MAKHUDU SEFARA | Too often those in power, whom we trust, disappoint us

Judge president John Hlophe this week earned the dubious honour to be the first judge to face a confirmed impeachment since the dawn of democracy. It is an indictment as it is a step in the right direction for our young democracy. 

Let’s park it. 

The ANC offices across SA were shut yesterday, as the ruling party shied away from an embarrassing confrontation with its employees crying for their salaries to come as regularly as those working for the DA or the EFF. Let’s park this too.

The US, ordinarily a bully on the global stage, was this week told that its self-imposed deadline of retreating, almost with its tail between its legs, from Kabul, Afghanistan, in a matter of days stands. There’s no room to negotiate. All American interests, and people, must leave. And that is an order against, yes, the mighty US. 

It’s good to see that America, a source of much instability in Africa and the Middle East, can be given a taste of its own medicine by, sadly, a motley crew of criminals and misogynists parading themselves as victors in the 20-year war to “free” Afghanistan.

The point of these three examples unfolding this week, and there are many others, is that what sometimes appears evidence of human progress can, and often does, turn for the worse right in front of our eyes, when we become too trusting of those with power. All of life is an “exchange market” and, those whose offer is their labour or votes must think carefully about those in whom they entrust their wellbeing.

“Man is an animal that makes bargains,” says Adam Smith. And so it was that when Hlophe, certainly an intelligent and hardworking legal mind with a future ahead of him, sought ways to fast-track his career by engaging in adventurist political manoeuvres to help Jacob Zuma get off, uppermost in his mind was his potential bargain. 

Judges must, as many have done at difficult periods of our democratic journey, continue to hold the line and be guided by nothing but our constitution. 

On the surface, this appears a simple bargain that went horribly wrong. Hlophe could easily have been a chief justice, but his adventure backfired so much he could not even get a seat on the Constitutional Court. He didn’t bank on the judges exposing him, and thus making it impossible for Zuma to promote him during his nine years on the throne. 

It is a sad day for our country that someone such as he is facing such censure. It is necessary though that he must be made an example of so that judges will, as many have done at difficult periods of our democratic journey, continue to hold the line and be guided by nothing but our constitution. So his punishment, though sad, must be a source of joy and pride that our systems work. 

However, we can’t exactly say the same thing about any system in Kabul, given the dramatic events of the last two weeks. Men and women are fleeing, families are getting separated, lives have been turned upside down as America is forced into an undignified retreat. It is worse for women, treated like children with little, if any rights. The hope America brought is dissipating with each passing day.

Yet America is no hero here. In pursuit of minerals and oil in the Middle East and Africa, the US entrapment in wars that would rage for decades wasn’t obvious until now. Its budget is being pummeled by meaningless wars that President Joe Biden is trying to extricate the US from, billions of dollars later. The superpower’s humiliation is perhaps a rational consequence of its actions. It’s a pity though that the young girls and women of Afghanistan, who were in schools trying to make something of their lives, must now leave their homes and hope for a better future in unknown lands, with half-baked qualifications. 

They must feel betrayed not just by the humbled bully, but by the whole world watching as terrorist groups arrive in Kabul, pretending they will honour social contracts and human rights.

In the streets of Johannesburg, though, employees of the ANC made it clear that the gallant fighter of workers’ rights, a partner in crime of workers’ movement Cosatu, was not honouring any employment contracts. 

ANC chair Gwede Mantashe told Onkgopotse “JJ” Tabane on eNCA this week that even when he worked for the party for 10 years, salaries would come on the 36th day of the month, but “we soldiered on” because working for the ANC was a source of greater joy. Or words to that effect. 

That Mantashe was a unionist, now a fat cat minister whose salary and privileges are never delayed, must have felt as if he was twisting the knife in ANC employees’ backs. Like the women of Afghanistan, the betrayal of ANC workers must be so intense as to seem tangible. Even Judas betrayed Jesus Christ after a dubious transaction. Who then are we to believe that Hlophe, the US and the ANC will not betray us?