THE South African story is drilled on the notion that the liberation struggle produced neither a victor nor a loser. The political settlement gets reduced to the narrative of an oppressor extending an olive branch to the oppressed to jointly declare democracy to be upon the land.
The recurring spectacle of this narrative was also not without a picture to capture the formal inauguration of freedom. Standing and walking tall was former president Nelson Mandela assuming political office as the founding father of the beloved country's democracy on May 10 1994.
On one side of Mandela was his soon-to-be- successor Thabo Mbeki. On the other the last old order president, FW de Klerk.
The three stood side by side with hands aloft. There can be no better picture to paint the more than a thousand words of reconciliation. The country had finally put a firm grasp on giving peace a chance.
White doves were released as a symbol of that chance. As the doves spread their wings skywards, their ascension into clearer air and space underlined the very wish for our democracy to equally reach for the highest levels of excellence.
The abiding spirit of this wish was a freedom unconstrained by the unsustainable inhumanity of past or fearful of the brave fundamental changes of a doom-free future.
De Klerk's Nationalist Party (NP) got lost to politics. The icy dark aims of his party melted in the liberation sunlight that did not tolerate oppression as a foundation upon which a humane future could be built. The icy cruelty flowing in the veins of the NP should be held responsible for the cold-bloodedness that turned the medical prowess of people like Dr Wouter Basson to misguidedly excel in killing rather than saving lives. Whether Basson was an innocent soldier sheepishly taking orders from cruel superiors who have got away with murder into the newly found democracy or a useful idiot in the killing business is a riddle that now stands before the Health Professional Council of South Africa to solve.
Mbeki came and left with spirited attempts to jolt the country, the continent and the world into an age of hope. Mbeki's compelling case for post-1994 politics was that they should cease being a mirror image of the oppressive system the NP had so brutally perfected into an art form. Mbeki's parting shot was a pathway towards a new society demanding what he called "business unusual".
The hint left for President Jacob Zuma was clear: liberation counts for nothing when liberators prove as hopelessly corrupt, if not worse, than oppressors.
To defend the ill-gotten honey and milk that corrupting power brings, some even argue that the difference between then and now is that the pilfering of state coffers was not as publicly known as that of liberators.
The argument can only help conclude that liberators are the most reckless students with nothing new to teach the world towards a warmer, kinder, higher and humane society.
That our liberation struggle produced neither victory nor defeat does not mean the country need not strive for higher values that give it the muscle for public representatives to fight and win the day against the co-optive schemes of the corrupt, white or black.
Good people will be no better off believing bad cannot be defeated.
Doing nothing is not angelic either. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men do nothing, says Edmund Burke.
The launch of Corruption Watch is a step in the direction of doing something.
The triumph of evil requires only that good men do nothing
THE South African story is drilled on the notion that the liberation struggle produced neither a victor nor a loser. The political settlement gets reduced to the narrative of an oppressor extending an olive branch to the oppressed to jointly declare democracy to be upon the land.
The recurring spectacle of this narrative was also not without a picture to capture the formal inauguration of freedom. Standing and walking tall was former president Nelson Mandela assuming political office as the founding father of the beloved country's democracy on May 10 1994.
On one side of Mandela was his soon-to-be- successor Thabo Mbeki. On the other the last old order president, FW de Klerk.
The three stood side by side with hands aloft. There can be no better picture to paint the more than a thousand words of reconciliation. The country had finally put a firm grasp on giving peace a chance.
White doves were released as a symbol of that chance. As the doves spread their wings skywards, their ascension into clearer air and space underlined the very wish for our democracy to equally reach for the highest levels of excellence.
The abiding spirit of this wish was a freedom unconstrained by the unsustainable inhumanity of past or fearful of the brave fundamental changes of a doom-free future.
De Klerk's Nationalist Party (NP) got lost to politics. The icy dark aims of his party melted in the liberation sunlight that did not tolerate oppression as a foundation upon which a humane future could be built. The icy cruelty flowing in the veins of the NP should be held responsible for the cold-bloodedness that turned the medical prowess of people like Dr Wouter Basson to misguidedly excel in killing rather than saving lives. Whether Basson was an innocent soldier sheepishly taking orders from cruel superiors who have got away with murder into the newly found democracy or a useful idiot in the killing business is a riddle that now stands before the Health Professional Council of South Africa to solve.
Mbeki came and left with spirited attempts to jolt the country, the continent and the world into an age of hope. Mbeki's compelling case for post-1994 politics was that they should cease being a mirror image of the oppressive system the NP had so brutally perfected into an art form. Mbeki's parting shot was a pathway towards a new society demanding what he called "business unusual".
The hint left for President Jacob Zuma was clear: liberation counts for nothing when liberators prove as hopelessly corrupt, if not worse, than oppressors.
To defend the ill-gotten honey and milk that corrupting power brings, some even argue that the difference between then and now is that the pilfering of state coffers was not as publicly known as that of liberators.
The argument can only help conclude that liberators are the most reckless students with nothing new to teach the world towards a warmer, kinder, higher and humane society.
That our liberation struggle produced neither victory nor defeat does not mean the country need not strive for higher values that give it the muscle for public representatives to fight and win the day against the co-optive schemes of the corrupt, white or black.
Good people will be no better off believing bad cannot be defeated.
Doing nothing is not angelic either. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men do nothing, says Edmund Burke.
The launch of Corruption Watch is a step in the direction of doing something.
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