by Justin Foxton | Nov 25, 2017 | Citizen Participation, Democracy, Leadership
A letter to my sister who is about to return to South Africa having lived in Britain for the past 4 years:
Dear M,
I hope you are well and surviving that UK weather. I wish you could send some rain to the Western Cape. The drought down there is horrific.
What do you make of what’s happening in Zim? If you had told me last week that in a matter of days Mugabe would still be alive but out of power, I would have laughed at you. It gives me such hope for South Africa, though we must do it peacefully and democratically (and preferably in less than 37 years!)
Your decision to come home is such a great one – not that I am biased! It’s a very exciting time to be in South Africa, though it’s not for the faint-hearted. So, as you make plans to come back home for good, I wanted to give you my thoughts on the “state of our nation”.
From all you will have heard and read, things will appear significantly worse in South Africa. To some extent they are. But you should know that the most important difference between where we are now and where we were say last month or even last year, is that the rot is pouring out into the open in a way that it has never done before. This is thanks to people like Jacques Pauw who wrote The President’s Keepers, NGO amaBhungane and The Daily Maverick who exposed #GuptaLeaks, Adriaan Basson and Pieter Du Toit who wrote Enemy of The People. The list of people bravely exposing Zuma, the Guptas and the stench of corruption and state capture is long and growing.
New revelations emerge daily and whilst this is extremely angering and even frightening for many of us, it is good. The exposure of the sheer magnitude of criminality within government, our state-owned enterprises and institutions like the State Security Agency is the necessary bursting of a boil that has been festering under the surface of this nation for too long. We naively believed that Nkandlagate and revelations of the looting of State Owned Enterprises represented giddying high points in corruption and the capturing of the presidency and the state. But we now know that they are individual cases of a plague that has swept our country. We now know that abuse of power and sheer greed run right into the heart of the democratic apparatus of our state.
So, I’m not saying things are good. They aren’t. They are appalling. But ironically, the fact that we know they are so appalling should give us a sense of hope; a sense that we are better off now than we were yesterday. For without knowledge of the enemy we are fighting, how can we possibly win? And every day we learn more and this must inform our fight.
Which brings me to my second point. Time and again history has shown us that it only takes a handful of good men and women to turn the tide on evil and we have more than a handful. There are so many people in this country (and indeed outside the country) who are risking everything to expose corruption and lead in ways that honour the legacy of our democracy’s founders. I mentioned Jacques Pauw et al but there are dozens of people who are speaking out daily. This extends from our often-fearless press, to individuals like Pravin Gordhan, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, Zwelenzima Vavi, Makhosi Khoza, David Lewis and his team at Corruption Watch, Sipho Pityana, Vytjie Mentor, Lord Peter Hain to opposition parties, civil society groups and NGO’s to the man and woman on the street. I think of the many police I have interacted with who will not solicit a bride. I think of the many friends and family members we have who will not pay a bribe or a kick-back.
History has always proved the adage that “good will ultimately triumph over evil” and South Africa will be no exception. This is simply because the good men and women of our time are taking a stand big or small. They are resisting the temptation to join the feeding frenzy and exposing lies and deception whenever they can, and hope remains.
My honest belief is that you are coming back at a very good and very necessary time. There is no doubt that it is a time of hope, rebuilding and restoring; it is time for a new struggle that involves all of us. As the good book puts it: “I (God) will restore the years that the locusts have eaten.” The image of locusts is spot on. If I was a cartoonist I would draw Zuma, the Guptas and all the rest of them as locusts destroying everything in their path. But ultimately – like every other plague in history – the locusts will not prevail.
I began this letter by saying that South Africa is not for the faint-hearted. But South Africa also isn’t for the complacent, the lazy or the negative right now either. If you aren’t willing to actively participate in a better future, then you will probably be over-whelmed by the scale of the rot and want to jump ship. It is only when people make the decision to remain hopeful and seriously invest in a nation – time, energy and money – and stand up for their ethics and values, that they become a positive and active contributor to the solution.
I hope this gives you some perspective. We can’t wait to have you home.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens, Emmanuel Josias Sithole and Suna Venter.
by Justin Foxton | Sep 1, 2017 | Citizen Participation, Crime & Corruption, Leadership
If you know the greater Johannesburg area, you will be familiar with a sulphurous smell that permeates the air at certain times of the year and reminds one of being on a long road trip with a windy family member.
Theories abound as to the cause of the smell; when we were kids we were told it “came from the mines”. But everyone has a theory; some rather randomly say it comes from Modderfontein, others blame factories, landfills and sewerage.
I was in Johannesburg recently and caught a familiar whiff. Suddenly, I was in Parliament and it was the 8th August 2017 and I was listening to the results of the motion of no confidence in the President. As I listened the smell seemed to get stronger. Next thing I knew, it is three weeks later and the smell which is usually gone by morning, is still hanging heavy in the air. It just won’t go away and although it isn’t nauseating, it is just – there; constantly.
I have tried to understand this smell that won’t go away. Of course, the easy answer is that it is the stench of avarice; greed upon greed upon greed; corruption breeding with itself to produce a deformed and grotesque fart bag. But that is too easy an explanation because we have lived with that smell for so long we hardly notice it anymore. (Note to self: When citizens become numbed to the crimes being committed by their leaders, the nation is on very rocky ground. Wrongly, I have stopped reading anything that has #Guptaleaks in the title. It’s become like ambient noise that I just tune out. I must wake up, read everything and allow indignation to rise again.
But this time it seems different. The stench I am smelling is, I think, a rather toxic blend of fear mixed with helplessness. Many South Africans from all walks of life had been unrealistically hopeful about the motion of no confidence. Some even believed that it would succeed in removing the President. When it did not, we seemed to collectively drop down onto the pavements of our country, our banners limp and impotent, and quietly give up. The dominant collective mindset seemed to say: “Well, we have him until 2019 now – lets ride this out and hope we don’t get someone even worse.” And then the fear kicked in as it began to dawn on us just how long two years is when you are being led by a Jacob Zuma.
But surely if the smell is fear and helplessness, then the smell is coming from us. After all, these emotions don’t come from outside of ourselves; they come from within. And if we have quietly resigned ourselves and hence our country to the fates, then are we not to blame if we get more of the same?
But I sometimes find myself asking: “What more can we do? We have marched, prayed and railed. We have signed petitions and e-mailed MP’s. What is left for us to do?”
The answers to some of these questions came to me this last week as I facilitated a 2-day workshop for the organisation Partners for Possibility. Their ground-breaking and internationally acclaimed program pairs a business leader with a school principal for 1 year to help the principal develop and refine his or her leadership skills. This workshop was all about how to build authentic community in and around a school and indeed, in one’s businesses and neighbourhoods. Half way through day 1 a couple of things occurred to me: the first was that these school principals – who have every reason to be negative – were anything but; they were positive, eager to learn and passionate about their schools and the kids. The business leaders were equally as positive; they sought solutions and were eager not to pass the buck onto government or anywhere else for that matter. The positivity in the room was infectious and as a result, the community of this group built quickly and discernibly.
The realisation was two-fold: when we surround ourselves with positive people – and are open to having our minds changed – fear falls and hope rises. Secondly, when people come together to discuss possibilities rather than problems, solutions emerge. This feeds the positivity, and the fear and hopelessness are further eroded.
Another thing became very clear to me for the umpteenth time since I have been involved in community and NGO work; as we get involved by volunteering our time and skills, something shifts in us. We stop focusing our attention solely on what isn’t and begin to build on what is.
This of course does not mean that we will suddenly be rid of our corrupt leaders. But what it does mean is that we will triumph over our own fear and helplessness; we will find ourselves in a position where we are able to celebrate what is great about our country. And when the moment comes when we need to once again rise, lift our banners and take to the streets, we will have the energy and the zeal to do just that.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens, Emmanuel Josias Sithole and Suna Venter.
by Justin Foxton | Apr 13, 2017 | Citizen Participation, Crime & Corruption, Democracy, Leadership
As I write this I am watching a TV screen that is flashing up the plummeting value of our post-junk-status Rand.
I pick up my phone and the anti-Zuma rants pour in on social media. An e-mail comes from a pastor friend inviting us to “pray up, speak up, stand up, march up, and shout from the rooftops, against the firing of Gordhan and his deputy, against Zuma’s shameless blatant ‘treasury capture’ to further pillage and rape the nation’s resources for his own ends of security and power.” My wife sends me news of a local march we can join.
We march, we pray and we speak out as many South Africans have. But is it just me or does this response seem so inadequate, so uncreative, given the scale of the evil against which we are protesting? Are these actions our only answer to a president who is committing willful acts of violence against our people? I ask this as a person who fully believes in the power of prayer and protest.
Violence? Yes, I use this word deliberately. I believe this is where we have gone horribly wrong in our assessment of Jacob Zuma and hence how we deal with him. Jacob Zuma is not just a corrupt man. Jacob Zuma is a violent man.
A Sanskrit definition that proves this point says that non-violence is: “A lack of desire to harm or kill; the personal practice of being harmless to self and others under every condition.” By this definition, our president is a violent man; out to harm people through stealing from them; systematically destroying our currency and hence the value of people’s savings, pensions and grants. He is killing our economy, squeezing every drop of life out of it for himself and his cronies. And the ultimate insult? This is all being doing in the name of ‘radical economic transformation’; that absolute necessity that has thus far eluded our post-apartheid democracy without which we simply cannot succeed.
And all the while our poor are getting poorer, hungrier and sicker; people will undoubtedly die because of Zuma’s acts of violence. They will starve because their grants will no longer afford them the necessities they need to survive as junk status rips our economy to shreds. They will be unable to afford transport to clinics to get life-saving medication.
Please let us stop reducing Jacob Zuma to such relative niceties as some buffoon with a shower rose on his head. Jacob Zuma is a calculating, violent despot who must be made to answer a litany of charges including why he willfully and knowingly brought yet more poverty and starvation to the poorest of the poor in our country, by knowingly taking us into a junk bin.
But the question in all this is within democratic and peaceful parameters, what do we ordinary citizens do to rid our country of such a violent man? Are praying and marching – both of which are powerful and necessary – our only options? Must we wait for the 2019 general election? Or are there other tools?
I do not know specifically what you should do in your unique world with your unique skills and passions. Only you will know that. All I do know is that we need to do more:
If you are a spiritual person, begin an inter-faith, national prayer chain that prays continually – not for 24 hours but until Jacob Zuma is removed from power. As a student, form a protest group like the anti-apartheid demonstration that occupied the steps of South Africa House in London for 1408 days in the late 1980’s. As a musician, organise a concert of all the biggest acts in our country in aid of the victims of Jacob Zuma’s regime. If you or your establishment has a South African flag, fly it at half-mast until Zuma is deposed. At the very least spread peace and tolerance in every interaction you have with your follow South Africans and do not allow racist rhetoric to win the day.
And as for the privileged amongst us, we must actively close the gap between rich and poor that is being widened by Zuma. We must pay decent living wages and empower people with skills. We must embody the radical economic transformation that our President uses to justify his pillaging of our nation.
We cannot just march as we did last Friday and this Wednesday, as a once off. It takes years – sometimes decades – of sustained and focused national and international effort and pressure to bring down corrupt regimes and despotic leaders.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens and Emmanuel Josias Sithole.
by Justin Foxton | Mar 17, 2017 | Citizen Participation
You may remember an old advertising campaign for SAA that featured the somewhat benign strapline: “We didn’t invent flying, we just perfected it.”
This line sprang to mind recently whilst talking with a group of people at a work function. One of our group was talking quite openly – if a tad sheepishly – about how he had bribed a municipal official to help make something or other go smoothly in some or other area of the country where he is involved in some kind of business. I am of course protecting him and his company’s identity because – other than this little indiscretion – he is quite a nice fellow and I also happen to do some work for him that I would prefer not to lose.
The conversation caused the above-mentioned advertising strap-line to resurrect itself from the deep recesses of my memory and I began to chuckle quietly to myself as I replayed it over-and-over in my mind replacing the word “we” with specific people’s names: “Shabir Shaik didn’t invent corruption, he just perfected it.”; “Jacob Zuma didn’t invent corruption, he just perfected it.” On-and-on I went, working my way through our cabinet, their friends, our state-owned enterprises and our sports teams. It was fabulously amusing in a sick kind of way.
Then the crash-boom-bang moment. I suddenly felt a little uneasy as my attention swung back to the conversation at hand and away from the ones who have become celebrities on little more than the grounds of their own corruption. There we sat, a group of hard-working, “upstanding” citizens – all of us relative unknowns, just getting about life in South Africa, contributing to the perfection of corruption; we nodded at the news of the infraction, smiled, drank our wine and ate our food and remained quite quiet.
Now, even as I write this it sounds like I am being rather critical – perhaps over critical – of our reaction. In the context of a civil and polite gathering, what is one meant to do? It would be rude to tackle the person and make an issue of the thing. In addition to this it might also have been hypocritical: “Let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone” and all that. And apart from all that, the bribe itself was not millions (“shouldn’t we be focusing on catching those who are corrupt on a grander scale?”), it was a few thousand. Well actually a few tens of thousands. But it wasn’t chicken coop large or even fire pool large, it was just a decent amount to smooth a path; get things done nicely if you like. Also, it would have paved the way for jobs to be created and communities to be sustained.
But this line of internal argument proved insufficient to assuage my guilt. So, I chose to get personal. I reminded myself that I might not be brave enough to speak out in person, but I do my bit; I write about citizen participation; about each of us being co-architects of a better future for all and playing our part in creating peace and stamping out corruption and other crime; I tell people to blow the whistle on corruption all the time. Is this not enough to be allowed to claim that I am doing all I can to prevent corruption being perfected in our country?
Let’s forget about the above-mentioned bride for a moment because to be honest, in itself that bribe will have done little to perfect corruption. What perfects corruption is when people hear of corruption and do nothing.
My mind wandered off again to an altogether less chuckle-inducing place: “Justin Foxton did not invent corruption, he just perfected it.” My self-justifying self now took over the argument: “That is not fair!” I simply cannot be accused of corruption let alone perfecting the jolly thing!”
But now came the most piercing personal revelation of all: The thought process behind ignoring corruption is as devious – perhaps even more so – than the thought process that drives the corrupt act itself: I will pay this person with my silence to secure his business. He will give me money and I will give him protection. She will give me friendship and I will give her my faithful silence; he will be a brother to me and I will protect him come what may. It becomes so easy for me to point the finger at others when I am involved in the perfection of corruption all the time.
We will overcome the nation-slayer called corruption as we acknowledge that we are all in some way complicit in its perfection. This is not about flogging ourselves. It’s about getting quite honest with ourselves and asking what we can personally do to turn the tide on corruption.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens and Emmanuel Josias Sithole.
by Justin Foxton | Apr 16, 2016 | Democracy, Leadership
In August 2014 highly respected ANC veteran Pallo Jordan found himself in hot water over lies regarding his academic qualifications. He had claimed to have a PhD going by the title of Doctor for years.
Via an article in the Mail & Guardian, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe explained that Jordan had written to the party’s leadership taking full responsibility for what Jordan termed as “deceit over a long time”. Jordan apologised to the ANC, its members and all South Africans and resigned.
There are moments in all of our lives that come to define us as men and women. For leaders with position and power, these moments may go down in the annals of history. For leaders like you and I they may simply become part of the history of our own small lives, or be forever etched in the minds of our children: “My Dad was always someone who did the right thing”; “My Mum played fast and loose with the law.”
The story of Pallo Jordan’s deceit did not end with an apology to South Africans. That is because Pallo Jordan is a man of integrity. How can we possibly say that about a man who lied and cheated his way through decades of his life, receiving benefits that he should never have been entitled to? Well, we can say that because when confronted with that dreadful moment of truth about his lie (a variation of a lie that many of us have spoken in our lives to make ourselves or our companies sound more impressive), he chose to admit his mistakes and resign. With only the evidence provided by his conscience and a Sunday Times expose; without any pronouncements of a court of law – he did the hardest thing possible; he took responsibility and action. His apology would have meant nothing had he not resigned; his apology would simply have been a request for us to let him off the hook: “You have been a naughty boy Pallo, but we forgive you. Just don’t do it again.”
My primary memory of Pallo Jordan is not that he lied about his qualifications. I remember him for the fact that he resigned as a result of being exposed. I remember how quickly, how decisively and how humbly he did it. I remember how he saw fit to respect South Africans and our democracy by doing what only the strongest of men and women and the best of leaders can ever do – kick themselves when they are down. Regardless of the fact that he would lose money, face and power he did what I have come to understand any true veteran of the struggle would do; he stood up bravely against anyone who dared to compromise the integrity of that struggle and the democracy that resulted – even when that person was him.
I do not need to spell things out and in any case, much has been written about the man who still insists on calling himself our President. Suffice to say that whether you love him or hate him, this man will now be relegated to the trash-heap of history occupied by corrupt leaders; those who lied, cheated, deceived, manipulated and put themselves before the people. But he will not simply idle away his final years in ignominy for Nkandla or the fact that he violated his oath of office or any of the other atrocities committed by him. Ultimately, this will happen because he apologised without resigning. Had he resigned on Saturday night he may in years to come have even been honoured for some of his not insignificant achievements as President of the Republic. But now, history will only ever remember him for being a man who – when presented with that moment – chose to apologise but not resign. He will be remembered for the fact that he not only placed his needs before the party or his people, but before the constitution of the Republic.
And this is what stalwarts, elders and civil society leaders are now protesting over. They have nothing to lose from standing against the systematic destruction of this mighty organisation. They know that a weak ANC is bad for everyone and they will not look on as Rome burns. What the man who insists on calling himself our President – and the entire ANC – has missed is that this has gone beyond politics and a scrutinising of the letter of the law. This now sets in motion the ANC’s slide downwards to the trash-heap occupied by corrupt liberation movements; those who lied, cheated, deceived, manipulated and put themselves before the people. What a tragic trajectory.
Is it too late for redemption for either him or the ANC? I do not believe so. Provided this once proud organisation is able to liberate itself from its own propaganda and make itself accountable to you and I by speaking truth to power, then anything is possible.
Pallo Jordan proved that people are very forgiving when the right thing is done.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
This column is dedicated to the memory of 17-year-old Anene Booysens: gang raped, mutilated and murdered, and our Mozambican brother Emmanuel Josias Sithole: beaten and stabbed to death.
