Several years ago I attended a conference where a French academic delivered a paper on the etiquette of soliciting anonymous sex in public toilets in the South of France. I listened in amazement as the academic gave a rather erudite and learned presentation (relying on the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault), in which he argued that there were very strict but unwritten rules to be adhered to when engaging in such a noble pursuit.
Little did I realize then that one day I, too, would have to write about toilets.
However, the toilets I have to write about are not situated in the South of France, but in the Makhaza area of Khayelitsha. The DA city council had erected these toilets almost three years ago but, so they claim, they could only afford either to build one walled toilet for every 5 households or to provide each household with a toilet without the walls. When it came to light that the DA had built these toilets without walls, the city councils got a big fright because it suddenly realized how callous this looked and arranged for the toilets to be partitioned off.
The ANC Youth League in the Western Cape understood that the bare toilets were a potent symbol of neglect and even racism and could be used to mobilize voters, so its members tore down the partitions, leaving the poor residents exposed again. Asked what right they had to destroy structures when residents had agreed that the city should fix its mess, Ward 95 Development Forum leader Andile Lile said a community meeting on Sunday had decided to reject the enclosures. ”We’ve been given a mandate by the community to fight against this,” he said.
Pressed about the fact that residents had signed an agreement and had a right to choose, Lile said: “I believe in majority rule. It must be a principle position for all of us here and not for individuals. The majority does not want this and we cannot accommodate individuals who betray us.”
“We are going to destroy everything and make the city ungovernable,” ANCYL Dullah Omar regional secretary Loyiso Nkohle said on Tuesday in response to the toilet saga. ”We are calling on all youth to do this [vandalise the city], especially those living in informal settlements.”
To me this disgusting saga can be viewed as a metaphor for so much that is wrong with our politics and our society.
First, the DA city council has a lot to answer for. A city that spends millions of Rands every year on trimming the hedges and raking and gathering the leaves in the streets of leafy white suburbs (not to mention the billions spent on the World Cup Stadium and the park next to it) and then claims it has no money to provide poor black residents with one of the most basic and relatively cheap amenities required to live a life with even a semblance of human dignity, is not a city that cares about all its citizens.
It is not as if the city had to choose between building proper toilets and keeping the water purification system going, the streets free of pot holes and the street lights working. Cape Town is not Johannesburg: the streetlights work, the roads are well maintained and, at least where the tourists go, it is relatively clean. It had enough money for all these things and to provide the residents of rich suburbs with extra services they really do not need. I used to live in a quiet cul-de-sac in Sea Point and spent some Saturday mornings raking the leaves on the pavement before the house and depositing it in black bags. Many other residents did not do so as they waited for the city council workers to come and rake their leaves for them, the lazy sods.
How can one morally justify this kind of skewed spending priorities? Surely, the city has better things to spend its money on (like building proper toilets for poor residents) than doing something I can do myself rather easily? If its officials had really thought long and hard about its priorities and had taken the needs of the residents of Khayelitsha at least as seriously as the needs of the rich voters in the suburbs, it would not have wasted their money like this.
Officials and city council politicians will probably claim that they have always provided this service and that white residents expect their pavements to be cleaned up, but that would only expose the callousness of their position. In the past the white suburbs received better services than the suburbs where black people live because white people were thought of as fully human while black people were only, at best, viewed as second class citizens deserving second class services.
A city council that really cared for all its inhabitants equally would have thought long and hard about its priorities, would have ignored the spending patterns of the past and the complaints of some spoilt rich folks and would have prioritized properly so that everyone could be provided with at least the basic services that would help all citizens to live a life of some dignity and respect.
Not that the lot of the Youth League are any better. How callous can one be? Destroying the very partitions that would have given the long suffering residents a semblance of dignity – and all for short term party political gain – is about as despicable an act as one can get. And then to justify this action by invoking democracy is just plain scary.
Majority rule does not mean one has the right to destroy other people’s property. It does not mean one can tell others whether to accept the belated corrective measures from the city council or not. The Youth League members are really saying that as an individual living in Khayelitsha one has no rights as far as they are concerned. If the Youth League or those aligned to it decides you will jump, then you jump and you will sing viva majority rule and wave your ANC flag while you do so. This is not democracy. It is tyranny and fascism.
How can we build a society in which people will begin to take responsibility for their actions – a vibrant democratic society in which people can become active citizens who can stand up for themselves – if scared and disempowered residents are terrorized by lawless and semi-literate thugs who believe the interests of the party they belong to or are associated with should trump the interests of the people that the party pretends to serve?
This is an all-round depressing and rather upsetting turn of events. It almost makes one yearn for the South of France.
The people who live in the leafy white suburbs face hefty rates and tax bills. It is only fair that they should expect some bang for their buck. The truth is that the residents of the Cape Flats expect the “rich suburbs” to subsidise the services to their community that they don’t want to pay for.
When you flush a toilet, the waste does not disappear miraculously. The treatment of waterborne sewage is more costly than you can imagine. The cost of putting up the structure is negligible compared to the cost associated with increasing the capacity to – and running the sewage works. Almost 80% of sewage works in RSA are so overloaded that they don’t function. Why do you suppose this is? These non-functioning sewage works threaten the quality of our drinking water supplies. In future we may see a tap and a toilet in every home but I doubt that the water would be safe to drink.
Who do you think should carry the cost associated with all these toilets you want to bequeath the poor? The residents of the leafy white suburbs? I don’t think that’s fair.
Imagine this: I bill you for sushi but give you anchovy toast and when you object I show you the soup kitchen I operate from the back door. Will you come to dine at my restaurant regularly?
since he is not an elitist prat, the good professor does not eat sushi; he eats canned pilchards like the rest of us…as for the the monetary difference, he invests that in food parcels, which he hands out on sundays, whilst sweeping the streets of bantry bay
of hoe dan nou, pierre ?
….say it is so
Prof: To me this disgusting saga can be viewed as a metaphor for so much that is wrong with our politics and our society.
You sound a little sanctimonious to me my dear man. What is it with you and the DA.
Always we talk in my community of white, black and coloured friends and colleagues, about giving a fishing pole rather than a fish, give the tools that those who receive can improve their own lives.
The DA offered that which was most reasonable, and much of thinking SA knows this. However did you miss out on their brilliance which went afoul. We will do this for you, but you participate as well, a joint venture of sorts, and 95% of those who accepted the offer agreed and followed through. Fifty residents did not, which is understandable if you know squatter camps as I do.
Then the DA with humility accepts a mistake and apologizes, which I think they were nor reasonably expected to do, because of the political pr stink, then sent in Pato to put up zinc enclosures, said zinc sheets new (not like the old and dented zinc the shack dwelling structures are made of) and I know what these zinc sheets cost by the way having purchased many in my township efforts.
We all know it is an ANCYL kak up, and ANCYL attempt to further self and damage the people.. Bullshit Baffles Brain, the 3 B’s, you may recall I’ve commented on this before.
I came to SA many years ago because of Madiba. Now I find that Madiba’s energy and compassion actually rests with the DA. Swallow that my friend.
OMG! I felt like some sushi tonite, now i just feel like an elitist prat …
sirjay jonson says:
May 26, 2010 at 21:20 pm
You tell him Sirjay!
Sanctimonious, Nazi, liberal, counter-revolutionary, right wing reactionary that he is – he knows zip about true empowerment through fishing and tools and stuff.
Cutting the grass on his own kerb, raking it up too – taking jobs from the poor he is!
It’s great to hear that the DA is Madiba inspired – now the Cope Lites have a home to go to.
No more anonymous sex in those re-opened toilets…..viva ANCYL viva!
I heard minister Sonjica says there’s no water crisis because if she flush HER toilet it is still flushing (sic). Perhaps, since it is then still possible, we should flush both her and ANCYL to where they can be treated.
“A gang is a group of three or more people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. ”
“A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a crime organization, a gang.”
(Wikipedia)
Can their be any reason not to use the words “gang” and “gangsters” to describe the ANCYL, in the light of their criminal activities in the Western Cape?
Bellwether?
“IN a watershed night in South African politics, the DA trounced the ANC in two of its strongholds – Gugulethu and Caledon – gaining two wards where there was not a single white voter and the majority were blacks, not coloureds.
In Ward 44 in parts of Gugulethu and Heideveld, where the DA received 21.6 percent of the vote in the last election in 2006, the party received 60.5 last night.
And in Ward 12 in Caledon’s Theewaterskloof municipality, where the DA received only 6.6 percent in 2006, the party garnered more than 60 percent.”
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100527071050133C601142&singlepage=1
It is very sad that there are people out there who believe the poor in this case Black people should be treated in this despicable manner. But we all know only black people can change this situation. As long as we are asked to reconcile and we are the only ones who put out our hands in reconciliation we are in trouble. I just cannot understand how some people cannot see the human indignity in this issue. I regarded contributors on this blog to be highly intelligent.
I cannot believe some of the commentators here, who have so much love and compassion for the wealthy.
In successful democracies the rich pay to help the poor, and in return they get to live in an environment where the poor are not desperate and angry.
The right wing in any country portray their wealthy citizens as the most taxed people in the world.
etienne marais, I love sushi. I just not think its morally defensible that the City Council pay for it while people are starving down the road.
Heywood Jubleauxme, it is a principle applied in every modern democracy that the rich subsidise the poor through the tax system. That is why personal income tax is paid on a sliding scale, while poor people are entitled to attend school – even if they contributed less tax to the teacher’s salaries than the rich – and why we can all use the roads – even when we have contributed less to the building of those roads. Without subsidisation a modern democracy cannot function. It is also in your own interest to subsidise – to some extent – services for the poor, because the huge gap between rich and poor breeds discontent and leads to political instability. This is one case where the right thing to do is also in the interest of all those who do it.
“The Democratic Alliance-led City of Cape Town has come under fire for its heavy reliance on consultants, after splashing out close to R500-million, with almost half of this sum being paid for contracts not put to tender.
“One contractor was paid about R20m to advise the municipality on the Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) system and ended up costing it an extra R80m in unforeseen expenses after saying erroneously that the city wasn’t liable for VAT.”
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100527043218300C114656
@heywood
Property rates are NOT a user charge for municipal services rendered.
They are a wealth tax here in South Africa and in the rest of the world.
Accept it and get over it.
If you resent paying a few grand a month for your “pied de terre ” (je parle francias, Pierre) in Rondebosch or Camps Bay, then go and buy a place in Nyanga or Manenberg where you will qualify for zero or near zero property tax.
Yes, middle class taxpayers and ratepayers in SA get around 9 cents in the rand worth of services for every rand of tax and rates money levied – that is the price we will pay until poverty has been eliminated (and corruption and wasteful expenditure on arms stopped)
I agree with Prof’s assertion that basic toilets with proper enclosures should have been provided – if neccessary at the expense of other spending projects.
The fact is that the majority of residents agreed to accept separate toilet units and enclose them themselves rather than have communal enclosed faciltites shared amongst 5 or so families.
95% of the residents fulfilled their part of the bargain, the other 5% did not – hence the opportunity for a showdown.
It was naive of the DA administration to think that all 100% of residents would honour thheir committments and that this would not be exploited for political gain.
The ANCYL are lying plain and simple when they say that the majority of residents did not agree to the arrangement – no matter how stupid such arrangement. There is written contractiual evidence to the contrary that is in the public domain.
I think that what we are seeing here is a watershed – the ANCYL have just discovered how far they can go before alienating even their own sympathisers – my feeling is that rank and file black people and ANC supporters reject the ANCYL’s actions in this regard.
Just as their leader Julius Malema recently discovered how far is “too far” (insulting, questioning or embarrasing Zuma), I suspect thaqt the Dulla Omar branch of ANCYL in Cape Town has just made the same discovery.
If the ANCYL had any political nous or savvy whatsoever and were not a bunch of ill educated thugs and bullies, they would have taken some bricks, sand and cement, and, in front of the TV cameras, built a few brick enclosures around the exposed toilets.
The PR, publicity gain and political coup would have been tremendous.
Problem is, to do that would required reasoned, cognitive thought, a modicum of intelligence, a bit of hard work and perhaps a dash of humility.
All of which appear to be absent from ANCYL leadership.
Instead we get violent rhetoric, a call to adopt a scorched earth policy.
Any idiot can destroy things – try building and developing instead.
I believe in a system of responsible capitalism which goes (in part) as follows:
Let us reward people who are hard-working and provide the market with necessary goods and services by allowing them to amass great fortunes. In return, the same people need to pay for the system that allows them to become wealthy. There has to be an awareness that a developed city and country gives us the opportunity to pursue our dreams. This comes at a price.
Warren Buffet is on record as saying that he feels he should pay more tax, not less. He understands that the world he lives in is set up for people such as himself to thrive. If it was still a case of the strongest survives, he wouldn’t be nearly as successful because he doesn’t have the necessary skills to do well in such a world. Consequently, he is happy to pay for those who cannot afford basic amenities as they make up part of the system that ultimately supports him.
It is the same in our country. There are multitudes of poor people who cannot afford to pay upwards of 20% increases in the price of electricity etc. But the very same people travel many hours to get to work where they eke out a living cleaning the office or cooking meals for the rest of the company they work for. Take away those services and the top echelons will feel the impact. Take away the services government provides (when they can) and our entire system starts to wobble.
It is time for the well-to-do in our society to accept the fact that they are in a position to support the less well-off. We are all in this together – each fulfilling a certain role. We cannot strive for a better life for all if we don’t pitch in where we should.
So yes, the richer folk should pay more to provide for the people who can’t. No-one should have to use a toilet that is open to the elements. Everyone should be able to live a life of dignity.
Peter L says:
May 27, 2010 at 9:19 am
“The fact is that the majority of residents agreed to accept separate toilet units and enclose them themselves rather than have communal enclosed faciltites shared amongst 5 or so families.”
Communal toilets is, er, a load of crap.
The choices offered were really no choices at all – it’s pretty much like a thief (in one of those countries that chop of hands for theft) being offered a choice between the left or the right hand.
The ANCYL were wrong by destroying property.
However they were entirely correct in escalating the the issue.
Now if they can just do this around the country …..
Well said, Peter L. Those who cannot create, destroy.
@Maggs
So “communal toilets are a load of crap”, hey?
Anyone that went to boarding school and or the army has plenty of experience of communcal toilets (and deprivation!).
And showers.
And dorms.
There are far worse things in life, believe me.
Communal toilets are very far from ideal, but far better than nothing – ie the bush.
Your analogy with the “justice” handed out to alleged thieves in some societies by cutting off the hands is disingenous.
Regarding the ANCYL’s escalation of the issue, one could perhaps take them more seriously if they had escalated the SAME ISSUE in other cape Town settlements during former ANC mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo’s reign, and PRESENTLY in some of the settlements in Mpumulanga and Limpopo.
I understand that there is a senior ANCYL leader with a few bucks to rub together and a shareholding in construction companies in Limpopo.
Looks like a match made in heaven and an ideal opportunity to me.
The long drop to freedom, perhaps?
Heywood Jubleauxme,
I like your argument. A pity you weren’t around to join my campaign team in the election.
May I invite you to accompany me to Khayelitsha where you can address the residents and present your case. I’m sure it will go down a storm.
Kisses
Sarah
Peter L says:
May 27, 2010 at 10:19 am
Hey Peter,
We are not talking about the army or school dorms. These are communities and families whose welfare lies in the hands of the local government.
There’s no excuse for either communal toilets or the substandard ones that was put up – the argument that the people were offered a choice and accepted it is just plain dull.
Regarding what may be the situation elsewhere or in previous eras, you may have missed “Now if they can just do this around the country …..”
But we are not talking about what happened during Nomaindia Mfeketo’s reign or about some of the settlements in Mpumulanga and Limpopo.
It’s not about who was rated the best mayor in the world.
It’s not about who claims to be better than the ANC.
It’s not even relevant that people who have a “wasteful expenditure watch list” can spend half a billion rand on consultants, much of it without regard to the PFMA.
It’s about the provision of a most basic service in a way that shows utter contempt for the dignity of people.
Vandalism, Hooligans and Insults do not belong in the ANC and dont bring votes. ANC must appoint full time DC members to deal with these thugs.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article472923.ece/DA-takes-Gugulethu
Gwebecimele says:
May 27, 2010 at 10:36 am
Vandalism, Hooligans and Insults do not belong in the ANC and dont bring votes as you say.
How about vandals and hooligans educating our children?
“SCHOOL exams were disrupted yesterday by South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) members, who tore up exam papers or refused to release them to teachers. ”
http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=405070
Darryll Robinson says: May 27, 2010 at 9:19 am
Of all the comments here, I agree with you 100%.
I also cannot find any justification for what the ANCYL guys did – I can never support such acts. Similarly, I cannot find any justification for what the DA did (agreements or no agreements), human dignity must ALWAYS be at the forefront of the decisions we take.
I think the Ancyl antics were actually a ploy to help the DA win in Gugs and Caledon where they just won 60% of the vote. Could Julius have done a deal with the white madam?
As for the leafy suburbs – well I live in one sort of. My streets get swept every 6 months if I am lucky and there are potholes that take months to see a repair. I pay someone to sweep or do it myself. Been to Mitchell’s Plain lately Pierre? I know its a disgusting creation of Apartheid but you know, the roads are pretty good – well maintained and clean. And you even have a sea if you live in the right part.
I agree the toilets should never have been built without enclosures – its a bad joke. The funds should have been found initially. I would also like a full explanation from the DA on the consultant issue – it seems completely wasteful, but I don’t have all the facts and won’t pass judgment until I do.
@Pierre
I agree fully that proper toilets should have been built! This should not even have been an OPTION for the community, as it is human right to have privacy, especially when one is busy with “private” business.
But I disagree to put the blame on the DA city council. Sure they are not perfect, but from what I’ve seen from other cities in SA, its alot better. case in point, the nosense budget from this week. The stadium was suppose to be in athlone, and then the ANC + fifa made it in greenpoint, that the city now has to lease to stad france and then hire it for world cup. Where it would have cost R2bil in Athlone its now R5bil in Green Point. I agree fully the stadium was unnecessary as well as all this world cup expense. I dont think we are ready to hold this event, with so much poverty around.
Also rates and taxs… Well lets not go their. It doesn’t just affect people owning houses/flats but also people renting. If everyone stopped living in these “rich” areas and moved to “poor” areas, the city would almost have NO money. your argument is not sound or weighted. Therefore if the people who live in leafy areas pay x amount, and get only 9c per rand, then they surely are entitled a sweep of the streets.
Plus I find it bloody insulting to say the least, that people in poor communities cant look after their streets etc. What is wrong with putting things in a bin??? everyday I drive past the townships and there is rubbish everywhere.?
Someone one said that africa will become better when africans start caring for themselfs. Case in point.
Pierre, I’m too polite to ask what you were doing at a rentboy seminar in the South of France. Let’s just hope you weren’t there on a grunt… I mean grant.
Anyway, it’s good to see that you’re [a href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100527042903621C514077"]in full agreement with the ANCYL.[/a]
That ANCYL link…
@maggs
I agree with you that decent (brick?) toilets should have been provided and said so in my comment.
I also agree that two rights will never make a wrong – I just have a total disdain for hypocracy, especially when it comes from politicians.
I also agree that the DA should set the performance bar a lot higher than the ANC whom they oftern criticise – let’s be fair – that cannot be too difficult, can it?
@Unknown
One of the reasons that there is so much rubbish blowing around the townships and informal settlements is that formal refuse collection devices – black troleys and bis – and regualr refuse collection are practically non-existent.
That does not excuse people making zero attempt to contain rubbish and just throwing it wherever they please.
You are entirely wrong in your argument about no-one having to pay rates if we all moved to poor areas, or if there were no rich areas.
The way it works is that the municipality has a budget for the rates income they need. They then assess the relative values of all properties and calculate the cents in the rand that is required to be levied in order to meet that budget, taking cognisance of the fact that the rates will only be applicable to properties above a cetain – very low – asessed value.
I agree with you, though, that all citizens should receive a basic level of services.
Gwebecimele says:
May 27, 2010 at 10:36 am
This is so true. Unfortunately all we have from the ANC leadership is silence. That can also be interpreted as lack of leadership.
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-05-27-amnesty-report-says-something-rotten-in-state-of-south-africa
Ad Maggs. Bellwether indeed.
Topical read to this thread: “The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone” Wilkinson and Pickett (2010)
Chris says:
May 27, 2010 at 13:07 pm
Gwebecimele says:
May 27, 2010 at 10:36 am
This is so true. Unfortunately all we have from the ANC leadership is silence. That can also be interpreted as lack of leadership.
Or worse still, tacit endorsement!
@Peter L
What is needed is for our government to make an annoucement about the incitement to violence. Not just the ANC. There should be a clear distinction between party and government – alas the line is blurry.
@Sarah Palin
The indignation expressed by those who “feel compelled to” relieve themselves in full view of their neighbours deserves closer scrutiny and some re-consideration.
Poverty and rapid urbanisation with the resultant mushrooming of informal settlements is a phenomenon not unique to RSA. It’s interesting to note how communities in informal settlements in countries to our north deal with their human waste. I have been to informal settlements on the outskirts of Lusaka, Harare and Blantyre. Instead of waiting for the local authority to deliver a free concrete enclosed flush toilet, these residents dig pit latrines themselves. These people will tell you that it is inconceivable to occupy a residential structure before digging your long-drop first. This kind of self-reliance highlights that there is no shame in poverty.
South Africans can learn a lot from their neighbours. A while ago there was much outcry in the media over the Zulu bull-killing ritual (ukweshwama). I could not help thinking that the Zulu monarch should send a few indunas to Namibia to learn from the Himba how to kill such a powerful animal with bare hands in under a minute. The Himba men tie together the animal legs, pin it to the ground and then proceed to smother the out of breath animal with a piece of wet leather. Personally, I doubt that a swift killing of the animal would satisfy the need for this ritual and remain curious to know whether the Himba would label it clumsy or something far stronger.
Feel free to expand this argument too next time you and your campaign team do KZN.
It is a misconception that those toilets were paid for with ratepayers’ money. Rather, it was money from national government, the sum of which was sufficient to pay for one toilet per every five families (NB: this is acceptable practice to the ANC). Cape Town City Council managed to stretch that sum to one toilet per family, provided the enclosures would be paid for by the families themselves, which they agreed to.
@Peter L: “If you resent paying a few grand a month for your ‘pied de terre’ (je parle francias, Pierre) …”
Your French needs work, Peter. Make that “pied-á-terre” and “français”.
@sirjay: “What is it with you and the DA.”
Excellent question! Prof – like most liberals here – has this profound need to slag off the DA. In fact, I’m the only person in South Africa who will freely admit to voting for them.
Clara, we are not going to make any progress in this country until the racially-based polarisations of our unhappy history are transcended. That is why we deem it important to pair criticism of the ANC with equal and opposite criticism of the DA. (In fact, arguably the most important function of the electorally irrelevant little party is as a lightning rod, to legitimate criticism of the government.)
As for your provocative claim to have voted for the DA — I do not believe you for a moment.
P.S.
Prof is not a “liberal.”
He is a “progressive.”
Thanks.
The one thing that you should remember is that the people appointed to “rake” your sidewalk is employed. Their work is to keep the city clean.
You also see these people along the national roads keeping the verges clean and along our beaches cleaning. Many people scoff at these people and say “What a waste” but they are employed.
You must also be mindful when on the one hand you condemn the destruction on the other you make an excuse for it happening. This is why the hooligans have the upper hand. They get support from even professors at university.
This confuses as many people as a president that says you will become ill if you vote against the ruling party … seeing god? was with them at the birth.
We do not live in a perfect world and we must therefore be careful not try to justify wanton acts of destruction.
There must be clear lines of communication; you cannot destroy other peoples’ property, you cannot rape children, etc.
“It is a misconception that those toilets were paid for with ratepayers’ money. Rather, it was money from national government, the sum of which was sufficient to pay for one toilet per every five families (NB: this is acceptable practice to the ANC). Cape Town City Council managed to stretch that sum to one toilet per family, provided the enclosures would be paid for by the families themselves, which they agreed to.”
And so the application of the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished.
Pierre,
As I understand it the issue is less about sufficient funds than about the capability to effect proper service delivery.
In other words, by not having your pavement swept you will not somehow be translating that into a benefit for some poor township dweller. You will only be depriving the pavement sweeper of a job.
This has been one of government’s major challenges in this country – unspent budgets because the capacity for delivery is lacking.
So Pierre, you obviously have not forgiven Helen Zille for making an ahole out of your arguments over the Erasmus Commission.
However, I forgive you for the ignorance you demonstrate in this piece, and am happy to educate you:
Road Maintenance 101: Leaves block stormwater drains. Clogged stormwater drains flood roads. Tarmac disintergrates under pools of water causing Potholes. So, raking leaves saves millions in the long run. Geddit??
Budgeting 101: National Govt regulates development requirements and budget expenditure for informal settlements. Regulation requires that 1 toilet per 8 shacks be provided. Residents in Gugulethu protested: they wanted one toilet per shack. This more than doubled the number of toilets budgeted (1350 instead of 600). Council negotiated with Community. Agreement was reached that the budget would be DOUBLED to provide 1350 private toilets and residents would enclose them. All but 50 residents enclosed their toilets. Political fire and brimstone resulted in the City Council enclosing the remaining 50.
If you seriously want to build a vibrant, democratic society, Pierre, then you should examine your own prejudices more deeply. Perhaps such introspection might alleviate your ‘upset’ feelings going forward as the electorate begin to vote more mindfully.
Clara says:
May 27, 2010 at 15:57 pm
“In fact, I’m the only person in South Africa who will freely admit to voting for them.”
Hey Clara.
That’s mighty brave of you.
Maybe you can teach HZ how to do it!
Don’t you just love Peter L and Darryll’s ‘Let them have cake’ sentiments?
Thanks to JHB.gov lights and water have doubled over the last year (judging from the semi-annual accounts). So, instead of a full-time handyman I now have a gardener coming in twice a week. The house has to go: Where do I apply for the subsidy for the retiling of the bathrooms so I can sell?
Belle, you obviously did not understand or purposely misunderstood my arguments about the Erasmus Commission. Helen won her case on the law (on which I expressed NO opinion – ever). But that does not mean that the point I made at the time (that one should not attack the personal integrity of a sitting judge without the back-up of very clear and proven facts) does not remain valid and my criticism expressed against Helen for doing just that has therefore stood the test of time. The prejudices seem to be yours, not mine. I know for some Helen Zille is a God (just like Zuma and Malema are Gods for some). I am not into the god business so I prefer to remain critical based not on emotions but on facts and on my own ethical world view. The fact that you do not share my ethical world view is cause for debate, but not really for insult – that’s the Julius Malema way that DA supporters are supposed to be against. The point remains: the City delivers far better services to advantaged areas than to disadvantaged areas. Ask anyone who lives in Khayelitsha how long the city will take before it come to fix a leaking drain pipe and then ask people living in the suburbs the same question. The answer is pretty obvious: When one has money and live in a “white” area, you will get far better and quicker service. This also happens in some ANC municipalities but that does not make it ethically right. On the contrary.
Pierre De Vos says:
May 27, 2010 at 19:07 pm
“DA supporters are supposed to be against”.
Of course they are.
Crime, corruption, cronyism, political appointments, poor service delivery, attacks on the judiciary, racism, personal attacks and and and – the DA supporters are totally and completely against that coming from the ANC.
“Geddit??”
Maggs: I was being somewhat humorous when referring to Prof as Sanctimonious. I mean, really, we all love him, right, apart from those ANCYL trolls, admit it. Peter L. Great comments.
I’ m impressed Prof: such considered comments this time, you have everyone thinking.
As for toilets, mine is inside, however my shower is solar, 100 meters of 42 ml swart pyp on the roof, shower head outside attached to the cottage. And yes, prof, I love sushi too, should I be feeling guilty?, but can’t afford it and for that matter it isn’t available in my bietjie dorp.
Congrats to the DA. Amazing. And congrats to the blacks who voted DA. Apartheid is not coming back, not even we privileged whites want it. We want and indeed will insist on equal, non racial, non sexist, honest government. I’m interested in nothing less than hugging Lady Justice vertically.
“When one has money and live in a ‘white’ area, you will get far better and quicker service.”
Not so in the town where I live. Here, the poorer areas have their potholes fixed and the sidewalks paved, while “the rich” have started to fill their potholes with soil and are planting geraniums in them. The “rich” people’s streets are only cleaned once the stormwater drains become blocked with debris. But then my town is run by an ID/ANC coalition.
That reminds me, Maggs…You still owe us some statistics.
How many white farmers have been found guilty of violence against black South Africans and v.v.?
This kind of othering might work for idiots like Patrick Chauke when up against sissies like Andre Botha. It is not going to work for you.
How many DA leaders are accused of committing crime? How many ANC leaders? Lets start by comparing Travelgate fraud, shall we?
How many DA leaders have been accused of corruption? Cronyism? Political appointments?
In how many DA-controlled municipalities have we seen service delivery riots?
How many DA leaders have been accused of disrespecting the judiciary or skirted contempt or sabotaging the effectiveness of that branch of government?
How many times have members of other parties had to resort to the protection of the Courts against DA hatespeech and incitement to murder?
And on another note: the R40 billion for world cup stadiums would have otherwise supplied 800 thousand RDP homes, 2 bedrooms, electrified, sewage, etc. And I for one don’t even enjoy soccer. Sigh. Africa.
Brett Nortje says:
May 27, 2010 at 20:24 pm
Hey dunce – you still awake?
oops – sorry Michael!
Here is an interesting comparative point for you. If you take the train in many parts in India you see, particularly in the early morn, people sh*tting, with their asses in the air towards the train, no toilets in sight.
Odd.
Bare in mind that India’s economy is more than 3 times the size of Brazil’s whose economy is the same size as Africas. Or put another way, more than 9 times the size of South Africas economy.
Why cant the Indian government supply toilets, never mind enclosures?
Kameraad Mhambi, the novel The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga suggest a reason for this: blame the elites and the politicians who serve their own interests above all else in a rather corrupt system…..
“The Youth League members are really saying that as an individual living in Khayelitsha one has no rights as far as they are concerned. If the Youth League or those aligned to it decides you will jump, then you jump and you will sing viva majority rule and wave your ANC flag while you do so. This is not democracy. It is tyranny and fascism.”
Will Pierre de Vos please define the term ” fascism “, in the above context, and explain why the the ANC Youth League’s totalitariianism does not rather exemplify the Bolshevik Communism propounded by many leading lights in the ruling party
and SACP .
Pierre, you focused heavily on the ‘unnecessary’ sweeping of streets in affluent areas, and expressed a scathing opinion on the unwalled toilets. I responded with facts to bring balance to your bias.
Do you disagree with any of the original points I made on these issues?
There is a logical reason why better services are supplied in advantaged areas: those services have been provided for many decades and so now run like clockwork. Such routines were not established in disadvantaged areas by the apartheid govt. In addition new informal settlements have multiplied over the last 2 decades (particularly challenging as the goalposts move with every newly erected shack). Routine services in these areas cannot be implemented before basic infrastructure is built. In other words, before streetsweeping routines can happen the streets have to be built. The fact that the City of Cape town is installing waterborne sewage etc means that they are doing exactly that: putting in the infrastructure.
From a budget-spend pov building roads, installing sewerage, water supplies, electrical substations must cost mega-amounts more than simple street-sweeping, verge-trimming, rubbish collection etc. Therefore its logical to assume that the budget being spent in disadvantaged areas is currently far greater than what is being spent sweeping streets in affluent areas.
Wrt the Erasmus Commisssion, I cannot recall Zille ‘attacking’ the personal integrity of Judge Erasmus. (I do recall you attacking Helen Zille’s personal integrity) She rightly pointed out that he should never have agreed to head a politically inspired commision. Her opinion was subsequently confirmed by a high court ruling. Judge Erasmus arguably damaged his own integrity by demonstrating a lapse of judgement in chairing the commission.
Please point out where I have shown prejudice. And where I claim Zille to be godly. And please explain why you assume I do not share your “ethical world view”. And why my view, by implication, might be unethical. And why this would be ’cause for debate’. And where I have resorted to insults. And how these points you raise have any relevence to the issues you originally posted.
This makes Zille and the DA appear shifty and dishonest – exactly the opposite of the image the DA leader is trying to project. It also makes Zille look like a rank hypocrite for always finding fault with the secretive ways of the ANC as far as corruption and maladministration is concerned, yet then to try and stop an Inquiry into corruption when it deals with her own party. She has every right to challenge the legality of the Commission, but politically, this is a very stupid move on her part. After all, people in glass houses should not throw the first stone. …
“What does Helen Zille have to hide, I wonder, that she is going to these lengths and is prepared to tarnish her image in this way in an attempt to stop the Commission from doing its work?”
http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/zille-zillier-zilliest/
Oops!
“This makes Zille and the DA appear shifty and dishonest – exactly the opposite of the image the DA leader is trying to project. It also makes Zille look like a rank hypocrite for always finding fault with the secretive ways of the ANC as far as corruption and maladministration is concerned, yet then to try and stop an Inquiry into corruption when it deals with her own party. She has every right to challenge the legality of the Commission, but politically, this is a very stupid move on her part. After all, people in glass houses should not throw the first stone. …
“What does Helen Zille have to hide, I wonder, that she is going to these lengths and is prepared to tarnish her image in this way in an attempt to stop the Commission from doing its work?”
http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/zille-zillier-zilliest/
@Clara
You are quite right – I took French over 40 years ago (4th language) as a second extra Matric subject.
Pardonnez-mois!
Perhaps I will stick to Economics and statistics going forwards
Maggs …. one of the findings of the High Court was that the Erasmus Commission was unnecessary precisely because the City of Cape Town had already willingly supplied all the information required pertaining to allegagions of spying.
There was no cover-up, in other words.
For this reason the High Court ruled that Ebrahim Rasool was politically motivated.
The more appropriate question is: what motivated Pierre’s peculiar stand on Helen Zille and the Erasmus Commission?
Anyone with an ounce of humanity will agree that we need to improve the lot of the poor. This is a national (and global) imperative. (The poor residents of India’s large city slums shit in the gutters in full view of everyone.)
To help the poor by disadvantaging the wealthy residents of the leafy suburbs is simply idiotic. These residents are the wealth creators who provide the jobs that pay the taxes that fund the services for the poor. Drive these wealth creators out and you are headed for the type of disaster unfolding in Zimbabwe where the tax base has imploded.
Good intentions notwithstanding, the DA made a mistake trying to engage with residents to improve on the national average of one lavatory for every 5 (8?) sqatter families (oops). They recognised their mistake, they apologised and have tried to recitify matters despite the attempts by carping detractors to undermine their remedial efforts. The behaviour of the ANCYL is in no ways mitigated by the prior actions of the DA.
With regarded to the Erasmus Commission you uneqivocally lost every aspect of that debate as can be seen by reading your 3 sequential Thought Leader blogs which commenced with Zille, Zillier, Zilliest mentioned by Maggs above. Zille had every right to impugn the standing of the judge involved given that it was undoubtedly a smear campaign
Belle says:
May 28, 2010 at 11:10 am
“The more appropriate question is: what motivated Pierre’s peculiar stand on Helen Zille and the Erasmus Commission?”
hahahaha – choose from the list.
He’s racist, sanctimonious, Nazi, liberal, counter revolutionary, agent, and a lot more.
Pierre does not even smile at security personnel when he emerges from the lift at his offices.
Maggs, you have got it all wrong. It’s because I have unspeakable longings for Julius Malema that I give Ms Zille a hard time (no pun intended).
@ Pierre,
Thanks for the clarity.
It clears up what Belle meant by “Pierre’s peculiar stand”.
LOL Maggs!
However, my questions remain unanswered … is Pierre wilting? Can he keep it up? …. the debate, I mean
The pagan citizens of classical Rome were q
The pagan citizens of ancient Rome were not above sharing public lavatorial facilities , without embarrassment . What is all the fuss about in this libertarian age
in democratic , egalitarian South Africa ?
Professor de Vos has ignored my request ( May 28, 2010 at 8:05 am ) for his
defintion of ” fascism ”
It is submitted that there is much confusion about the meaning of this term , which is much bandied about by leftists , who are very tolerant of Bolshevik Communism , despite the horrific history of this scourge of humanity .
Nimrod, Pieter Dirk Uys used to have a character “Jawell Nofine” who had a man called Nimrod working in her garden – are you related?
In any case I do not agree with your statement that “Bolshevik Communism” is “propounded by many leading lights in the ruling party and SACP” so I cannot really answer a question whose basic premise I think is completely misguided and wrong. The SACP, who used to support the USSR rather blindly, has had a change of heart and is far more embracing of pluralism and democracy than some of the race-nationalists in the ANC who see them as enemies. I use the word fascism to indicate that the behavior I object to is not “revolutionary” but right wing. Like most scholars I view fascism to be on the far right of the conventional left-right political spectrum and believe fascism is premised on the notion of strong leader and a community on whom a collective identity is imposed from above. Fascists view the nation as an integrated collective community and rejects pluralism and respect for diversity. Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement. They identify violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality.
Thank you Professor de Vos for your definition of the term ” fascism ”
It would seem that the differnces between Fascist and Communist totalitarianism are insignificant
Your exoneration of the Bolshevik Communists in the ANC and SACP is indeed illuminating in that you opine, in effect , that Lenist Communists have recanted their Communist faith . In this context , please refer to the following excerpt from :
Witness
by Whittaker Chambers
Foreword in the form of a letter to my children
—–You will ask: Why, then, do men cease to be Communists? One answer is: Very few do. Thirty years after the Russian Revolution, after the known atrocities, the purges, the revelations, the jolting zigzags of Communist politics, there is only a handful of ex-Communists in the whole world. By ex-Communists I do not mean those who break with Communism over differences of strategy and tactics (like Trotsky) or organization (like Tito). Those are merely quarrels over a road map by people all of whom are in a hurry to get to the same place.
Nor, by ex-Communists, do I mean those thousands who con¬tinually drift into the Communist Party and out again. The turn¬over is vast. These are the spiritual vagrants of our time whose traditional faith has been leached out in the bland climate of ra¬tionalism. They are looking for an intellectual night’s lodging. They lack the character for Communist faith because they lack the character for any faith. So they drop away, though Communism keeps its hold on them.
By an ex-Communist, I mean a man who knew clearly why he became a Communist, who served Communism devotedly and knew why he served it, who broke with Communism uncondition¬ally and knew why he broke with it. Of these there are very few —an index to the power of the vision and the power of the crisis.
History very largely fixes the patterns of force that make men Communists. Hence one Communist conversion sounds much like another—rather impersonal and repetitious, awesome and tiresome, like long lines of similar people all stolidly waiting to get in to see the same movie. A man’s break with Communism is intensely per¬sonal. Hence the account of no two breaks is likely to be the same. The reasons that made one Communist break may seem without force to another ex-Communist.
It is a fact that a man can join the Communist Party, can be very active in it for years, without completely understanding the
nature of Communism or the political methods that follow inevita¬bly from its vision. One day such incomplete Communists discover that the Communist Party is not what they thought it was. They break with it and turn on it with the rage of an honest dupe, a dupe who has given a part of his life to a swindle. Often they for¬get that it takes two to make a swindle.
Others remain Communists for years, warmed by the light of its vision, firmly closing their eyes to the crimes and horrors insepa¬rable from its practical politics. One day they have to face the facts. They are appalled at what they have abetted. They spend the rest of their days trying to explain, usually without great suc¬cess, the dark clue to their complicity. As their understanding of Communism was incomplete and led them to a dead end, their understanding of breaking with it is incomplete and leads them to a dead end. It leads to less than Communism, which was a vision and a faith. The world outside Communism, the world in crisis, lacks a vision and a faith. There is before these ex-Communists ab¬solutely nothing. Behind them is a threat. For they have, in fact, broken not with the vision, but with the politics of the vision. In the name of reason and intelligence, the vision keeps them firmly in its grip—self-divided, paralyzed, powerless to act against it.
Hence the most secret fold of their minds is haunted by a ter¬rifying thought: What if we were wrong? What if our inconstancy is our guilt? That is the fate of those who break without knowing clearly that Communism is wrong because something else is right, because to the challenge: God or Man?, they continue to give the answer: Man. Their pathos is that not even the Communist ordeal could teach them that man without God is just what Communism said he was: the most intelligent of the animals, that man without God is a beast, never more beastly than when he is most intelli¬gent about his beastliness. “Er nennt’s Vernunft” says the Devil in Goethe’s Faust, “und braucht’s allein, nur tierischer ak jedes Tier zu sein”—Man calls it reason and uses it simply to be more beastly than any beast. Not grasping the source of the evil they sincerely hate, such ex-Communists in general make ineffectual witnesses against it. They are witnesses against something; they have ceased to be witnesses for anything.——
pierre says:
“Helen won her case on the law (on which I expressed NO opinion – ever). But that does not mean that the point I made at the time (that one should not attack the personal integrity of a sitting judge without the back-up of very clear and proven facts) does not remain valid and my criticism expressed against Helen for doing just that has therefore stood the test of time.”
no pierre, your criticism has NOT stood the test of time
judges swain & nicholson was not at all ambiguous in their judgment:
“the terms of reference of the commission had effectively given the judge prosecutorial powers, which was a gross violation of the principle of separation of powers, and was therefore unlawful and invalid.
Before accepting an appointment to chair a commission, a judge should be satisfied that it was not incompatible with his or her judicial office.
Simply put, the involvement of Erasmus J in the commission has unnecessarily involved the judge in the political controversy surrounding the commission, which may damage the confidence of the public in the judiciary’s core function of determining matters in court,” Swain said.
loud and clear, pierre
and zille (or ziller, or zilliest) knew and professed this all along
furthermore, please don’t forget that the judges of the high court also found that the the esteemed and honourable erasmus j illegally passed on information to the, then premier, rasool
(p.s. madam zille has a pretty sharp intuition when it comes to matters of law…maybe she’s the one who should be teaching constitutional law)
pierre says:
“one should not attack the personal integrity of a sitting judge without the back-up of very clear and proven facts”
does this also apply to one john hlophe (JP) ?
@ etienne marais ……precisely!!
Pierre De Vos says:
May 28, 2010 at 14:51 pm
Concerning Professor de Vos’s comments about the ” reformed” Bolshevik SACP :
- Ron Radosh – http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh -Click here to print.
The Strange and Revealing Choice by Peter Beinart for his “Hero”
Posted By Ron Radosh On May 27, 2010 @ 3:20 pm In Uncategorized | 9 Comments
So much has been written about Peter Beinart’s essay [1] in the new issue of The New York Review of Books that I will not add to it. The two best critiques of Beinart’s arguments are by Jamie Kirchick and Noah Pollak. You can read Kirchick’s here [2] and Pollak’s here. [3] Many more have appeared since then, including a forum between eight different people in Foreign Policy [4], and a response by Beinart in The Daily Beast [5].
Peter Beinart is a proud liberal who grew up as a Jew. His parents were from apartheid South Africa. In a society where the majority of the white community was composed of the Afrikaners who created apartheid, the small Jewish community stood out in its opposition. One question must be asked. If you were a Jew and a liberal opposed to apartheid, what member of your own community would you view as a hero?
I believe the candidate for hero would most likely be the late Helen Suzman [6], who died at age 91 on New Year’s Day of 1999. Representing liberals in Parliament since 1959, from 1961 to 1974, Suzman was the only member of parliament who day in and day out fought apartheid and defended the rights of the regime’s political prisoners. When a minister said she was asking questions that embarrassed South Africa, she replied: “It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa. It is your answers.” She was the only candidate, the BBC obituary [7] noted, “since the first South African parliament was established in 1910, to be elected by a white constituency on a platform that clearly rejected racial discrimination.” And she was a Jew in a parliament dominated by Calvinist Afrikaners who were the mainstay of the apartheid government.
Suzman became a major defender of Nelson Mandela, regularly visiting him in prison. When he was released and the new South African constitution was signed, Mandela invited her to the ceremony. He publicly thanked her for her outspoken defense of the opponents of apartheid, and for her decades-long campaign to overturn it. This is how tough she was. The BBC obit points out that as “the lone voice of real opposition in parliament, Mrs. Suzman spoke out against such measures as the 90-day detention law of 1963, which, she maintained, brought South Africa ‘further into the morass of a totalitarian state.’ At a public rally in Johannesburg in 1966, she condemned the use of arbitrary powers by the justice minister and excoriated the government as ‘narrow-minded, prejudiced-ridden bullies.’”
What is important is that Suzman was not afraid to speak her mind, even if she differed with the African National Congress. She opposed the worldwide campaign for sanctions, arguing that they would hurt poor blacks. “She was dismissive of the death threats she received by telephone and in the mail, and undaunted in her showdowns with the men she described as apartheid’s leading ‘bullies,’ who in turn dismissed her as a ‘dangerous subversive’ and a ‘sickly humanist.’”
I have spent so much time on Suzman to illustrate why someone who has a family connection to South Africa like Beinart, and who calls himself a liberal, should have had her as a hero. She was not exactly invisible. That is why it is more than strange to find out who his hero is. He identified the person in a three-part interview [8] with Jeffrey Goldberg. Here is Beinart’s answer after Goldberg asks him, “Do you consider yourself a Zionist?” and “What is the goal of your essay?” Beinart writes:
My hero growing up was Joe Slovo [emphasis added] who spoke only Yiddish until he was nine and upon moving to South Africa as a boy from Lithuania (we South Africans are almost all Litvaks, except my mom’s side, who are Sephardi) became the head of the military wing of the African National Congress. There are Slovos in every place Jews have gone, people who have devoted themselves as Jews (though I’ll admit Slovo was not as good a Jew as say, Abraham Joshua Heschel) to the fate of non-Jews. There’s a tension, but for me the value is in the tension, in loving Zionism and Judaism and also feeling that one’s love of who one is impels one towards moral universalism. I see that spirit powerfully in the Israeli left…
Who was Joe Slovo [9]? Was he a liberal like Beinart or Suzman? No. He was not only the leader of the Stalinist South African Communist Party (SACP) whose top members made up the leadership of the African National Congress, but a man whose very concept of Judaism and views on Israel reveal him to be anything but liberal. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is true that Slovo suddenly became critical [10] of Stalinism — in an effort to save South African communism from its critics on both the left and the right. But as one of his comrades, Pallo Jordan, explained at a memorial service [11] for him:
In a world in which people, especially those involved in liberation politics, were compelled to choose sides, many found it very difficult to publicly voice their misgivings about the flaws of existing socialism. On both sides of that great divide, at the height of the Cold War, there was little room to accommodate critical supporters.
Comrade Joe preferred to maintain a public silence about his doubts, questions and very far-reaching criticisms of all the socialist countries. He confided these to his friends and colleagues, but I do not recall him once expressing these publicly. Though I have been one of his sternest critics for such lapses, I can, however, appreciate his motives.
Jordan, a current ANC leader and member of parliament, was quite frank about Slovo’s failings when he was alive. The details can be found in a book [12] written by Arnold Hughes, called Marxism’s Retreat from Africa. Hughes points out that Moscow gave the SACP money, training, weapons and political support. In return, the SACP, and Joe Slovo, had to accept, follow and advocate every turn and twist of the Party line. For Slovo and his comrades, the Bolshevik path to power was the very one they advocated for South Africa. In 1989 the SACP issued its program, “The Path to Power,” which Hughes accurately calls “an unambiguous celebration of old-fashioned Marxism-Leninism,” ironically written in Cuba five short months before the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the end of Communism all through the Eastern European satellites.
Jordan was one of the few ANC leaders to challenge Slovo publicly. After Slovo’s post-Communist explanation for the USSR’s end, Jordan wrote: [13] “While Slovo recognizes that the socialist countries degenerated into police states, with their administrative and repressive organs possessed of inordinate powers, he never seems to broach the rather obvious question: What gave rise to the need for such practices? Was it not to contain and suppress a fundamentally explosive contradiction in these societies that the ruling parties constructed such formidable armories of police powers?”
A critic writing from the perspective of the neo-Trotskyist left, Jordan ably saw the limitations and evasions of Slovo’s attempt to rescue Soviet-style Marxism. This was Jordan’s conclusion about Slovo and the SACP:
One cannot lightly accept at face value Comrade Joe Slovos’s protestations about the SACP’s non-Stalinist credentials. Firstly, there is too much evidence to the contrary. Any regular reader of the SACP’s publications can point to a consistent pattern of praise and support for every violation of freedom perpetrated by the Soviet leadership, both before and after the death of Stalin. It is all too easy in the context of Soviet criticisms of this past for Comrade Slovo to now boldly come forward. Secondly, the political culture nurtured by the SACP’s leadership over the years has produced a spirit of intolerance, intellectual pettiness and political dissembling among its membership which regularly emerges in the pages of the Party’s journals. If we are to be persuaded that the Party has indeed embraced the spirit of honesty and openness, expected of Maxrists, it has an obligation to demonstrate this by a number of visible measures.
And what about Slovo’s view of Israel? They are quite revealing for what they tell us about Beinart’s current views. This is what Slovo had to say on Israel:
Within a few years the wars of consolidation and expansion began. Ironically enough, the horrors of the Holocaust became the rationalization for the preparation by Zionists of acts of genocide against the indigenous people of Palestine. Those of us who, in the years that were to follow, raised our voices publicly against the violent apartheid of the Israeli state were vilified by the Zionist press. It is ironic, too, that the Jew-haters in South Africa – those who worked and prayed for a Hitler victory – have been linked in close embrace with the rulers of Israel in a new axis based on racism.
Here we have the obscenity of a South African Communist Jew, who supported all the Stalinist terror during the years in which Stalin lived, accusing the one democracy in the Middle East of genocide — thereby cheapening the term and revealing its author’s own real commitments. And years before Jimmy Carter, it was Slovo who first branded Israel an apartheid state.
This is Peter Beinart’s hero! He says, as we have seen, that he thinks Slovo was a great man because he devoted himself as a Jew “to the fate of non Jews.” This is the quite familiar theme enunciated by the late Isaac Deutscher, the self-proclaimed “non-Jewish Jew” who saw his ethic identity (not religion, since those who adopt that stance are atheists) as a device to use for the liberation of all the oppressed, as Deutscher believed was what his hero Leon Trotsky had done.
Way before it was popular among today’s liberals, Communists like Slovo who followed the Soviet line on Israel called it an apartheid state and condemned it leaders as racists. Now, their line is being echoed by today’s liberals like Beinart. The Beinart article is just the latest example in a new chorus of Israel bashing. As Noah Pollak says, Beinart has “fallen completely and predictably into line with the demands of his ideological compatriots.”
And given that we now know one of his heroes was Joe Slovo, Stalinist leader of the SACP, why should we all be so surprised? Liberal Zionism is becoming an endangered species, as its once proud members like Beinart have become comrades in arms with the Joe Slovos of the world. By choosing Slovo as his one hero, Peter Beinart has helped us understand his comfort level with joining the Israel bashers. He has also shown us how far liberalism has fallen from its once admired heights.
——————————————————————————–
Article printed from Ron Radosh: http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh