READER LETTER | Politicians' careers are based on lies

Character assassination is on the increase in Rainbow SA as aspiring politicians and incumbent leaders vie for political power. Sadly, every political party is guilty of this heinous and sinister strategy.

Lies and half-truths, laced with political venom, are now on graphic display as the nation enters election mode.

The attack on leaders in high-profile positions is tantamount to character assassination. It is a particularly repugnant tactic, and has been extensively deployed throughout our history.

Politicians lie, they come from every political party, their careers are based on a battery of lies, they still have the brazen audacity to engage in disgusting acts of character assassination based on crudely manufactured deceptive trash.

Unfounded allegations are levelled to discredit public figures in a hysteric atmosphere. Slander, distortion, fabrication and sophistry are the tools of the trade.

Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels believed that the bigger the lie, the more convincing. Italian author and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli taught that the ends justify the means. Both “principles” are applied in character assassination.

The barrage of accusations is libellous and can cause damage that no retraction can erase. Fabricating lies is not just a disease of our era but it is a cancerous syndrome that has eaten, plundered and ravaged the entire South African body-politics.

Our politics should not be turned into contests for the determination of who can insult the most, lie the most, scandalise the most and malign the most. The power game in our nation has no rules.

If the spirit of the primacy of common good were to animate all our politicians, we would not be witnessing character assassinations, slander and malice in our political campaigns which leave the public dismayed and disheartened.

Farouk Araie, Actonville, Benoni