Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 14 July 2009
The debate in the July 2009 edition of New African magazine on the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC), particularly in relation to its perceived targeting of African leaders, raises emotions amongst those of us who feel – not without reason – that the ICC is one of the several tools that western leaders use to intimidate our leaders.
There are many reasons why we need a court modeled along the lines of the ICC to bring about justice to victims of callous regimes around the world. And this, I believe, is the reason why so many African countries supported the formation of the ICC.
We in Africa have had – and continue to experience – a fair share of the slaughtering of innocent civilians in several conflicts; and we have no reason to protect or be sympathetic to perpetrators of such heinous crimes when they are called to accounts for their criminal actions.
I don’t think anyone disputes the fact that, “when the Court investigates those allegedly responsible for serious crimes in Africa, it does so on behalf of African victims”, as Lucile Mazangue puts it in “The case for the ICC” (NA, July 2009).
The problem is that the court our leaders thought would bring these perpetrators of violence – particularly violence against civilians – to book is already apparently negating one of the basic principles of justice, which is impartiality. Selective justice, as we’ve seen practiced by the ICC, is not justice at all.
A system of justice is supposed to protect the weak against the bullying of the powerful, but the ICC appears to be doing the exact opposite. It seems to be targeting the weak in apparent pursuance of the interests of powerful western states. And that is grossly unfair and unjust.
The mandate of the ICC, as Mazangue correctly puts it, “is to hold perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes to account when national courts are unwilling or unable to do so.” And we’ve seen national courts in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas unwilling and unable to act against alleged criminals.
Investigators, prosecutors and judges who look the other way when leaders of powerful western countries break international law implicate their good names in the abortion of justice.
The generally accepted principle that lawyers must practice their trade without fear, favour or prejudice seems to be a foreign concept to the ICC as an institution. The ICC is visibly neither willing nor able to charge leaders of rich western states with crimes against humanity, despite overwhelming evidence to this effect.
Selective justice conceals (seemingly by design) monumental crimes of the type we’ve seen in countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Democractic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, etc. When will victims of crime in these and many other countries see justice?
Does the ICC have both the will and the guts to catch big fish? I await a comprehensive answer from any of the officials or judges at the ICC itself.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
When 'experts' exhibit egos
Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 06 July 2009
One question that bothers me all the time about our media is this: when will they (the newspapers, radios, televisions and – lately – online editors) start giving the poor a platform to tell their own stories?
I get depressed listening to so-called “experts” trying, almost always unsuccessfully, to articulate the frustrations of ordinary South Africans living in conditions of abject poverty, cut out from the lifestyles of today’s liberated new middle class.
I am looking forward to a day when I switch on my television for a primetime news bulleting/programme and see a poor person in studio analyse his/her own condition, or a victim of crime talk about his own wretchedness.
When you have a politician and an “analyst” in studio, all they seem to do is engage in a war of egos. What each of them seems to be saying is: “I know better than you do.” It all comes across as an intellectual showdown rather than a genuine attempt to analyse our socio-economic situation.
One question that bothers me all the time about our media is this: when will they (the newspapers, radios, televisions and – lately – online editors) start giving the poor a platform to tell their own stories?
I get depressed listening to so-called “experts” trying, almost always unsuccessfully, to articulate the frustrations of ordinary South Africans living in conditions of abject poverty, cut out from the lifestyles of today’s liberated new middle class.
I am looking forward to a day when I switch on my television for a primetime news bulleting/programme and see a poor person in studio analyse his/her own condition, or a victim of crime talk about his own wretchedness.
When you have a politician and an “analyst” in studio, all they seem to do is engage in a war of egos. What each of them seems to be saying is: “I know better than you do.” It all comes across as an intellectual showdown rather than a genuine attempt to analyse our socio-economic situation.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Unmasking the DA’s “Open Opportunity” policy
Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 01 July 2009
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Premier of the Western Cape Province, Helen Zille, likes talking about the need to transform South Africa into what her party calls an “Open Opportunity” society.
An Open Opportunity society, according to Zille’s DA, would be characterised mainly by “individual freedom and the limitation of state power”.
In an Open Opportunity society, “individuals [would be] free to be themselves and pursue their own ends”, with “both the law and the attitudes of the population provid[ing] the space” for individuals to be who they want to be.
On face value, demands for an Open Opportunity society would sound perfectly legitimate and convincing; but there is one big impediment:
South Africa’s history of more than 300 years of white domination, inequality, racism and oppression renders white South African liberals (once partners with the National Party in the apartheid government) unfit to champion social transformation.
An Open Opportunity society, if you really think about it carefully, is a society in which all are given equal opportunities to compete in the market place. The poor are given the know-how to compete with their fellow well-off countrymen and women on an equal footing.
The problem with the application of such a policy in South Africa now would be that only the previously advantaged, few as they are in numbers, would get the biggest slice of the country’s resources because they have had unfair advantages in the recent past.
An Open Opportunity society then becomes a survival-of-the-fittest society. And, as we know, in South Africa today, the fittest would be those who have had access to the best universities, best investments – and 80% of those would be white. And, would that still be a real “Open Opportunity” society, where the rich and the poor are expected to compete on an equal footing?
The DA itself puts it more bluntly thus: “In an open opportunity society, therefore, your path in life is not determined by the circumstances of your birth, including both your material and ‘demographic’ circumstances, but rather by your talents and by your efforts.”
Simply put, it means this: we want to do away with policies such as Affirmative Action because we do not really see the need correct the imbalances of the past. The Open Society policy then effectively translates into apartheid denialism. I do not understand why any South African from a poor background would support such a policy.
The "limitation of state power", in the context of the DA's Open Society, would encourage private enterprise and create jobs. But the limitation of state power, in a country such as South Africa, as is the case elsewhere in the world, means privatisation of state resources.
Rampant privatisation, as history teaches us, results in mass retrenchments, joblessness, poverty and, inevitably, death. In such a society, the rich get richer whilst the poor get poorer. Is that what the DA wants?
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Premier of the Western Cape Province, Helen Zille, likes talking about the need to transform South Africa into what her party calls an “Open Opportunity” society.
An Open Opportunity society, according to Zille’s DA, would be characterised mainly by “individual freedom and the limitation of state power”.
In an Open Opportunity society, “individuals [would be] free to be themselves and pursue their own ends”, with “both the law and the attitudes of the population provid[ing] the space” for individuals to be who they want to be.
On face value, demands for an Open Opportunity society would sound perfectly legitimate and convincing; but there is one big impediment:
South Africa’s history of more than 300 years of white domination, inequality, racism and oppression renders white South African liberals (once partners with the National Party in the apartheid government) unfit to champion social transformation.
An Open Opportunity society, if you really think about it carefully, is a society in which all are given equal opportunities to compete in the market place. The poor are given the know-how to compete with their fellow well-off countrymen and women on an equal footing.
The problem with the application of such a policy in South Africa now would be that only the previously advantaged, few as they are in numbers, would get the biggest slice of the country’s resources because they have had unfair advantages in the recent past.
An Open Opportunity society then becomes a survival-of-the-fittest society. And, as we know, in South Africa today, the fittest would be those who have had access to the best universities, best investments – and 80% of those would be white. And, would that still be a real “Open Opportunity” society, where the rich and the poor are expected to compete on an equal footing?
The DA itself puts it more bluntly thus: “In an open opportunity society, therefore, your path in life is not determined by the circumstances of your birth, including both your material and ‘demographic’ circumstances, but rather by your talents and by your efforts.”
Simply put, it means this: we want to do away with policies such as Affirmative Action because we do not really see the need correct the imbalances of the past. The Open Society policy then effectively translates into apartheid denialism. I do not understand why any South African from a poor background would support such a policy.
The "limitation of state power", in the context of the DA's Open Society, would encourage private enterprise and create jobs. But the limitation of state power, in a country such as South Africa, as is the case elsewhere in the world, means privatisation of state resources.
Rampant privatisation, as history teaches us, results in mass retrenchments, joblessness, poverty and, inevitably, death. In such a society, the rich get richer whilst the poor get poorer. Is that what the DA wants?
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