Listening and Not Listening

The SACP Gauteng Provincial Council (PC) is called for 09h00 next Sunday, September 17th, at the NUM offices, former Total House, corner of Smit and Rissik Streets, Braamfontein. The PC is expected to complete the process of filling vacant positions on the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC), at last. The Communist University searches for truth, and not, for example, some arbitrary concept of fairness. Truth beats fairness, just as scissors cut paper. Different sources are used but they are not afforded equal respect. In the quest for a true account of the court appearance last week of lawyers for and against Jacob Zuma the Communist University recommends the web site of the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust. We will not be “fair” to the Mail and Guardian, which used the following headline on its front page: “What is Zuma hiding?” or to the Sunday Times which copied the Mail and Guardian with: “Why is Zuma afraid?” These two papers have no respect for truth. They have already decided to make Jacob Zuma suffer as if he were a criminal. Like torturers they are saying that the man they have marked to be a victim must not only appear as an accused person. They must also hound him until he provides the case for the prosecution as well. These are some of the most disgusting and shameful headlines it is possible to imagine in South Africa. The City Press’s headline on the article linked below is not quite so bad, but it is still bad. It implies that if Jacob Zuma goes free it is not, as most South Africans believe, because he is not guilty. No, according to them it would be because Vusi Pikoli, successor to Bulelani Ngcuka in the miserable work of tormenting Zuma, acted too fast! It is too absurd, after five or six years of this, to argue that the NPA/Scorpions acted too fast. Yet that is what they would like their readers to believe. This report and the one by Jeremy Gordin in yesterday’s Sunday Independent, also linked below, at least give some idea of the hiding given to the prosecution last week. The case can now be struck off, or the prosecution can be required to proceed at once. If the latter, it is going to lose, anyway, because it is has no case ready. The third possibility, that of a postponement, is almost impossible to contemplate bearing in mind what has passed in the Pietermaritzburg court. It would amount to acceptance of what Judge Msimang himself described as “double contempt” on the part of the prosecution. But stranger things have happened. We await the judge’s decision on September 20th. Most of the newspapers do not want to hear all this. Is even President Mbeki listening in this instance? His weekly letter in “ANC Today”, linked below, is a sermon on the virtue of listening. It contains a valuable account of the beginning of negotiations with the old regime. O R Tambo knew that a war always ends with a negotiation. This is something the US Imperialists and the Israeli colonialists have yet to learn. They will have to be taught, just as the Boers were taught. A Progressive Youth Alliance delegation led by YCL National Secretary Buti Manamela is going to Zimbabwe today to listen to government, opposition and so-called “civil society”. Their Press Conference announcement arrived by e-mail ten minutes after the event was scheduled to start. The whole movement needs to jack up its communications. A very great and brave comrade has passed away. Her name is Hilda Bernstein. She spent her last years in Cape Town. Linked below is the best information we have concerning the funeral arrangements. Click on these links: If Zuma case folds, Pikoli may be blamed, reporters, City Press (762 words) Days of thunder from court in Sleepy Hollow, Gordin, Sindy (1872 words) President Mbeki, Learning to listen and hear, ANC Today 060908 (2970 words) YCL to lead Progressive Youth Alliance mission to Zimbabwe (Notice) Hilda Bernstein's funeral, Maitland Cemetery, 13h00 15 Sept 2006 (Notice)