Every day, in the choices we make or don’t select, we display a degree of dualism or opposing ideas jostling for our attention and selection.
Poetically, Walt Whitman’s 1892 epic poem on the human condition, “Song of Myself”, summed this up neatly: “Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/ (I am large, I contain multitudes).”
There are many international examples from the political world that illustrate the practice of dualism.
Examples of dualism
Two of the most successful practitioners, who managed to thread the needle between diametrically opposing needs, were Gerry Adams in Northern Ireland during ‘the troubles’ there in the 1980s and David Ben-Gurion during the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1940s.
Adams, an elusive operator, never evaded ‘the whiff of cordite’ which clung to his persona. During the struggle against British rule over Northern Ireland, he flatly denied membership of the banned Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). But Patrick Radden Keefe in his book, “Say Nothing”, demolishes this myth and places Adams at the heart of the armed struggle.
However, he also recounts how Adams, who later became president of Sinn Fein (the political wing of the Provos), managed to marry armed struggle with parliamentary participation.
This was summed up by the Sinn Fein catchphrase “with a ballot paper in this hand, and an Armalite [rifle] in the other, we take power in Ireland”.
This found its first expression when Bobby Sands, an IRA prisoner, won a by-election to the British Parliament in April 1981. He died soon afterwards from a hunger strike in prison. But the road was paved for other Sinn Fein/IRA members, including Adams, to win election, boycott a Parliament they did not recognise, but use the electoral platform to demonstrate political support and get priceless publicity.
Ultimately, Sinn Fein entered power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland and co-governed the territory with their once mortal enemies, the Ulster Unionists.
Decades before this dualism went on full display in Ireland, another realm of British control, the Mandate of Palestine in 1939 saw political doublethink on full display.
The leader of the Jewish Agency in Palestine (later first prime minister of Israel), Ben-Gurion, confronted a dilemma. On the one hand, the British government had published a White Paper severely restricting, via quotas, European Jews desperate to escape the lethal jaws of Adolf Hitler and emigrate there. Yet the same British government was leading the fight against the mortal enemies of Jews, Nazi Germany.
Ben-Gurion went into public contradictory mode with the formulation: “We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war and fight the war as if there is no White Paper.”
And, for the duration of the Second World War, this policy of dualism held: Jewish residents of Palestine joined the war against Germany, while politicians like Ben-Gurion led the charge against the White Paper.
SA’s dualism
In SA, we have a new government which itself straddles in its membership vast contradictions and old enmities now joined in one unit.
Two months since its formation, the GNU faces two immediate challenges. One relates to personnel and the other to policy.
On the personal front, SA has its justice ministry headed for the first time by a non-lawyer. But that is the least of the problems confronting Justice Minister Thembi Simelane, the GNU parties, and her appointing authority, President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Simelane is the first incumbent to be embroiled in a mushrooming scandal that does not relate to a controversial decision – since she hasn’t yet made one. Rather it reflects on her own personal conduct prior to her elevation, which has multitudes of contradictions undermining her job description. And her fitness for office.
She has, thus far, failed to divulge her dealings with the controversial, corrupt and now liquidated VBS Mutual Bank. VBS, it will be recalled, allegedly bribed multiple politicians and officials in Limpopo and nationally to deposit monies in the bank, contrary to policy, or to forestall any political scrutiny of the organisation and grand larceny by its directors and management.
Simelane was in the interesting position, to state matters diplomatically, of being both the mayor of Polokwane, a large depositor in the bank in contradiction of financial laws, and happy recipient of an alleged ‘loan’ of R575 000 from VBS.
The alleged aspect of this is not the amount she received, but whether it was in fact a loan at all. She has claimed that it was a bona fide ‘commercial loan’ repaid by her in full. Yet she cannot or will not provide even a scrap of paper relating to the terms of the loan and proof of repayment.
Perhaps it was not a loan at all, or it was never repaid since there was no intention by either party to do so. In which event it was a gift, or a bribe or an inducement to her. Whatever the truth, it is unconscionable for Simelane and the government.
As political head, she bears ultimate responsibility for both the administration of justice and the final responsibility for the prosecuting authority. The same authority which should be looking and acting with vigour at these disclosures.
Paul Hoffman, who heads Accountability Now, noted: “When he called for the GNU, the president stressed that it would focus on ‘ending corruption’. That focus will be tested by the situation now unfolding regarding Simelane.”
Of course, the buck ultimately stops on Ramaphosa’s desk. And it will be interesting to see how, and when he resolves the contradiction between decisive action and the need to placate one or other faction in his party (which must be the reason for the curious choice of Simelane as minister in the first place).
But the river of contradiction runs across the Cabinet table. There, both the DA and GOOD have signalled in Parliament that both action and accountability need to follow Simelane. Although apparently the full Cabinet has only ever met twice (rather extraordinarily). How will the same two parties at the next meeting react to this Cabinet colleague? Her own conduct undermines the claims both have championed for clean government.
Motsoaledi’s contradiction
On the policy front, the ANC’s chief naysayer on the formation of the GNU happens to also be Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.
He went into full combat mode, ramping up the merits and implementation of his unilateral NHI Act. Last week, he not only – in full contradiction mode – had a photo opportunity proclaiming the presidential health compact, despite the glaring boycott of this ceremony by the two largest medical stakeholders and organised business of this farce.
But, after just two months since its formation, he suggested it might be time for the last rites to be administered on the GNU itself.
Motsoaledi said that, even if it meant the end of the GNU, he would not be moved from scrapping medical aids, banning the provision of private health services, and forcing patients and customers to use the often hopeless and shambolic public healthcare sector.
Often the term ‘communist’ is a smear label to disparage an opponent. In Motsoaledi’s case, it is entirely accurate. He seeks to ram down the throat of millions of private healthcare providers, payees and patients, his messianic vision of a future dystopia.
I would not discount the minister and his key officials, possessed of vast regulatory powers outside the scrutiny of Cabinet and Parliament, to press ahead on this road to ruin.
The DA’s Michelle Clark had no truck with this ministerial misadventure. She told The Star newspaper last week: “If Minister Motsoaledi is willing to put a unified government at risk for his ideology, then he should not serve in that government.”
How Mostsoaledi’s Cabinet colleagues on the non-ANC side of the table navigate and resolve this contradiction and dualism will be fascinating to watch.
