JUSTICE by Dr Muthal Naidoo
Under colonialism and its extension – apartheid, justice was seen in black and white terms. White people had access to justice because they existed; black people were non-whites, they did not exist – they were a reflection of what is not. Having no reality they had no right to anything – let alone fair treatment. They were nothing. How could they require fair treatment? So black people came to see justice in racial terms – as reserved for whites.
After 1994, when it was legally determined that black people were human in themselves, that they existed, they believed that they would now have justice. But once the racist veil of colour was lifted, they got the shock of their lives; prejudice was still alive and well. Colour had only been its facade. Now it was revealed in its true form as the division between the powerful and the powerless. And justice is controlled by the powerful.
As power is in the hands of those who control the means of production and the hands of government, power is married to wealth. And they have turned justice into a commodity and put it beyond the reach of the powerless. For those who do not have control of the means of production, there is no such thing as equality before the law. Justice, the whore of political and economic power, lives in the bureaucratic castle of capitalist corruption which was, is and always will be, built on the exploitation of the poor.
Not a single member of the judiciary had seen fit to put in an appearance at the TRC: “they have not yet changed a mindset that properly belongs to the old dispensation”.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (October 1997)
The Law is Brandishing Racist Batons
That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise.
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes
Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967)
Here is a story, the fuller facts of which have, for the most part, been hidden from public knowledge. In our view, the story is of national interest for a great many reasons but most especially because Gold Reef City Casino told the Pretoria High Court that this structure of theirs was built as “a gift to the nation”. South Africans therefore have a right to the full facts of this “gift” acquired in their name. We share this story with you because it carries the tell-tale signs of our sordid and regretted past. This time it has been sanitized.
We have to be vigilant. As you read, you will come across AMS Concourt 12 – New Landscape New Images – a publication very widely distributed across the length and breadth of South Africa . While some of you may not have seen this publication – you may have picked up a newspaper, radio or television story on the aims and objectives of The Apartheid Museum. We remain firm on that vision. And even as those many agencies entrusted to preserve the integrity of our history, are found wanting in the face of wealth and power – we ordinary folk somehow always manage to ensure that the truth will out.
Please share this story with others and write back. Where any matter is not clear feel free to ask questions.
Click on this title to download the accompanying document.
“The Apartheid Museum shall pay special attention to the children of South Africa. It shall seek to develop a keen understanding of the history of the people of South Africa by nurturing a critical generation that will respond swiftly and decisively to crush the emergence of any kind of social evil.”
Mike Stainbank – Declaration of The Apartheid Museum – 1998″