EITHER YOU ARE WITH THE ANC OR YOU ARE OUT OF A JOB

THE TIMES NEWSPAPER
JOHANNESBURG, SA
By Justice Malala
Mar 16, 2009


Jobs and government tenders are reserved only for those who support the ANC. This is the stuff of banana republics.

Every one of us should stand up for Pityana, for tomorrow it will be us

I HAVE never had much time for Barney Pityana. His tenure at the Human Rights Commission was pretty unremarkable. His rush to use the race card in the past has appalled me. And his new-found ability to speak up has seemed self-serving. When his voice was really needed, he was one of those who kept quiet.

But a horrible thing is happening to Pityana, and every South African should stand up for this man. Not because he is a good man, or because they like him. In fact, it is those of us who are not particularly impressed by him who should today stand up and say: this flagrant violation of human rights must not happen in our country.

The ANC Youth League, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and the Young Communist League have been on a campaign to remove Pityana from his position as head of the University of South Africa.

The campaign really took off soon after it emerged that Pityana was one of the leading lights behind Cope. Since October last year the man has been hounded by the ANC and its various affiliated bodies.

Nehawu has accused Pityana of mismanaging Unisa and of reserving its facilities for the sole use of Cope.

“We are not wrong to say Pityana must resign, because he used [more] of his time to his party than the institution,” YCL leader Buti Manamela said recently at a march against Pityana.

No evidence has been proffered to back up these allegations. The message is simple, and chilling: if you are not a member of the ANC you will be run out of your civil service job or any other job.

It has already happened in the Eastern Cape. Has anyone heard any complaints about Thabo Mbeki’s adviser, Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, with regards to his job as chairman of the Eastern Cape Development Corporation? You wouldn’t have. Nkuhlu was probably terrible at his job. But he was a member of the ANC and so he could be as bad as he liked.

But a s soon as it emerged that Nkuhlu was with Cope, Eastern Cape Finance MEC Phumulo Masualle announced his axing.

Stories of intimidation of anyone who does not jump up to grin at the ANC are numerous. Remember when the ANC Youth League rushed off to accuse Absa Bank of supporting Cope because it had helped organise — months before the emergence of Cope — a woman’s function that Wendy Luhabe was involved in?

The party and the state, the party and civil society, have become conflated. If you are not ANC, you cannot be a civil servant, a judge or a university principal. Jobs and government tenders are reserved only for those who support the ANC. This is the stuff of banana republics.


On the 14th of July last year the vice-chancellor of the University of KwaZulu Natal, Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, said: “I can see no other person better suited … better groomed and prepared than (Jacob) Zuma to lead our country.”

He was neither hounded nor vilified for his statement. Pityana fully deserves the right to believe that Cope leader Mvume Dandala is the right man to lead South Africa. Many of us might believe he is deluded, but he should not be victimised for holding the view.

Today, it is people such as Malegapuru Makgoba — a man who knows what it is like to be hounded out of an institution — who should stand by Pityana. It is all of us who should stand by him. For tomorrow it will be Makgoba they are coming for. Tomorrow it will be you. Tomorrow it will be me.