Abusing moral power to corrupt peace

I have spent the last week deep in conversation with peace-building practitioners from across generations and continents. Being in South Africa, many of the conversations turned to Zuma’s governance and the protest marches that have spread across the main cities of the country.

Even if we were not sitting in South Africa our deliberations around peaceful transitions of political power would naturally have turned to South Africa. For many, particularly those of us in the African diaspora, have revelled in the collapse of apartheid and the rise of a world leader of impeccable integrity.

Has not Barbados also recently renamed a park in commemoration of Nelson Mandela? Like many curious tourists, I visited the Robben Island prison cells in which Mandela and his compatriots discussed the road to a South Africa without discrimination. I have read the uplifting stories of the truth and reconciliation processes and I quote liberally from the South African Constitution as a leading example of an inclusive, human-rights-driven declaration of a nation’s ideals.

And yet today the prospect for politically-driven violence is a real and present danger. Not by the State against its powerless citizens as before, but between people wishing to defend the way power is being wielded by the State, and those not willing to accept a state of powerlessness ever again.

Inequality is not just a state of mind, or a sense of injustice that you feel in your heart. It is a grumbling in the stomach. As one bright young activist from the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation said to me, “You can’t eat justice.” Politicians the world over who pay lip service to dialogue processes are doomed to failure, and the sad truth is they pull their countries down with them. It is contempt for people’s aspirations for which there can be no reasonable comeback.

One South African columnist offered the insight that there is a “scary scenario” beginning to unfold if Zuma is forced to relinquish power through a motion of no confidence: South Africa is likely to experience open violence and unprecedented chaos that might be worse than what was averted in the 1990s. The language and tone of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League and other forces that support the embattled President indicate they would be willing to violently reject the result of any democratic process to unseat Zuma.

Zuma has made quick work of unravelling the long road to freedom that Mandela walked for the South African people of all races.

Zuma’s governance has been characterised by a series of shocking and destabilising corruption scandals, financial mismanagement and heavy-handed but incompetent leadership.

His disregard for the unanimous judgment by the 11 judges that comprise the Constitutional Court who found him in violation of the hard-fought-for constitution represented, for most South Africans, a profound betrayal.

Yet the ANC, increasingly packed with loyalists as Zuma shuffles out one strong-willed minister after the next, has circled their wagons around him. This gives Zuma a false sense of confidence I suspect.

In the face of nationwide marches and the threat of more to come, he dismissed them as racist and anti- black.

It is true that there is scepticism about the extent to which the declaration of South Africa’s impending junk status has rallied people who have not been vocal before, but racism is still a very raw subject in South Africa and there is nothing to be gained by a defensive stance that seeks to whip up racism sentiment to detract from governance issues. It will not end well.