact, it must create within us a bias towards the poor, the disenfranchised, the jobless and the outsiders. It should birth within us all an obligation to create a just and fair society.
It is when we are all moved by a deep conviction to see change that change will come.
Today, South Africa is not fulfilling the dream Madiba envisioned for our nation in that lonely cell on Robben Island.
It appears we have lost our way, and that we have in fact become leaderless. Yet despite this, I remain hopeful for the future.
Because I am convinced there is another way, another option, a post-ANC South Africa.
A future in which we as South Africans are brought together on the basis of shared values, rather than race, religion, ethnicity or culture.
I am privileged to lead a political party that I believe can be an effective vehicle for bringing the change our country needs to get us back onto Madiba’s path.
Under my leadership, his dream is the DA’s mission, his steadfast values are our moral compass.
People are not naive.
And I believe that come 2019, South Africans are going to take a hard look around, and decide that change is needed.
A post-ANC coalition government will come to power in 2019 with one mission: to reignite the dream of 1994 and bring Madiba’s ethics into national government.
His values of reconciliation, freedom and social justice will infuse every decision we take.
We will work to build a growing, inclusive economy that can bring real, material improvements to people’s lives.
We will focus on getting the basics right, laying solid foundations for long-term success.
We will promote and respect the independence of our constitutional institutions.
We will appoint proficient leaders and hold them accountable. We will create fertile conditions for growing an inclusive economy that can transform our society.
We will build a capable state and a professional civil service.
We will develop the infrastructure needed to connect South Africans to each other and the world. We will fix the education system, and strive for excellence.
We will build a stronger social safety net for the poor and marginalised, but we will never give up on drawing them into the growing, thriving economy.
We will work to heal the injustices of the past. We will promote peace and human rights in Africa and the world.
And above all, we will fight for the outsiders, the disenfranchised and the forgotten in our society.
I do believe that, together, we can continue our collective walk to true freedom.

A man of principle, so far removed from the politics of patronage

The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the DA’s Shadow Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Ghaleb Cachalia MP, during the condolence debate for Ahmed Kathrada.
Two score and more years ago we made a tryst with destiny.
I was there, in the ballroom of the Carlton Hotel, alongside my parents, Yusuf and Amina Cachalia, when Nelson Mandela thanked South Africa for placing the nation’s faith in the ANC of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada and others.
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada, or Kathy as he was affectionately called, understood that tryst. More so, he fought, all of his life, to give meaning to it. I was privileged to know him.
He was an activist to the core and a humanitarian to his very marrow. He gave his all, to give meaning to that much used and abused phrase – a better life for all.
A little-known fact about Kathy – imparted to me by my father – is that he was assured by the stellar legal team headed by Bram Fischer, that he had no case to answer, and that they could ensure his acquittal.
Kathy refused. He elected to join his leaders and mentors in jail, where he sacrificed his freedom, over twenty-six years, to demonstrate the solidarity of the Indian people in our common struggle for freedom.
Let us salute his bravery, his sacrifice, his vision, and his unfailing commitment to that quest, which he saw to fruition, in that Carlton ballroom, where that tryst with destiny, was made.
In his speech, Nelson Mandela asked the people of South Africa to hold his government accountable.
As Jay Naidoo, the first RDP minister once said, “we had, in our hands the levers of power, money in a budget, staff, resources, and the conviction that this government, by virtue of its democratic election, was the only legitimate representative of the aspirations of our people.” He added wryly, “any criticism of the government was seen as a criticism of the revolution.”
That revolutionary narrative – fed, nurtured, and kept alive in the body of the ANC by the SACP – that South Africa represented a colonialism of a special type and, that power needed to be seized from the white colonists – set the scene for the decades to come.
The National Democratic Revolution became the interim buzzword of choice, and a black middle class was fostered to serve it.
Now we have the Bell Pottinger refinement of this in White Monopoly Capital – a smokescreen for racist appropriation, tribal control and the continuance of crookery.
The theory of the game was, that the expropriation of the wealth of the bourgeoisie, white then, and black, now, would be just deserts for their historic and ongoing appropriation.
In his heart, Kathy would have known that this was not the science of a revolution. He knew it was an apology for plunder. He knew that this is how the revolution eats itself, time and time again.
This is crass elitism masquerading as social justice. Of course, we need social justice, but this was bunk and Kathy knew this. If in doubt, read between the lines of his memoirs and other explicit statements he made since.
Kathy knew this in his heart because he had lived history. Because he knew.  Because he had a reflective integrity. Because he was a mensch.
He lamented, too, that liberation had actualized a drive for conspicuous consumption.  He knew this. Mandela knew this. And when I raised the issue with Madiba years ago, he likened it to children who had never seen sweets, being let loose in a sweet shop.
Witness the radical chic on many of the benches here – the Breitling watches, the Saville-row suits, the custom shoes and lavish motor cars and VVIP security, paid for by the taxpayer – as they continue to buy into the vain notion that socialism will arrive – this frenzy of appropriation notwithstanding – as long as the right structures are put in place and the correct measures taken.
Kathy had the moral fibre to see through this. He saw that tryst, being trampled and trashed as time went by.
Moreover, he understood the inherent contradictions, as did Frantz Fanon, who said, that the curse of post-colonial Africa was the leaders who took over from the colonialists only to become colonialists themselves – ironically of a very special type.
By March last year, Kathy had had enough.
He wrote a letter to his president, the Hon Jacob Zuma, in which he called for him to step down.
Kathy’s struggle credentials are writ large in blood, suffering and selfless contribution.
On his release in 1989, he served on the first national executive committee of the ANC after its unbanning – a far cry from the spineless “ja baas” body it is today.
He expressed his pain in writing to you, hon Zuma, as a loyal and disciplined member of the ANC and the broader Congress movement since the 1940s.
He had always maintained a position of not speaking out publicly about any differences he may have had with his leaders and his organisation. But on that day in March 2016, he was moved to break with that tradition.
Echoing the famed lament of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he said: “I did not speak out against Nkandla although I thought it wrong to have spent public money for any president’s private comfort.
I did not speak out‚ though I felt it grossly insulting when my president is called a “thief” or a “rapist”; or when he is accused of being “under the influence of the Guptas”.
I believed that the NEC would have dealt with this as the collective leadership of the ANC”.
But the record shows they didn’t and that, sadly and shamefully, is down to the politics of patronage and complicit compromise.
These events, Nkandla and more led him to ask some very serious and difficult questions.
He put it thus: “now that the court has found that the president failed to uphold‚ defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law‚ how should I relate to my president?
If we are to continue to be guided by growing public opinion and the need to do the right thing‚ would he not seriously consider stepping down?”
He went on to say: “I know that if I were in the president’s shoes‚ I would step down with immediate effect” and he appealed to the president to submit to the will of the people and resign.
That is the legacy of a man. A man of principle, so far removed from the politics of patronage.
I feel his pain. It was the same pain that I felt when the ANC left me. Yes, it left me like it did Kathy, and millions of South Africans because it has lost its way – irretrievably, irrevocably and indefinitely.
The time has come to usher in a change. A change that heralds a break with the old lie – that those who lay sole claim, to the mantle of victory over injustice, have a God-given right to rule – as they say – until Jesus comes.
In all the years of struggle, Kathy had borne witness to the warts that grew on the body of the ANC. And they were legion – Angolan death camps, Quattro, the sweep of the Shishita, the Makatshinga tragedy and more.
Still, he soldiered on to make that tryst with destiny. That tryst that has been so shamefully shattered by one man who has sought to make South Africa his private fiefdom, in the pay of his ostensible masters, the Gupta’s.
But as I alluded to earlier, it’s not just one man. It is rooted in the DNA of a flawed model. A model that promises an unattainable utopia of sorts, and whose chosen path is defective and riven with contradictions – contradictions which harbour the very seeds of its own destruction.
You see, you cannot build a free and open society by following a game plan that has failed throughout the passage of history; that has delivered greyness and misery; that has trampled freedom; that has stifled economic growth, and that has fostered an elite that feeds on its own body and that of the nation – examples abound throughout history but these are ignored and rooted here in the body, and the sullied soul of the ANC. On which side of history do you want to be?
It’s not the absence of examples, it’s the inability to heed the lessons of history; the inability to do the right thing when called upon to do so.
It is incumbent on us to deliver a prosperous and fair state that addresses the needs and individual aspirations of all our people.
It cannot be delivered by an organisation that has passed its sell-by date, that that prays to the god of mammon, in its vain quest to eradicate, nay to appropriate, the spoils of mammon.
Let me quote Matthew, 6:24 to you,  “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon”.
This is the language that Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada would have understood because it is common cause in Islam as it is in Christianity, and in the hearts of all religions.  Haji Ahmed would have known from whence it came.
It would have resonated with his understanding, because his values would never have allowed him to be the handmaiden of Nkandla, of the Zupta’s, of the misreading of history and of the attempted sale of our nation.
He was a patriot. The ANC of the hon Zuma that left him, that left me, is the antithesis of that patriotism, of that nobility of purpose.
Perhaps Gandhi was right when he said of India – and these words of his would have resonated with Kathy, who was grounded in Gandhism –
“I have repeatedly said that I have neither any part nor any say in many things that are going on in the country today.
…My voice is in the wilderness… mine is a lone voice. I now say things which do not go home…yet, I go on saying what I believe to be true.”
Gandhi had famously called for the Indian National Congress – in India – to be dissolved because it had done its job by ending British rule.
The wise and wizened Mahatma called for a new organisation to serve the people of India; one that would eschew corruption.
His plea fell on deaf ears, and there, as it is here, there are none so deaf as those who will not hear.
I share a common history with Kathy, a passage from colonial India, a family steeped in the struggle against injustice. But we also share a sense of betrayal.
Still, I am buoyed by a conviction that democracy will triumph over time.
General Obasanjo knew this and advised as much in his recent visit – advice that President Zuma, Mr Mugabe, Sudan’s al-Bashir and Zambia’s Lungu would do well to heed.
You see, democracy triumphed over India’s Congress and, it will triumph here, over your Congress – of that the DA and history will make sure, as we honour the spirit of Ahmed Kathrada.
Kathy, know this, your voice is not in the wilderness. It will ring out loud in our victory of 2019. We will hallow your purpose; we will consecrate your spirit.
Our sincere condolences go out to Barbara Hogan, the Kathrada family and the people of our nation.
I thank you.