There must surely be something wrong with our criminal justice system if, three years after the scandal broke, Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown has still not had his day in court. Why is it taking so long to prosecute this guy who is alleged to have embezzled millions of Rand? Some of the missing money is said to have belonged to Union members – not to greedy fat cats who wanted to make a fast buck on the sly.
Although, like me, Brown is white (a fact that will become relevant later) I was outraged when I heard about the allegations against him and I was hoping for swift justice. If he is guilty he should be tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison, as far as I am concerned. If he is indeed convicted I would be rather upset if he does not serve his term in a prison cell but rather in a hospital, or if he suddenly remembers that he is terminally ill and is then released – only to make a miraculous recovery to continue his exploits on the golf course.
Of course one remains suspicious, because one suspects that even 16 years after the end of apartheid our criminal justice system is not treating everyone fairly. If one is wealthy, well-connected or white, and can ford expensive lawyers, one probably has a far better chance of never facing charges or of being acquitted, than if one happens to be poor, unrepresented, black and not a good friend of Julius Malema.
The reason why I want to see Brown face the full might of the law is because I believe in the Rule of Law and the importance of a fair criminal justice system in which all individuals who broke the law are dealt with appropriately. As fraud and corruption is a cancer eating away at our society – often to the detriment of the poor and marginalized – it is of particular importance that all those suspected of these kinds of crimes are charged and vigorously prosecuted.
When I heard what Brown had allegedly done, it did not cross my mind that I had to show solidarity with him because he also happens to be white. This, perhaps, has something to do with the fact that despite some evidence to the contrary, there is no general perception amongst bigots and race-haters that white people are generally corrupt and dishonest. If Brown is convicted it would not affect my view of myself (and my sense of self-respect) in any way because I would not even begin to think that what Brown did in any way says anything about my own values and integrity. Neither would it cross my mind that others would make that irrational assumption.
Two things reminded me of Brown – and my reaction to the allegations against him. First, I read a letter in one of the newspapers a while back railing against the ANC whose members, the author claimed, were all corrupt. Corruption, he claimed was written into the DNA of ANC members (the vast majority who happen to be black), so one would not expect anything less of “them”. Second, a reader of this Blog expressed consternation at the news that Advocate Seth Nthai might be prosecuted after the Bar Council found him guilty of unethical behavior. The author wrote:
You almost gave me a heart attack by alluding to the possibility of the Hawks visiting Adv Nthai with anti-graft laws. The Hawks should not flak this seemingly “dead horse”. His removal from the bar, which seems imminent, should suffice. No futher punishment is required. My only concern and to other future succesful black Senior Counsels is that the offsprings of our former oppressors will always use this case to paint us as corrupt to the core.
Now, given the broad reach of the anti-corruption legislation (passed by the ANC government), there clearly is a very strong case to be made to charge Advocate Nthai. If the findings of the Bar Council against him are based on provable facts, then Nthai will have serious difficulty in evading a long jail term if he is ever charged.
This made me wonder: could it not be said that the two attitudes highlighted above are at least partly to blame for the increase in corruption in our society? Some (but of course not all) black South Africans are reluctant to see fellow black South Africans prosecuted and sent to jail for corruption because they fear this would reinforce the prejudices of some (but of course not all) white South Africans who believe that most black South Africans are naturally corrupt and dishonest. Prosecuting Nthai would, in this view, just reinforce racism.
If I am correct, the question is what can be done about this. First, white South Africans have a duty to confront their own racist attitudes or the racist attitudes of fellow whites. They have to understand that deeply embedded prejudices about the honesty and integrity of others based on their race (whether these views are expressed publicly or not, acknowledged to oneself or not) are not only despicable and unethical, but are also destructive as it contributes to the knee-jerk defensiveness of some black South Africans. This can lead to a kind of misplaced racial solidarity which require those who have internalized the racism of the erstwhile oppressors to defend individuals who might be guilty of corruption in order not to “let the side down” and not to help reinforce white racism.
In this sense, I contend rather controversially, many white South Africans contribute to the culture of corruption and impunity.
Second, black South Africans have a duty to confront their own fears of white racism: surely its better to get angry and to confront such racism than to try and hide away from it by pretending a black wrongdoer actually did nothing wrong and is merely the victim of a white conspiracy? I might be wrong (not being black) but it seems to me the attitude expressed above is the product of a racist world in which (perceived and/or real) white domination and control of the discourse still dictates how one behaves and acts. Is it not necessary to challenge the hegemonic racist assumptions head on by rejecting the notion that what one person has done can in any way be attributed to the racial group as a whole, instead of implicitly internalizing those views through a misplaced sense of racial solidarity?
I am not claiming that this is easy in a country like South Africa. One is bombarded in the media and elsewhere everyday with images and ideas which subtly reinforce the notion of the superiority of whiteness and of “Western civilization” (an interesting and highly problematic concept indeed). But how does one begin to resist this? Surely not by buying in to the very assumptions held by racists that the actions of one black person can be ascribed to all who share his or her race?
We will only tackle the scourge of corruption if we focus on individual cases and do not invest such cases with some kind of racial meaning. In a country in which racism is still rife, this is not easy to do. If, say, Adv Nthai is prosecuted and convicted for corruption there will of course be some white idiots (probably more than I might care to admit) who will find their own prejudices about black people “confirmed” and this is hard to swallow. It is natural to want to avoid the “I told you so” glint in the eye of the racists out there. But that would be the easy and, in my view, wrong approach. Instead of taking the fight to the racists and defeating them, it would be to submit to the power of racism.
Now having written all of the above, I am mindful that some will lambast me for blaming all corruption on racism and apartheid. That would be wrong. I am saying the permissive culture towards corruption can at least PARTLY blamed on the completely absurd race politics of the country. But that does not mean that there are not other reasons for corruption or that individuals do not have any choice in the matter.
We all make choices and some of us decide to be corrupt and others do not. Some of us decide to turn a blind eye to it and others do to. Some of us decide to confront racism and others do not. We all have to take ethical responsibility for our choices. But in doing so, we would be daft not to see that larger forces make it difficult to choose the course of action that is responsible and ethical and in the best interest of the country as a whole. In a country like South Africa, doing the right thing is a constant struggle – regardless of the colour of one’s skin. But hell, that surely is no reason not to try.
I agree that we white people (I dislike the term, “whites” about as much as I dislike the term “blacks”) are still pretty racist. However, I disagree that this is a crime, providing that we do not cause any material harm (or gross indignity) to others.
And i agree totally that the remedy, if any, is to focus down on to the specifics of individual cases,a nd let them play out on thei merits. I think that we would find that most would find some instances of comfort to be had, as well as discomfort. So some cases would seem to bolster stereotypes, while others would go against the grain.
Why a black people so afraid of “their own” being found guilty of wrongdoing? Are they still afraid of what we white people will think of them? After all, what can we actually DO to them? Are they afraid that some of our prejudices are founded in truth? (I am not arguing that this is the case, but merely that there could be the fear of it among black people.)
Why is it that many black people, through defensiveness and this solidarity, continue to contribute to the very stereotypes that they bewail? If you say that I am a racist, then prove my “prejudices” wrong.
I sincerely hope that I do not offend any decent black people (of whatever shade or hue). For those whose hearts are hard and bitter, I feel for you, but there is little that I can do or say that would break down your perception of me. Must I abase myself at your feet, or must I be true to who and what I am, and speak straight (apologies for the term, Prof). Can we not let “iron sharpen iron”, even if a few sparks have to fly?
@Prof
Just hope that you are tackling the ball and not the man. In the meantime, the point can be illustrated by today story in the Times written by Bruce Gorton who tried to tie the expected appointment of Judge Msimang as Judge President in the KZN to the Zuma trial in which he presided and ruled in favour of Zuma. However, the same author suffered from self induced amnesia by deliberately omitting to mention anything about the expected appointment of Judge van der Merwe to the position of Deputy President in Gauteng. Both these judges presided over Zuma’s diffferent trials but the author saw fit to raise doubt about the suitability of Judge Msimang. If this is not a coordinated efforts by these offsprings of our suppressors to taint every succesful black person, then God help me.
Pierre, may I be so bold as to suggest that you are missing the point? Racism in this context is a red herring. The real problem is capitalism which is creating a bigger than ever gap between rich and poor and providing ample oppertunities for idiots to make millions exploiting the poor. Lets forget about the race of the people who get away with it, lets rather look at the wealth of the people who get away with it. Do you really think this wanker Brown would be walking free if he didnt still have money stashed away to pay all his legal fees and for “favours”?
Anyone with half a brain knows that corruption has no race and anyone who thinks there was no corruption and self enrichment by white officials in the apartheid era is delusional.
Hi Prof De Vos,
What are your opinions considering the CC’s decisions wrt floor crossing and the DA’s strategy?
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=vn20100505131654841C198053
Dear prof,
Two thoughts came to mind, on reading your article. One, that your observations (to me at least) ring painfully true. The old adage (actually, the new insight from behavioural economics) is true: “It’s not what we see that we believe, it’s what we believe that we will see”. I guess, after a bit of overload on the corruption by new rulers, I’ve come to be cynical about the next such ‘leader’, and my assumption of ‘honest till proven otherwise’ has been changed to ‘a thief, until demonstrated not so”. For me, it’s less about colour, but about what passes for leadership in the ANC that is troublesome. I, for instance, will have trouble accepting that anyone in the ANCYL is actually an honest person. I simply don’t believe it. But your point is well made, and the racial overlap is big. Your entry is a timely reminder.
The second point is about the nature of the corruption itself. I’ve been reading about the thievery that is the FIFA, and have been asking myself why I’m less upset about that, than I am about some of the thievery around me. I’m in Gauteng, and we’re apparently about to re-introduce the Alex mafia into the provincial leadership of the ANC. I think the difference for me between Mashatile and Blatter is not race – it’s that Blatter steals whilst he produces something valuable (the world cup spectacle), whereas Mashatile seems to specialise in enriching his friends, for no return to anyone else.
So, if corruption means we get what we paid for, but we just paid more than we should have, I guess I expect no different. But just paying, with nothing coming back, is deeply offensive. I find Blatter much less appaling than this runt that ran ASA, but it’s too easy to call it a race thing. Brown is a case in point, if even half of what he’s accused of is true, he’s an appalling swine, and should go away for a long time. Kebble was a similar pig, as were many of the old Nats brigade – may their death be slow and painful. I have the exact same feelings for Manto, Modise and the rest of that bunch. May that rot in a hot place.
But racist?
Zebulon, hope you are not offended that I used your statement as an example. Did not want to play the man and not the ball. Your example is well taken. Many journalists do not understand that the President has no power to appoint Judge Presidents. He only appoints the candidate nominated by the JSC. Also, in singling out the black judge and overlooking the white judge involved in ruling in favor of Zuma, and the the absence of any analysis about the correctness of the ruling, at the very least the journalist creates the impression of having a double standard based on race. But there is a difference between such a case based entirely on conjecture where one has to reject the innuendo and where one has every right to defend the judge involved and other case where credible evidence comes to the for that a person might have done something unethical or illegal (the Motata case, the Nthai case and the Hlophe involvement with Oasis comes to mind). In the latter cases, so my argument goes, one has to be careful not to defend someone purely based on their race on the grounds that if one acknowledges what is right in front of one’s eyes one will be merely strengthening the hand of the racists.
Prof: Interesting that pekkil monta does exactly what you talk about in the article. He comments about corruption in FIFA but compares it with “ANC/Black” corruption and concludes that one is better than the other.
“The private sector is the main instigator of corruption – this is a fact! The corrupt elements of the private sector remain wealthy and continue to do business – I say this loosely because to conduct business on the back of corruption illustrates a total lack of entrepreneurial ability. And there are many such companies, who conduct their business in dark corners, but enjoy the spotlight of public affluence”
Who run the private sector in South Africa?
Pierre, you are right about being lambasted. This article shows some serious regression and lowering of standards on your part. Why are you so race obsessed? Does this give you cred in the tea room among your left wing academic colleagues?
Your whole article is predicated on the assumption that Brown is white, and he may even claim to be so. If you take another look however, it could easily be assumed that Brown is brown, ie black. He doesn’t look particularly white to me. He is certainly no whiter than Shabby Shaik and Shaik claims he is black (to claim bee and aa benefits of course). Therefore your argument is complete and utter drek. Just because you want to go into a white guilt trip and an orgy of self-flagellation and try and lump all whites into the same category – that is one of being routinely racist, I don’t buy your (il)logic and reject being categorized as part of a prejudiced, anti-black group with contempt. Are you perhaps harbouring some guilt from the past, like being an avid Nat supporter, and are now trying to assuage those feelings by pretending that that all whites were racist like yourself?
This article is really pathetic. Perhaps Brown’s not yet having been successfully prosecuted has simply something to do with police and judicial incompetence (which may or may not have a black component), nothing more, nothing less.
Please get a grip and try and focus your attention on matters constitutional, not on parading your petty racial hangups.
Graham, as usual you miss the point completely. I will try and use less complicated words and deploy slightly more simplistic concepts next time so that you can also grasp what I am saying.
This article highlights how most problems in this country are interconnected. I doubt whether any problem can truly be separated from race, and corruption is no exception. Its no co-incidence that if there is corruption in government it is likely to involve blacks, since government is dominated by black people. Its sad but true that many whites will have their prejudices confirmed if a black person is found guilty of corruption.
However I feel that it is more harmful for others to try and cover up corruption for fear of fueling racist prejudice, in a way it only legitimizes these prejudices and fuels corruption by shielding those who are guilty. Whites who aren’t racists may actually have more faith in a system which applies to all without favor.
Perhaps it goes back to a lack of faith that the law can take its course, like corruption, access to justice is inextricably tied to race. While white people may have a prejudice towards thinking black people are corrupt, black people have a prejudice towards thinking the justice system is geared towards favoring rich white people.
While there is no instant fix to deep rooted racial prejudice, we cannot allow it to interfere with the law, if we protect anyone from the law because of the color of their skin, than we are no better off than under the Apartheid government.
Although I think you’re correct in your assessment of white attitudes to Brown, I’m not sure if the same applies to other categories of crime, about which whites may feel a little more defensive. I would say that the average white response to the Skierlik shooting, for example, was first to find reasons why this was something other than a purely racist hate crime. All sorts of crap, from the shooter having been a premature baby to him suffering from PTSD as a result of second-hand exposure to crime, was advanced rather than admit that he, like many others, had quite simply been raised as a dyed in the wool racist. And yet I don’t believe this is a result of black “domination and control of the discourse [which] still dictates how one behaves and acts.” Any which way, it seems that black and white are mirror images of each other in this country, and there is more to be done on both sides.
Thomas, I agree with you regarding corruption – to an extent. Certainly it is true of all the white companies who take on board some free-loading member of the ANC aristocracy in order to guarantee themselves a tender award or government contract. However, they do this knowing that the politician will be far more valuable to them in the tender adjudication process than a qualified black engineer/accountant/lawyer who will add value to the business. It’s a bit of chicken and egg. There also is another huge area of corruption that is solidly grounded in government inefficiency – where bribes are offered to government officials simply to do their jobs. Just as people pay Home Affairs officials to get their ID documents, without which they can’t vote, register for tertiary study or apply for jobs, companies pay other officials to get permits, licences and approvals to which they are perfectly entitled, having fulfilled all the requirements, and without which they would have to close their doors.
@ pekkil
That was a big punch!!!!!!!!
Planning body hides real problem
LUCAS NTYINTYANE Published: 2010/05/06 07:28:20 AM
It is hard not to like minister Trevor Manuel . His enthusiasm and strong work ethic are admirable — an exemplary public servant.
It’s a pity his latest project — the National Planning Commission — is bound to fail. It is the right answer to the wrong question.
What question should we be answering rather than avoiding? If we are to achieve any success, we need honesty about our mistakes. Only a fool will be happy with the prevailing state of affairs. We are regressing. All the signals are red. What is wrong?
It is leadership — or lack of it. We suffer from lack of innovative leadership and not from lack of vision. The constitution is our guide map. It clearly maps out the utopian dream: we must strive for a caring society based on equality, justice, human dignity, pluralism, safety and prosperity. It is a vision betrayed by the current administration.
Can Mr Manuel’s special group of 25 individuals save the crippled administration of President Jacob Zuma ? I don’t think so. The planning commission is a red herring intended to shift the focus away from Mr Zuma’s deficiencies. It is, by default, an avoidance strategy.
South Africans are fond of committees. We like easy answers to difficult problems. For poor service delivery compounded by massive plutocracy, we increased the government’s size to titanic proportions. To solve violent crime, we reintroduced failed apartheid-age military ranks. If Bafana can’t win games, we reward them with R1m for each goal they score (even if they lose the game). I call this lazy thinking. It is a recipe for mediocrity.
Before talking vision, first analyse the real problem (not what you want it to be). Ineffective leaders are our downfall. Sixteen years of democracy shattered our illusions about our perceived strengths. We failed to place competent people in key positions. The rising number of service delivery protests testifies to this shortcoming.
Visions on their own don’t build nations. You need innovative leaders to implement any vision. The citizenry cannot endure another 16 years of nondelivery.
You don’t need an extra layer of fat to cover the government’s inertia. Does SA need a National Planning Commission? For what purpose? What exactly is its function? Is it to advise or shape policies? Are these commissioners our cream or just well- known media faces? What criteria were applied to choose them?
How does the commission relate to other institutions of democracy, like Parliament? If Zuma’s government does not take Parliament seriously, what makes the commission different? There is a real danger of the commission becoming a glorified talk shop, long on promises and short on action. Nelson Mandela had the Reconstruction and Development Programme, Thabo Mbeki had Growth, Employment and Redistribution and the Gautrain, and Zuma has the National Planning Commission. We are where we started.
Shouldn’t we be saying, enough talking, get moving? This paralysis by analysis is the cause of our malaise. Not long ago, we were promised that monitoring minister Collins Chabane would put a stop to dilly-dallying by the executive. Nothing has changed. Where is accountable leadership?
From local to national government, the Law of Impunity and the Culture of Untouchables rule . Promises are broken and no one gets fired. Your party membership is your shield. It is where the rot starts.
Unaccountable and corrupt leaders are dragging us down. Sort out this mess before confusing us further with lofty visions.
Dr Lucas Ntyintyane
2009-10 Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellow
It is interesting that Minister Rob Davies requires cabinet approval to act on allegations of corruption at Cipro.
” A WORKER who spent 17 years at a bakery has been sacked for eating a tiny piece of nut from a production line.
“Susan Longworth said she was told that her actions amounted to theft and she was dismissed with immediate effect. ”
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/8185049.Eating_a_nut_at_work_led_to_sack/
Gwebecimele says:
May 10, 2010 at 11:19 am
“It is interesting that Minister Rob Davies requires cabinet approval to act on allegations of corruption at Cipro.”
The Hon Minister, Dr Rob Davies, seems pretty toothless if the last edition of Noseweek is to be believed.
Forget cabinet – the Minister needs the approval of his departments top officials before he can investigate those officials.
” Cover-up
Issue # 127 May, 2010
“In an explosive new twist to the Cipro/Valor IT tender scandal (noses114,115,117), noseweek can reveal how a top official in the Department of Trade & Industry has killed a high-level investigation ordered by Minister Rob Davies into the R153m award.
“Although Minister Davies and, to a certain extent, his director-general at Trade & Industry, Tshediso Matona, were determined to establish the truth behind the controversial ECM (Enterprise Content Management) tender 398, deputy director-general Zodwa Ntuli appears to be winning the battle to keep the squalid affair under wraps.”