Could the ANC top 6 give me some space too please?

Giving the former president 'space' as the ruling party seems akin to not seeing colour or avoiding the talks about transformation. It’s avoidance.


You want space? Ask Elon Musk. Space is one of the last things the governing party has ever seemed to care about.

From that Rica thing you are compelled to do with your phone to your business employment strategy, no policy put forward by the party has given as much as a hint of them not wanting to be involved in as much as possible.

Be it to create jobs, transform the economy or get people into hospitals…the cadres seem to believe they have all the answers…until now.

No. Now, apparently what is required is space for a dude who’s violated the Constitution…and had that violation tested and confirmed…because well, he’s insistent. Well that’s not entirely fair of me. I mean he does keep raising the point that his rights are being violated.

ALSO READ: ANC gives ‘persecuted’ Zuma more ‘space’ to think about ConCourt defiance

Perhaps he’s got a view of a different set of rights because as far as I’m concerned, not even the Freedom Charter will give Jacob Zuma the rights he needs to get out of this one, let alone the Constitution.

Seriously, if you had to test him and ask which rights are being violated (a test by the way, I believe should be invoked in any social setting where somebody just ignorantly blurts out about their rights), the only ones he’d be able to bring up would be the ones already tested by the Constitutional Court; ones that that same court indicated he had viewed incorrectly.

We may all have taken issue with some aspects or judgements of our highest court before, sure, but what I’m pretty certain of is that each of those justices, some of whom even Zuma appointed, are better jurists than Zuma himself.

So I suspect that when it gets to that point where you’ve asked the top tribunal whether you are right on a point of law, and you’re found to be wrong…well, then you may need to re-evaluate how you see your rights.

ALSO READ: Jerusalema + Covid-19 = a conversation we’ve been too scared to have

But not Zuma, oh no no. He’ll get a mulligan, do over and any escape tactic he can fabricate. Opportunities by the way, nobody else really has.

So what of the “rights” of the child molester when the child said yes? What of the “rights” of the employer/employee agreeing to a work relationship below minimum wage? They could just as easily claims rights relating to freedom and privacy but rights are not simply universal, “only apply to me and apply as I want them to” things.

Rights are complex, intertwining settings for our society. They are supposed to be balanced and carefully considered. They are affected by resources and other aspects.

It’s why your right to health can get you ARVs but not expensive elective surgery. I’m not even certain what right is being invoked in his mind because it’s not like there was ever a right to pick your own judge or step away from a trial/commission.

So I cannot see how a group of six of the most influential policy drivers of South Africa can sit down for seven hours and come out resolving to practically do nothing about a dude who is actively fuelling a legitimacy crisis around our judiciary…a judiciary which he, by the way, had nine years in directly formulating as recently as four years ago.

ALSO READ: Fresh and Euphonik saga foreshadows Zuma outcomes

Na, there’s no care for the Constitution unless it absolutely suits ‘em and then, it’s only the parts that they like. Think of it like this. The dude is actually appealing to rights in the very document he’s violating as confirmed by the very people set up to make that call in that same document.

It used to be that you had to apply fact and thought into winning the right people over but it seems you can do that today with mediocre rhetoric and fallacious links to non-existent authority.

The plan might seem genius to some but really it’s insultingly basic; do as much wrong as possible so that when you’re caught out, you can cry discrimination. Well, duh. 50 million people and only one used taxpayer money to build a swimming pool among many other things. And sure, he has rights but we all do and he’s standing accused of so much that violates the rights of the public.

For a group made up of politicians who are generally vocal about a lot of things, how much more would they require to publicly push a constitutional violator in a direction? Maybe they need less skin in the game.

Until then, I’d like some space from the South African Revenue Service (Sars) please, which through the Doctrine of uBaba, is infringing on my rights by sending my money to South African Airways (SAA), building schools after I finished school and paying a judge who’s niece once said no when I asked her to a dance.

While we’re at it, I’d like some space from the police too who never respect my Msholozi rights to throw loud house parties and for some reason, they’d always stop me from walking out of a shop with a PlayStation because they had the absurd rationale that I had to pay for it.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.

For more news your way

Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.