By Dr Vusi Shongwe
Sometimes, in our desire to be profound, we miss the obvious. In an early draft of the Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Dartmoor for the night.
In the middle of the night, Holmes woke up and shook Watson declaring: '"Look at the sky Watson. What do you see?" Watson replied, "I see stars, millions and millions of stars." "And what does that tell you, Watson?" Dr Watson paused for a moment. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and countless planets in them. Horologically, it tells me that the time is a quarter past three.
Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo: Theologically, it tells me that God is al- powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it tells me that we will have a nice day tomorrow." Holmes said nothing. Watson finally asked, "Well Holmes, what does all this beauty and grandeur tell you?" The detective snapped, "Watson, you idiot, it tells me that someone has stolen our tent."
Okay. He is guilty. But does he really need to be removed? The most profound thing to be said about defending President Ramaphosa is the most obvious - the entire process has all the characteristics of a politically and ingeniously engineered machinations.
It is true that a president can indeed commit acts against the public trust that are so egregious that while they are not statutory crimes, they would demand removal from office. It is also true that what the president did was not perfect, but to demand his removal for money he has not stolen is to stretch it too far.
One would be forgiven to think that, given the cacophony about the Phala Phala circus, President Ramaphosa has committed a flagrant assault on a matter of national security interest. In my view, his failure to disclose his money does not amount to be the most abusive and destructive violation of his oath of office. President Ramaphosa faltered by not reporting the matter to the police. One could argue that he abused his office, if not his power.
Something should have reminded him about this aphorism from the 17th-century writer Thomas Fuller: “Be you ever so high, the law is above you.”
This furore reminds one of the best-selling and riveting book that was written in the sixties during the years of the Vietnam War and draft resistance. The book was entitled, "Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music." Something comparable could be said about the impeachment process.
The obvious needs to be stated, though. President Ramaphosa’s own conduct is what has triggered this constitutional crisis, and there is no way to change that fact. Yes, his adversaries have been hounding him obsessively and irresponsibly. But at the end of the day, Ramaphosa has supplied them with the ammunition that they have used to fire the gun.
For me, the Phala-Phala circus is a storm in a teacup. It reminds me of the Chinua Achebe's proverbial absurd man who leaves his burning house to pursue a rat fleeing from the flames. This is exactly what South Africans, especially all the political parties, are doing, immersing themselves in inconsequential and meaningless discussions.
This report and the possible impeachment of President Cyril Ramaphosa will not feed the hungry masses of our people. It will not create the much-needed jobs. The country is in “flames”, and politicians, instead of expending their energies engaging in ingenious discussions geared towards coming up with strategies to eradicate poverty and create job opportunities, are all huffing and puffing, chasing the four million dollars, of which there is no proof that it was illegally obtained.
Must the whole country come to a standstill for a lousy four million dollars when we still have people housed in community halls after the April cataclysmic floods. Must serving the downtrodden take the back banner whilst our politicians are pursuing the four million dollars’ rat? Politicians can be hypocritical sometimes. Given the brouhaha about the Phala Phala scandal, one would be forgiven to think the president had gotten the money through illegal means.
Let one politician raises his or her hand that he or she has never stashed ill-gotten money under the mattress. Some politicians live in houses and drive cars which have been financed by kickbacks stashed under mattresses.
The problems facing South Africa are bigger than the Phala Phala scandal. If President Cyril Ramaphosa is ultimately impeached, this would be done at the country’s peril.
In his book, The Life of Reason, George Santayana warns us that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Santayana basically argues that if our world is ever going to make progress, it needs to remember what it's learned from the past. After all, change isn't the same thing as progress.
The country is in a mess today because misguided politicians chose to recall one of the most brilliant minds this country has ever produced, His Excellency, President Thabo Mbeki. I am not sure whether this is what the country wants when it allows politicians to play with people’s lives.
South Africa's problems now require a collective of diverse minds and from diverse backgrounds. The African proverb brilliantly captures the idea of collectivity perfectly when it says, "a single hand cannot cover the sky. It takes many hands to cover the sky." We need eminent and diverse people with great action- giving and thought people to raise the torch and make the pathway of a better life free of load shedding and smooth again.
When the torch of Olympus is lit, and further to be handed from one to another. It creates warmth and brings light amid darkness. Darkness covers the country as if an archetypal case of a plague of Sophoclean tragedy, and so demands a meeting of bright minds. These are the minds that will ignite the Olympian torch without political favour or prejudice. These are bright minds that will illuminate the country by taking a stand instead of either a bribe or a profit.
Is democracy at the root of this constitutional crisis South African finds itself? Can the whole debacle be blamed on too smart constitution? As the lyrics of a popular song put it, “there are more questions than answers.” Winston Churchill put it aptly when he said, “many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe.
No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…” One is intrigued by what the Scottish philosopher John Adams meant when he said, “remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.”
In his address to the 1995 Law and Society Association, Boaventura de Sousa Santos argued that times are changing and that "we"- the law and society audience, among others - must use "the imagination to explore new modes of human possibility and styles of will and to oppose the necessity of what exists on behalf of something radically better that is worth fighting for and to which humanity is fully entitled."
Santos claims the "deep and irreversible crisis" occurring today involves the reproduction of social regulation "by and through" the emancipatory practices that should confront it. "Deprived of its emancipatory antidote," as he puts it, "legal regulation has become another form of excessive regulation”, and the time has come to imagine a newly and truly emancipatory, and hence non-scientistic and non-regulatory alternative.
The mood of the country is darker, not by load shedding, but by absence of credible leadership.
*Shongwe is the director of KwaZulu-Natal Sports, Arts and Culture
SUNDAY TRIBUNE