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11 FEBRUARY 2016 13:21 (SOUTH AFRICA)

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The Fallen: Jacob Zuma, Shame of the Nation

• RANJENI MUNUSAMY
 
• SOUTH AFRICA
 
• 10 FEB 2016 11:52 (SOUTH AFRICA)

On Thursday evening, President Jacob Zuma will stand at the front of Parliament with his hand on his heart as the military band plays the stirring notes of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, the 21-gun salute thunders and fighter planes roar overhead. It is a poignant moment at the Opening of Parliament every year, a brief moment of unity and patriotism. This year, the national salute will be taken by a man unworthy of the honour of leading the Republic of South Africa. He shamed himself and he shamed the Parliament he will enter. But Zuma will stand at the podium and Parliament and deliver the State of the Nation Address because he is incapable of recognising the disgrace he brought to himself and the nation. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY.

President Jacob Zuma’s favourite Shakespearean play is Macbeth. With an air of theatre, he is able to recite Macbeth’s lament for his dead wife:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

It is the moment in the play when Macbeth is left alone to face the consequences of his actions, engulfed by personal wrath. His lust for power is replaced by weakness. He is empty.

Zuma recites the soliloquy, not because he is capable of introspection of his actions or feeling shame, but as a retort to his critics. He uses the lines to disparage those who are critical of him – they are “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

It is Zuma’s enduring belief that he will triumph over his detractors that brought him to the point where he was on Tuesday – lying prostrate before the Constitutional Court. Alongside him lay the Speaker of the National Assembly, ANC MPs and members of his Cabinet, all complicit in the multiple abuse of power to circumvent the law and the Constitution. Like Lady Macbeth, they enabled the crime and then paid the price for it.

Zuma will deliver the State of the Nation Address at the same parliamentary podium he has stood numerous times, deriding those who tried to hold him to account for the security upgrades at his Nkandla residence. “Why do you say I should pay back the money?” he would ask mockingly of opposition MPs. “Never have I ever thought on the date when I will pay back the money,” Zuma declared to loud applause from the ANC MPs.

At that same podium, he tried to diminish the Office of the Public Protector by comparing her report to farcical government cover-up processes. He demanded to know why he should be made to implement mere recommendations that were not binding. Zuma also repeatedly declared that he had been exonerated from wrongdoing by every investigation into the Nkandla upgrades. That is patently untrue as Thuli Madonsela’s report found him to be in breach of the Executive Ethic Code for failing to protect state resources.

“It is my considered view that the President, as the head of South Africa Incorporated, was wearing two hats, that of the ultimate guardian of the resources of the people of South Africa and that of being a beneficiary of public privileges of some of the guardians of public power and state resources, but failed to discharge his responsibilities in terms of the latter,” Madonsela states in her report.

And the reason Zuma was asked to pay back the money is this: “It is my considered view that as the President tacitly accepted the implementation of all measures at his residence and has unduly benefited from the enormous capital investment from the non-security installations at his private residence. A reasonable part of the expenditure towards the installations that were not identified as security measures in the list compiled by security experts in pursuit of the security evaluation, should be borne by him and his family.”

This is something Zuma has never internalised or accepted, which is why he scorned all attempts to hold him accountable for Nkandla and used every institution at his disposal to shield him from having to pay. He preferred the sham report of his now discredited Police Minister, Nkosinathi Nhleko, whose advocate admitted to the Constitutional Court that he conducted the investigation knowing that what he was doing was unlawful.

While Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett capitulated on Zuma’s behalf in the Constitutional Court, it is doubtful even that would have re-assembled Zuma’s shattered moral compass. Gauntlett told the judges that Nkandla had “traumatised the nation”. Zuma would never acknowledge that.

Counsel for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Wim Trengove told the court there was a “single and heightened” duty on the president to uphold the Constitution. Zuma has never taken this responsibility seriously. For him, the accumulation of power and wealth for himself, his family and friends has been paramount, and the presidency was a tool of his entitlement.

Zuma’s contribution to the liberation struggle can never be questioned, nor can his outstanding role in negotiating peace in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of the continent. But Zuma surrendered his morality along the way. Though he proclaims the primacy of his organisation, the ANC, it now has to be recognised that he is the single most destructive force in the 104-year-old party.

While defiling the Presidency and Parliament, Zuma also abused Africa’s oldest liberation movement, leaving it mangled and bleeding among the many casualties on the Nkandla battlefield.

Now, as a last ditch attempt to save Zuma’s presidency, Gauntlett appealed to the Constitutional Court not to issue a declaratory order acknowledging Zuma’s wrongdoing. He said this could be used to impeach Zuma.

“This is a delicate time for society and the concern that we have is that if any time either the official opposition or the EFF that they wish to bring impeachment proceedings, they of course have that right and they may do so at any time as they have done so in the past. But what would be wrong would be for this court to be […] into the position to making some form of wide condemnatory order which would be used effectively for provisional sentence for impeachment in Parliament.”

So when Zuma stands before the nation on Thursday evening, he will do so exposed as a man who betrayed his oath to the nation but is hanging on hoping for leniency from the Constitutional Court. He remains in office but not in power.

At the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, the ground shifted. Power shifted. The president no longer holds the absolute power he did a year ago.

Zuma will purport to deliver a report card on the country to a nation that no longer trusts him. His fate is in the hands of the Constitutional Court judges and opposition parties on a mission to remove him from power. His own political party has been left paralysed and discredited.

Twenty-six years ago, on 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster prison after 27 years of incarceration. The first iconic image the world saw of him was his right fist raised. It was an unspoken declaration of power and the world rejoiced.

Twenty-six years later, one of Mandela’s successors will stand before the nation and raise his right hand to his heart for the national salute. Nobody will be rejoicing. This is a man who treated his nation with contempt and feels no shame for having done so.

Like Macbeth he refuses to yield even when the end is near:

Why should I play the Roman fool and die
On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.

A tragic figure. A master of his own demise. The man responsible for the wretched state of our nation. DM

Photo: President Zuma in Parliament, 12 February 2015. (Greg Nicolson)

• RANJENI MUNUSAMY
 
• SOUTH AFRICA

Watch Malema vs Sunter in heavyweight debate on economy

BDLive

BUSINESS DAY

Economy

Watch Malema vs Sunter in heavyweight debate on economy

FEBRUARY 04 2016, 17:26

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CONTROVERSIAL MP and Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema will take on Clem Sunter, one of South Africa’s most prominent authors and scenario planners, in a two-round debate at the Cape Sun.

The clash, organised by the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will be covered by Times Media via BDlive and our other websites and social media channels, including exclusive video clips after the event.

“Both these men have very strong views on the future of South Africa and its faltering economy, and it should be interesting and exciting to see them exchange blows,” said chamber president Janine Myburgh. “We are looking for a fair exchange of debating punches with as little ducking and diving as possible.”

The chamber has organised the “bout” because, it says, business must come to terms with different scenarios for the country’s future and how these could affect business opportunities and job creation.

Ms Myburgh said the lines in the political debate too often became confused as politicians sought to gain short-term advantages and audience support rather than looking deeper at policies’ long-term consequences.

“Mr Malema represents a different approach to our challenges and it is important to understand his thinking and what he is trying to achieve,” she said. “Mr Sunter, on the other hand, represents a more established view but he has a vast knowledge of the economy and our problem industry, mining, and should mount an excellent defence.

“We have billed this as the ‘Rumble in the Urban Jungle’ but we are looking for information and understanding rather than physical conflict. The blows we want to see are the blows of telling arguments and counter-punches of different views. Ideally we’d like to see both combatants leave the ring with a clearer understanding of the opposing forces.”

A question-and-answer session will follow the two-round clash.

Want to attend?

The debate will take place in Cape Town on Friday February 12, after a sumptuous dinner with award-winning wines. Tickets cost R500; chamber members pay R350.

To book, contact Helga Smit on 021 402 4300 or helga@capechamber.co.za.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Bantustans are dead - long live the Bantustans - PARI in M&G

Analysis - Mail & Guardian

Bantustans are dead - long live the Bantustans

11 JUL 2014 00:00LAURA PHILLIPS, ARIANNA LISSONI, IVOR CHIPKIN

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The dynamics of power established under apartheid, especially in the 'homelands', still play a major role in rural government.

There is a joke in public service circles that goes something like this: “Have you heard what happened to South
Africa after 1994? It was colonised by its Bantustans.”

The story is usually accompanied by wry laughs about South Africa’s new “colonialism of a special type”.

The story is funny precisely because it contains a kernel of truth. The Bantustans were far more substantial
entities than simply “puppet regimes”, and one of the major features of post-apartheid South Africa is the degree
to which the spatial and institutional legacies of Bantustans live on in contemporary South Africa.

The Bantustans, or “homelands”, as they were renamed in the attempt to foist ethnic nationalities on black South Africans, formally ceased to exist with the first democratic elections of 1994. Rooted in the 1913 native reserves,
after the coming to power of the National Party in 1948 the Bantustans became one of the cornerstones of
apartheid ideology and policy.

The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951   which was fiercely resisted by rural communities from Zeerust to Sekhukhuneland and Mpondoland   brought the remnants of the 19th-century independent African chieftaincies under the apartheid state’s administrative control.

Over the decades, these ethnically defined territories were granted self-governing and “independent” status by Pretoria, in effect stripping black South Africans of their citizenship. Economically dependent on Pretoria’s hand-outs and foreign loans, the Bantustans were large-scale projects of apartheid social engineering enforced by mass forced removals and resettlements.

The Bantustans were shunned by the mainstream of apartheid opposition domestically and internationally. They were regarded as illegitimate tribal governments and their leaders were rejected as puppets of the apartheid regime.

But after the 1994 electoral victory   and during the earlier negotiations period   the ANC and its allies were faced with the reality of having to reincorporate and accommodate the former Bantustans in the new democratic state. Hence their legacy remains inscribed in South Africa’s cultural, political, economic and physical landscape, though their historical importance has not been fully appreciated.

The homelands fostered the development of a black middle class and a black elite that had its base in traditional authorities. They expanded over the years to include an emerging bourgeoisie of farmers, businesspeople, teachers and, perhaps most importantly, bureaucrats. In many ways, it was a precursor of contemporary processes of class formation and capital accumulation in the broader context of a free-market capitalist economy, and there are significant continuities with post-1994 socioeconomic transformations.

The development corporations, set up to attract white South African and foreign businesses to the Bantustans in a bid to make them economically viable, played a significant role in developing this middle class.

Another pillar of the strategy was the handing over of white business to local black residents. In the former Transkei, where, prior to the granting of self-government in 1963, the nonagrarian economy had been driven by white traders and hotel owners, the Transkei Development Corporation stated its commitment to buying up white businesses and selling them, at a reduced price, to “Transkeians”.

In this sense, the Bantustans were incubators of black economic empowerment before its time.

But this was far from being a transparent process. Who businesses went to, and at what price, was usually determined by political connections and the patronage network of the Matanzima brothers, who ruled the Transkei.

By the end of the 1980s, a small but powerful black middle class had been built in the Bantustans. They had a large constituency of businesspeople, who often had ambivalent relationships with the Bantustan governments, but they were nonetheless their beneficiaries.

It is here that the origins of contemporary lifestyles of conspicuous consumption lie, rather than simply being the product of a new political regime of freedom that lifted apartheid’s restrictions on black consumption and acquisition.

The reconfiguration of homeland geographies after 1994, and their bureaucracies, also presented a public administration challenge to the new democratic state. The public service inherited by the post-apartheid state consisted of Bantustan officials on the one hand and white Afrikaans-speaking administrators loyal to the National Party on the other. Incorporating these administrations was a complicated task.

By the end of apartheid there were 10 Bantustans, with 14 legislatures, 151 departments and about 650?000 homeland officials. The houses of the tricameral parliament, the president’s council and the black and white local authorities all had to be merged with these Bantustan institutions to transform the state into a unitary set of administrations for the post-1994 national and provincial governments.

The difficulty of merging was most apparent at provincial level where, for example, in Limpopo, the provincial structures had to be overlaid on those of the old Venda, Gazankulu and Lebowa Bantustans and parts of the formerly white northern Transvaal.

From a capacity point of view, to run the country the ANC needed both black and white civil servants, but it also had to win their loyalty. Bureaucrats were a key component of the support base of Bantustan regimes and were influential in shaping the negotiations in the early 1990s   they demanded the protection of their jobs and pension packages. Their incorporation into the new administration at times carried with it a nontransformative element vis-à-vis the ANC’s mandate to achieve more democratic representation in the civil service after 1994, and often produced tensions.

Furthermore, Bantustan civil servants were the product of patrimonial institutions often embedded in clientelist relations that were able to morph and survive into the present.

As research by the Public Affairs Research Institute is beginning to show, more histories of the public service and its institutions need to be written in order to understand how these networks have shifted in the post-1994 period. Timothy Gibbs’s new book (See “A powerful elite traces its roots to bonds formed at mission schools”) offers one way into this complex set of issues.

As Gibbs argues, traditional leaders were a key part of these networks of power and authority in the Bantustans. Through these networks they were able to position themselves as regional brokers for the channelling of state resources to localities. This largely continues today, most evidently in the new ream of bills and laws dealing with traditional authorities, such as the contested (and for now buried) Traditional Courts Bill.

These have entrenched the institution of traditional leadership even deeper in rural landscapes, sometimes in conflict with the democratic rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Researchers at the Centre for Law, Race and Gender at the University of Cape Town have referred to this as the “reBantustanisation” or Balkanisation of rural society: the boundaries of the old homelands are being reinscribed. Increased powers are being given to traditional leaders, for instance by customary law provisions, which risk creating parallel legal systems for rural communities living under their jurisdiction and strengthening patriarchy while exacerbating gender inequalities.

New dynamics have emerged as to how traditional leaders engage with struggles for control over local economic resources, especially where mining rights are involved. In many cases, this has led to the revival of the ethnic affiliations that colonialism and apartheid sought to promote, which manifest themselves through renewed chieftaincy disputes and competing claims over land by different traditional communities.

We need concentrated and deep historical research to uncover the precursors to contemporary South Africa in a more systematic way. Only with these insights will we be able to understand our current state, the uneven performance of institutions, and how to move beyond the consequences of our complicated past.

This article arose from a workshop of the Public Affairs Research Institute, where Laura Phillips is a researcher, Arianna Lissoni is a postdoctoral fellow and Ivor Chipkin is the executive director.

SOURCE: MAIL & GUARDIAN

SOUTH AFRICAN NEWS

PRESS RELEASE

SOUTH AFRICAN TODDLERS PRESCRIBED MIND-ALTERING STIMULANTS, ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND ANTIPSYCHOTICS

Parents Informed Consent Campaign Launched

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, January 28, 2016/ -- South Africa reports having one of the highest rates in the world of prescribed stimulants for children labeled with so-called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)—a rate even higher than in the U.S.[i]  While The New York Times recently reported the prescription of dangerous antidepressants and antipsychotics to children aged two and younger in the U.S.,[ii] South Africa also shows antidepressants are being prescribed to children aged two and younger[iii] and powerful antipsychotics like Risperdal are approved to treat disruptive behavior in children older than 5 with mental retardation.[iv]  Wanting South Africa to avoid the epidemic of psychotropic drug abuse of children seen in the U.S., CCHR (http://www.CCHR.org) International has launched a campaign to inform South African parents and teachers about prescribed psychotropic drug risks in children. As part of the campaign, fliers are downloadable (http://www.cchrint.org/pdfs/prescribed-psych-drugs-harm-sa-children-and-youth.pdf) to be distributed to parents to become better informed and to refuse to sign consent forms for children to be screened for psychological or mental “disorders” through schools. Parents can also download, print, and sign a form to protect their child (http://www.cchrint.org/pdfs/parent-exemption-form.pdf) from invasive school questionnaires that could lead to a referral to a psychiatrist for psychotropic drugs.  South Africa adopted an “Integrated School Health Policy” in 2010, which included a mental health program.  It likely opened the door to more children potentially being drugged, CCHR says. Stimulants sales are a $9.9 billion (R150 billion) a year industry in the U.S. and are among the leading drugs of abuse by teenagers.  South African students snort and swallow Ritalin to get high.  The drug is referred to as “smarties,” “rit” or "kiddie cocaine.”[v]  The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says methylphenidate (Ritalin) is “closely related to cocaine.”[vi] Psychostimulants can cause hallucinations, liver problems, seizures, stunted growth, psychotic or manic symptoms, and suicidal thoughts.  Unlike for diabetes, heart problems or medical conditions, there’s no scientific test to prove that ADHD exists, as agreed by many doctors.  The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has warned governments about the excessive diagnosis of ADHD and the need for alternatives to stimulants prescribed to treat it.  Conflicts of Interest Another parallel between South Africa and the U.S. is the conflicts of interest—the financial ties between psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies that help fuel the increases in psychiatric drug prescriptions. The South African Society of Psychiatrists Treatment Guidelines for Psychiatric Disorders was written by ten psychiatrists (one of which passed away prior to reporting any conflicts of interest).  Six had financial ties to drug companies that manufacture psychiatric drugs.[vii]  The Guidelines cite the U.S. psychiatrist Prof. Joseph Biederman from Harvard University whose failure to disclose to the university the $1.6 million (R24.1 million) he made in consulting fees from drug makers was uncovered by a U.S. Senate investigation.  According to The New York Times his research helped cause a 40-fold increase (1994 to 2003) in the diagnosis of childhood “bipolar disorder” in the U.S. and the rapid rise in dangerous antipsychotics to treat it.[viii]  The Anti-Drug Alliance of South Africa says many doctors are receiving kickbacks including paid holidays abroad for prescribing certain drugs in the treatment of ADHD.[ix]  The South African guidelines, especially relating to ADHD, should be rejected, CCHR says. - The use of Ritalin and other drugs to treat ADHD was reported in January 2014 as soaring among primary school children in Nelson Mandela Bay, Eastern Cape province.  A local pharmacist reported an increase of nearly 50% in Ritalin prescriptions over the previous year.[x] - Antidepressant use in the South Africa has increased by 39% over the past four years.[xi]  In 2005 the South Africa Medicines Control Council issued a “Drug Alert: Warning” that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) antidepressant packaging include a warning of increased suicidality in children and adolescents.[xii] - Despite this, a study published in 2013 shows that in South Africa the average number of antidepressant prescriptions claimed per patient increased with age and infants and adolescents aged 16 to 18 are prescribed the drugs.[xiii]  A co-author of a December 2015 study reported about 60 to 70% of people who take antidepressants “experience side effects and some of the side effects are severe suicidal thoughts.” [xiv] CCHR agrees that parents and children may need help.  However, parents are not being given all the facts, especially that there is no medical test to confirm that any mental disorder is a physical “disease.”  South African parents have the right to know about safe alternatives for their child and to ask their doctor about non-drug treatments. Download the flier for more information, here (http://www.cchrint.org/pdfs/prescribed-psych-drugs-harm-sa-children-and-youth.pdf). Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR). View multimedia content   Contact: Media Director, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International Media Dept.: media@cchr.org SOURCE Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) Multimedia content Download logo Document: Fact sheet Document: References Image: Drugging south-african children Share Twitter |  Facebook |  LinkedIn |  Google+ |  Tumblr |  Reddit |  Pinterest | StumbleUpon

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AFRICAN NEWS

PRESS RELEASE

Facebook Announces 16 Million People in Nigeria Come to Facebook Every Month with 100% on Mobile

Facebook deepens Nigerian partnerships, shares insights about Nigerians online

LAGOS, Nigeria, February 5, 2016/ -- Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) (http://www.Facebook.com) announced 16 million people in Nigeria visit Facebook every month with 100% of them coming on mobile. Each day, 7.2 million people visit Facebook with 7 million on mobile. Facebook’s visit coincided with Friends Day (4 February), or Facebook’s 12th birthday. During the past five years, the global Facebook community has more than doubled in size, and its community in Nigeria continues to grow. “For us, Friends Day in Nigeria was about hearing the stories of our community using Facebook our platform to grow and connect with others. We have made amazing progress over the past year.  We’re only 1% done in Nigeria and inspired to do even more in this fast-moving, mobile first country,” said Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President, EMEA, at Facebook. Nunu Ntshingila, Head of Africa for Facebook, said: “This is the year we deepen our partnerships with Nigerian businesses. We’re committed to Nigeria, and during this visit we shared insights with our business and agency partners on how to deliver personalised marketing, at scale, where people are – on their mobile phone. We want to make sure Nigeria - its people, its agencies and its businesses - realise the opportunity that technology and mobile bring.” Ntshingila continued: “We know the mobile platform people use the most in Nigeria is Facebook and up to 77% of Nigerians on Facebook use their mobile device to discover new products and services. Nigerians are sophisticated mobile users and this sophistication is increaseing fast – people are ahead of businesses, and we’re here to help businesses create mobile-first solutions to grow their business.” Facebook also hosted a dinner for women leaders in Nigeria where Mendelsohn and Ntshingila spoke about entrepreneurism and technology can drive economies and create jobs.   Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of Facebook. View multimedia content SOURCE Facebook Share Twitter |  Facebook |  LinkedIn |  Google+ |  Tumblr |  Reddit |  Pinterest | StumbleUpon

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