On Monday, parliament’s joint committee on ethics an dmembers’ interests communicated that it had found police minister Bheki Cele guilty of breaching the code of ethical conduct for members of parliament (MPs).
This is in relation to a crime imbizo held in the Cape Town township of Gugulethu in July last year in which Cele shouted at the director of Action Society, Ian Cameron, telling him to “shut up!”. Cameron, an anti-crime activist, had attended the imbizo along with several other people representing community-based organisations from Gugulethu and Nyanga.
Action Society, a civil rights organisation established in 2019, is engaged in active advocacy for policy change and works within communities to fight for a reformed justice system as one of the necessary interventions in the fight against crime. The imbizo had been called by the police ministry after an exponential increase in violent crime in the Western Cape.I
ts aim was to discuss critical issues of rising crime, policing in the areas, challenges faced by law enforcement as well as the ways in which communities can contribute to crime fighting. In the middle of a speech Cele was delivering, Cameron made a comment that the police minister was not protecting citizens as there was inadequate deployment of police to known crime hotspots.
This comment was met with outrage from Cele, who went on a tirade, effectively accusing Cameron of being racist. Cele shouted that he was a “son of the soil” who would be buried in SA, and someone who did not just recently join the struggle forhuman rights.
“I will not be called a garden boy” – a statement used in reference to the infantilisation of working black men who are referred to as “boys” by racists. When Cameron tried to interject, Cele shouted: “Shut up!”, at which point police officers moved in to forcibly remove Cameron from the venue.
Those who sought to defend Cele argued that by interjecting Cele’s speech, Cameron had acted in a “racist” manner. This argument is both dishonest and deeply problematic. Cameron’s actions do not in any way constitute racism and anyone who has ever attended an imbizo in a community that has repeatedly been let down by the government knows that residents often make such interjections as a way of not only venting their frustrations but of also rejecting the endless promises politicians often make on such platforms.
I have attended imbizos in which residents would even refuse to be addressed by politicians, shouting them down to a point that they would have to leave the stage. Having worked for a minister in two different departments, as well as an executive mayor, I’ve seen many imbizos being spaces of direct confrontation between politicians and communities.
Nothing about those interactions is racist or aimed at demeaning politicians. Rather, the objective is to hold them accountable for the perilous state in which communities must exist. By painting Cameron as a racist, Cele sought to not only deflect imbizo attendees from the real issue – that his department has failed dismally to arrest the criminal decline of working-class townships in the Western Cape despite incessant calls for intervention – but to also position himself as a victim.
It is incredibly distressing when politicians use racism as a tool for silencing genuine criticism of their nonperformance. By crying racism where none exists, politicians want to mobilise our collective empathy and rage, and neglect the burning issues for which we seek to hold them accountable.
It creates a sort of Stockholm Syndrome situation in which victims of government incompetence end up sympathising with those who are failing to perform. When Cele apologises to Cameron before the National Assembly as he’s been directed to do, he must also apologise to the country for this blatant disrespect.
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