The Big Read:A few nuggets in the dross

It is tempting to write about the ANC's depressing list of brazen thugs - Dina Pule, Humphrey Mmemezi and numerous others - who are headed for parliament.

How does one square the party's election lists, packed with some of the most odious characters in South African politics today, with what it proclaims as its values?

It is naïve to be surprised, though. After all, at the head of this list is President Jacob Zuma, a man whose friends have used a strategic air force base as their personal landing pad; a man who has brazenly used R215-million of taxpayers' money for his own house; a man who still has not answered more than 700 charges of corruption hanging over him. The fish rots from the head.

It will not stop. Poised to take over from the Zumas of this world are young leaders who themselves face charges of fraud and corruption. They are on the ANC lists and they are not ashamed to be on them. They are among friends and comrades who do not frown upon such things.

It is tempting to rail and rant but, actually, there is much beauty, dedication, leadership and a sense of values embodied in a handful of men and women in the ANC.

I want to praise some of them. Their numbers are small and they diminish daily. But they deserve to be praised.

As Pule girds her loins to return triumphantly to the National Assembly and possibly a second Zuma cabinet, it is worth remembering that ANC MP Ben Turok had to be assigned bodyguards because of anonymous threats he received while he was leading the investigation into her activities.

Turok, a dogged voice of the poor and a remarkably ethical MP, has been a strong and consistent voice for good and right his entire life.

If you meet him in the street, do me a favour: give him a hug. This is a man who voted against the notorious secrecy bill despite his party imposing a three-line whip.

This man is a South African hero, a source of pride.

There are many others like him, people who have dedicated their lives to the ideal of a united, non-sexist, non-racial and fully democratic South Africa whose values are expressed in our constitution.

Last week parliament said goodbye to Trevor Manuel, the minister in the presidency, whose task over the past five years has been to craft the remarkable document that is the National Development Plan.

In this one man, too, we can learn what it is to be truly and fully South African. Despite the numerous criticisms that have been levelled against him, Manuel's public and private stances on many issues have been a continuation and consolidation of the non-racialism, non-sexism and unitary values that the likes of Turok have lived since they wrote the Freedom Charter in June 1955.

Manuel 's letter to ANC Western Cape provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile - published, sadly, over Christmas and not seen by many - is illustrative. It deals with the Independent Newspapers debacle.

He finished it with a warning that all of us - and ANC leaders in particular - should heed:

"We should never allow expedience to triumph over our history and our values. Too much blood has been spilt and far too much pain endured in the struggle to create the democracy described in our constitution."

Manuel has taken on many holy cows that other leaders have shied away from.

In yesterday's Sunday Times he warned against undermining our institutions and came out vigorously in defence of the independence of the public protector.

When Jimmy Manyi's comments about coloureds came to the fore, he was one of the few inside the ANC to speak out.

He is not without his faults. His inaction throughout the Thabo Mbeki presidency on the HIV/Aids scandal is unforgivable.

That said, the man was a workaholic finance minister who always kept the values of our constitution at the forefront of his public interventions.

Even within the constraints of his party membership, often and admirably, he has managed to speak in the way so many of his comrades used to speak as leaders of the United Democratic Front in the 1980s: with conviction and conscience, and driven by universal human rights values.

In a place in which such voices have become ever more rare, his has become a valuable, refreshing, comforting presence.

The run-up to the election is now in full swing. Soon, new MPs will take their places in the various legislatures. It is devastating to think that the likes of Pule and Mmemezi will be putting their bums on seats on which Nelson Mandela, Ben Turok and Trevor Manuel once sat. It tells you something about the future of this country and of the ANC.