Raymond+Suttner+takes+his+grievance+to+the+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, Letters, 26 April 2006
=What is left?=

I have been a South African Communist Party (SACP) member for over 35 years and formerly in its leadership. I am disturbed by the approach provided in the Jacob Zuma saga. Long before the current rape trial we had the projection of Zuma as a “left wing” alternative to Thabo Mbeki. Historically the SACP has played a role in resolving disputes, mediating and dampening internal conflict.

When Zuma sang of machine guns, by walking by his side SACP leaders helped inflame passions. Burning the president’s image is an attack not only on a person but on the office that he holds. One would have hoped to see the SACP talking to those misguidededly involved in these actions.

General secretary Nzimande will not comment on evidence in the rape trial because he respects the sub judice rule. But sub judice does not preclude commenting on the mode of defence conducted by Zuma. Party silence condones the battering of the complainant, the no-holds barred methods of cross-examination of acts of abuse, euphemistically called sexual history. In the 1990s the SACP once spoke of itself as a feminist party. It can no longer make such a claim.

The SACP has remained silent while Zuma and his supporters have promoted sexist, abusive and ethno-chauvinist conduct. No one denies that Zuma is innocent until proven guilty, but there are ways of conducting a defence that ought to be repugnant to a party characterised historically by humanism and more recently by non-sexism.

The African National Congress (ANC) is in crisis. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and SACP are not playing a morally defensible role. We are watching a party which produced giants like Kotane, First, Fischer, Marks, Hani and others, descend into one without moral backbone.

Many feel deeply disappointed at this failure of the SACP and hope that some form of renewal can be undergone in order to re-establish it as an exemplary ethical force.

Johannesburg
 * Raymond Suttner**


 * From: [|http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A190911]**

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