The moment our public representatives surrendered a legislative platform to, and fawned over, a former convict now facing fresh, grave criminal allegations marked a profound rupture in our democratic conscience.
To witness members of parliament cloak a serial malefactor as our kids’ role model in a forum meant to advance the public interest was not merely disheartening; it was a stark reminder of how vulnerable justice becomes when political expediency overshadows ethical responsibility.
There is no gainsaying that a society devoid of empathy – particularly for its young, frail and most vulnerable – forfeits its claim to a just and hopeful future.
When we fail to recognise the pain of those who bear the deepest scars of injustice, while we deify those who unashamedly harm society, we erode not only our shared humanity but also the very foundations upon which our democratic promise rests.
For a democracy is not sustained merely by laws, institutions or lofty declarations; it is upheld by our collective capacity to care for, to protect and to honour those who suffer in pursuit of what is right. If we cannot extend compassion to the innocent and the aggrieved, then we risk becoming unworthy custodians of the freedom and dignity for which so many have sacrificed.
Spare a thought for Thiara Deokaran, the young daughter of the late Babita Deokaran – a courageous public servant whose principled stand against corruption at the Gauteng department of health cost her life.
As the lone surviving child of a national hero of integrity, Thiara continues to live with the profound trauma and consequences of her mother’s assassination.
Yet, during ad hoc committee proceedings, her lived reality – and that of many other children left traumatised by corruption-linked violence – seemed entirely absent from the empathy of certain public representatives.
Rather than honouring her mother’s sacrifice or acknowledging her family’s profound suffering at the instance of corrupt individuals such as Vusimuzi Matlala, some MPs – notably EFF leader Julius Malema and Vusi Shongwe of the MK Party – chose instead to extend their sympathies toward an alleged perpetrator.
In an irregular display before any tribunal in our young democracy, Malema granted Matlala a platform to offer a selective and self-serving account of his childhood – an exercise seemingly designed to sanitise a serious criminal profile and reframe a societal menace as a victim of circumstance.
Yet countless young people in black communities endure similar hardships without turning to crime or violence. Many rise above such adversity to become honourable and contributing members of society.
Malema wasted no time assailing the police, accusing officers of mistreating Matlala’s wife and children during a raid on his home.
There is nothing wrong with expressing compassion for the innocent children of those caught up in the criminal justice system. But lest we forget: Matlala stands implicated as a member of the so-called “Big Five” crime cartel, and he and his associates are suspected of involvement in the brutal assassination of Deokaran – a single mother and whistleblower who paid with her life for exposing corruption at Tembisa Hospital.
In a seeming contest of indulgence with Malema, and in an unmistaken bid to ingratiate himself with Matlala, Shongwe attempted to recast this outlaw as a model of success worthy of black youth admiration.
Shongwe’s empathy was conspicuously absent for the aspirant youth who once looked up to trailblazer Mpho Mafole – the late chief auditor of the City of Ekurhuleni – assassinated for exposing fraud and corruption in the very metro that his “grootman” Matlala and associates allegedly sought to cripple through industrial-scale criminality.
Shongwe and Malema’s stance revealed a disquieting alignment of venal politicians with criminals, rather than with the victims of their alleged crimes.
Last week’s jarring display of selective outrage, misplaced empathy and the neglect of the legislators’ solemn duty to serve the public interest not only undermined the memory of ethical public servants who gave their lives in service of the public good. It also reinforced a broader societal malaise – embodied by the pernicious izikhothane culture driven by conspicuous consumption and performative wealth – symptomatic of our democracy’s troubling moral decline.
A democratic society worthy of the name cannot afford to forget where its solidarity must firmly lie: with those who expose wrongdoing and pay the ultimate price.
For true justice demands that we centre and protect the victims of corruption, not elevate or sanitise those accused of orchestrating their suffering.
While Matlala may have courted the adulation of a fawning bloc of honourables and escaped scrutiny this time with bare denials, blatant falsehoods and theatrical obfuscation, such liberties will not serve him before the Madlanga commission of inquiry.
There, he will face seasoned, ethical inquisitors – experts in the discipline of trial advocacy – who neither indulge in theatrics nor suffer fools.
- Khaas is chairperson of Public Interest SA
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