http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-10-09-spy-boss-haunted-by-tender-probe

What’s with these dudes?

http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article144145.ece

“Even if such a fear is real and not perceived or manufactured, what do you think between FEAR and ACCESS TO POWER AND RESOUCES what could have been the real reason behind his silence for 15 years? I doubt if fear is the answer.”

I was reluctant to go there in my earlier comment.

Now that the question has been posed, I would venture that there have been many hands in the cookie jar.

Far too many people “did not join the struggle to be poor”.

I do however think that there are many who have been less than vocal to maintain their role in pursuit of the NDR (being thrown in the political wilderness would not have been helpful in that regard).

Maggs, I cannot agree more with you on this one.

Maggs Naidu has put it very clearly above that the dilemma to anyone who wants to choose one person between the two leaders of our time is that whatever bad or good things you can argue happened under Mbeki you will find that they are also happening under JZ. And this is what I have been trying to illustrate all the time on the basis of which I therefore challenged you et al as I still hereby do – to honestly and in an even handedness look on both camps if the same thing you regard as bad under Mbeki is not happening under Zuma, as well as what you regard today as being good about Zuma has not happened in the past under Mbeki. I will be surprised if you can find more differences than similarities and if the analysis of such a situation leads to the conclusion that Zuma is better than Mbeki. My argument is that there are, and unless JZ changes his way of doing things since he still has chance, there will still be more similarities between the administrations; or JZ could even be worse. Based on the above analogy, would you therefore Gwebe in your honest opinion and understanding of the South African political and democratic situation since 1994 if you like safely say under JZ there is no such a practice of threatening people with their livelihoods (i.e. positions not only in government but also in the private sector) if they do not heed the ANC and the government’s call? I will certainly doubt your honesty if your answer to this question could be affirmative, but I would like to comply and observe the audi rule first.

On why people who have suddenly found voices now could not speak then? Maggs Naidu has correctly answered this question. In addition, they are (a) obvious cowards, and (b) have simple substituted their brains and reasons for which they joined the struggle in the first place with jejenums and duodenums – they are now in the struggle to retain their positions and huge salary incomes and other benefits in the current government. For instance, how do you trust Ramathlodi’s criticism of Mbeki; the man who together with other people like Sam Shilowa benefited greatly and silently under Mbeki, only to start talking now when he realized that power has now shifted from Mbeki to Zuma? Are we so stupid enough to believe that a man who once ran away from his home country to live in exile in Lesotho in the fight against apartheid now developed fear from a fellow disarmed comrade, brother and a black South African in the constitutional democratic South Africa that he could not talk for almost 15 years? Even if such a fear is real and not perceived or manufactured, what do you think between FEAR and ACCESS TO POWER AND RESOUCES what could have been the real reason behind his silence for 15 years? I doubt if fear is the answer.

Michael Osborne says: October 8, 2009 at 13:03 pm

It may be something less sinister – our electoral system.

Cadres may be kept in line by, as Gwebecimele says: October 8, 2009 at 11:14 am, “threatning their livelihood” – perhaps patronage is more powerful than the pen and the sword – to misquote the good book “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away”.

Like suck up or else!

Obviously the ANC has tendencies to being a controlling, centralizing one party state–which, of course, was exacerbated when it was an illegal, exiled organization, and dissent was (more?) legitimately seen as threatening its survival. Changing to become more democratic internally is not an easy or quick process.

Further, as Michael points out, everybody wanted to believe in the goodness of the ANC and Mandela in the period of 1994 and after. It takes time for warts to become apparent, and it is easy to keep silent at first, because you hope that the problems you see are simply isolated incidents–a bad apple here, an honest mistake there. It takes time for patterns to appear.

And then you want to believe that reform is possible from within. You want to believe that change (the election of JZ as an example?) is a sign that the real problems will be addressed–or is it just window dressing? Will the new crowd be co-opted like the old crowd was? Is the problem the system and the institutions, or just the people?

Personally, I think that it is the system and institutions (the ANC itself, and the control that a political party in SA has over the system and individual legislators, for instance), and that it doesn’t matter who the people that are in control are. JZ will no more be able to resist the temptations of the type of power than Mbeki was able to do. And another Mandela would not be able to make it all better–not without changing the system and the institutions.

Similarily Feinstein first cooperated and later changed when he was pressured as Scopa Chairperson also lost or walked out of his position.
He became more vocal after the release of his book.

Now this supports my theory, they find it more easier to speak up now and they lost their positions then.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=84614&sn=Detail