Mpofu’s outburst at Zondo commission totally out of line

Advocate Dali Mpofu’s performance at the Zondo commission this week was, to quote Shakespeare, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

Despite what Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s detractors may have believed – or hoped – Mpofu came nowhere close to denting the minister’s Teflon exterior as he tried to accuse Gordhan of lying and misleading the commission.

When he was clearly getting nowhere, Mpofu resorted to an ill-tempered outburst, reduced to using highly unprofessional language to try to get his way.

He may have been interrupted while speaking, but to say people should “shut up” was not just rude, it was childish.

And, whatever the merits of Mpofu’s arguments may be, his display showed the state to which discourse in this country had deteriorated.

We are a people reduced to haranguing each other in the most vile of ways on social media – and then continuing those jibes and insults in conversations, arguments and debates in the real world.

Carrying on in such a fashion does not make your points any stronger.

It was, however, good to see Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo reminding all and sundry that he presides, effectively, over a court, not a creche.

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