The significance of the election manifesto of Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) is that it is a carbon copy of the SACP in every respect.
MKP is politically and philosophically premised on the meaning of its cry “Mayibuye” which translates as “come back Africa” or “Africa may it return”.
From that perspective follows its no-holds-barred intentions of removing, reversing and reclaiming all that was lost and cost during “the prolonged period of national shame since 1652”.
The MKP’s priority is the abolition of the following aspects of chapter two of our Constitution: freedom and security of person; political rights; freedom of expression; privacy; and property rights.
Philanthropist, writer and thinker, Sir John Templeton, identified property rights as being essential to human rights. The MKP ignores that and pledges to expropriate “all” land without compensation. It justifies that as fundamental to the reclamation of Africa’s birthright. All land will be the property of the state and of traditional leadership.
From that premise, it follows that nationalisation of all natural resources, mines, banks, financial and education institutions would occur.
The MKP manifesto leaves no doubt about this, using the words “force” and “break” to illustrate its intentions. Another word that emphasises its embrace of communism is “reverse”. All aspects of privatisation of the economy would be reversed “100%” and revert to the state.
The next logical direction of the MKP’s revamped version of the Freedom Charter, which correctly translates as the Servitude Charter, is the “elimination of all remnants of colonialism from cultural and political life”. Indigenous language usage would be prioritised in all official communication, educational institutions and courts of law where Roman-Dutch law would be replaced by African jurisprudence.
From the above, it is obvious that the MKP rejects certain of the founding principles enshrined in the preamble of the 1996 Constitution, namely: “that South Africa belongs to all who live it, united in our diversity”, “respect those who have worked to build and develop our country” and “establish a society based on democratic values”.
Besides these indications of the path the MKP intends to follow in realising Mayibuye – returning South Africa to what it was before 1652 – it is disingenuous of the MKP to gloss over the benefits South Africa derived from innovations such as the wheel, construction, shipping and navigation, paper and pen records, textile clothing, gunpowder and the elimination of slavery and certain diseases.
In any event, the MKP’s policies can be summed up in a single word: dystopia. Without a free press, no editor would risk publishing the remarks made in this letter.
Worse still, even committing such remarks to electronic transmission would risk arrest and re-education in a Gulag camp.
* Dr Duncan du Bois, Durban.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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