Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s misguided attempt at ‘wokeness’

Wikipedia defines being woke as meaning “alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination”, and slang for “broader awareness of social inequalities like sexism and denial of LGBTQ+ rights”.

Former public protector and now EFF MP Busisiwe Mkhwebane probably thought she was being woke when she described a court judgment against her as her being targeted by judicial officers of Indian descent.

She took to social media platform X to outline how, when she was public protector, she had to fight off late minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan and a whole number of others in the judiciary who are all of Indian descent and who had made rulings against her.

She has issued a half-hearted apology that says: “I’m sorry if parliament sees it as an attack on Indians.”

The apology says nothing about her fullblown attack on the recently departed Gordhan, whom she knows is not here to defend himself, and she had plenty of opportunities to voice her disagreements with him when they were both still in office and he was still alive.

What needs to be addressed, though, is her delusional belief that legal professionals of a particular race have it in for her, that she has a bull’s-eye that for some reason only known to her – and maybe her legal advisors – all these professionals are aiming for.

ALSO READ: Human Rights Commission keeping an eye on Mkhwebane’s alleged ‘racial slurs’ matter

It needs to be acknowledged that this country’s race relations have left no group spared in terms of pitting it against another group. Relations between black people and Indian people are not as they should be.

There are divisive issues between the two races that do in fact need to be made part of the national dialogue at some point, if it ever that happens.

But Mkhwebane provides no reasons whatsoever for singling out people of Indian descent in her tirade.

People must not be allowed to use racial divisions as their hiding place against incompetence. When parliament voted to impeach her, she did not raise the race issue.

It is important to remember that when she was still in office, Mkhwebane was found to have “acted in bad faith, did not fully understand her duty to be impartial … and a high number of falsehoods that were put forward by the public protector in litigation…”

This a quotation directly from a Constitutional Court (ConCourt) judgment.

ALSO READ: What is Busisiwe Mkhwebane trying to do?

If, as she says, her fall from grace was because she is a target of judicial officers of Indian descent, is the country to believe that the ConCourt that made this ruling against her is beholden to the same people?

It is easy for people to forget issues that dominated her tenure when she was public protector because South Africa is like a fastpaced action movie, as people say, scenes keep on moving the narrative along very quickly.

There’s a new scandal every day. And the general public will not remember that Mkhwebane hired one Paul Ngobeni and relied on him for legal advice on reports she was dealing with in the courts, though Ngobeni was not a senior counsel or a registered legal practitioner.

In fact, he had legal problems of his own in Connecticut in the US.

All this to say the courts that ruled against Mkhwebane ruled on the matters before them, as did the latest court which ruled against her.

If she believes that they did not focus on the law and judged against her based on race, the courts are her answer.

ALSO READ: DA refers Mkhwebane to Ethics Committee over Indian ‘racial slurs’

Social media, more often than not, is used by folk who want to incite racial tensions when they realise they do not have substance.