KZN ANC premier Sihle Zikalala must be complimented for saying the quiet part out aloud: he wants the constitution removed so he can exercise unrestrained power and by embracing black majority rule, shows he rejects non-racialism (The Mercury, March 22).
Democracy has always been embraced by Marxists as a means to an end – absolute power. For them, checks and balances on executive power by means of a freely elected legislature and an impartial judiciary presiding over a constitution, are merely temporary impediments.
More than sixty years ago, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana pioneered the art of African dictatorship by ditching constitutional democracy and commencing a practice which has plagued Africa ever since. By seeking to replicate that ruinous odyssey, Zikalala indicates the extent to which he prioritises ideology ahead of the lessons of history.
Predictably he cites the Freedom Charter to justify removing the constitution. Compiled by Marxists, the objectives of the Freedom Charter are unambiguously Marxist. Everything is mandated by what is asserted as the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” as it was termed in the USSR.
In that the Freedom Charter denies private ownership and enterprise and mandates the state as the sole arbiter of every aspect of life, experience shows that the Freedom Charter guarantees servitude, not freedom.
Without the custodianship of a constitution, the “parliamentary democracy” to which Zikalala aspires would be nothing more than a rubber stamp for the dictates of the ruling cabal.
But Zikalala’s immediate objection to constitutional strictures is that they inhibit the ANC’s radical economic transformation, which is unconstitutional because it is racially discriminatory. How he arrives at the concept of “majority” when non-racialism is supposed to be holy writ and when half the country opposes the ANC, as the recent elections showed, attests to the vagaries of Marxist thought.
Be that as it may, the biggest mistake Zikalala can make is to think he can improve the welfare of the so-called majority by marginalising the roles of other population groups. By treating South Africa as its personal fiefdom, to date, ANC ideology has capsized every aspect of public service and enterprises. Zikalala’s plan would hasten total ruin.
The axiomatic reality of South Africa is that the welfare of the majority depends on the security of its minorities. The constitution implicitly recognises that which is why Zikalala’s aspirations spell disaster for all.
Sent into The Mercury and Published, 23 March 2022.
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