Nkosana Sibuyi

Posted by Nkosana Sibuyi: 30 September 2011

The utility of knowledge, power and truth in society’s development remains contested and contestable. The domains and hierarchy of the three contribute to the emergence of contradictions in society. The contradictions could be antagonistic, non-antagonistic or a combination of both. The battle of ideas, dominant worldviews and their consequences open up a wisp of opportunities and possibilities in a given moment. Out of this experience has also emerged dimensional conditions and dimensional circumstances that shape who, how and why society becomes. The manifestation of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis owe their existence and survival to the dynamism of human development, anatomy, civilisation, paradigm of thought and thought leadership. Undoubtedly, it is through an appreciation of the contemporary objective and subjective realities that could help satisfy our human conscience and the dawn of sanity in the midst of adversity.

The edifice of right captured above also finds resonance in the late Helen Suzman’s autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms Memoirs. Chapter Six entitled The Years Alone: 1961-74 provides a vivid thinking and genuine reflection of the fight against the apartheid laws and for the rule of law. The book unashamedly and unapologetically chronicles the defining steps that she took to deplore and bemoan the recklessness of the National Party government primarily because she “felt giddy observing their gyrations” which found expression to its everlasting shame.

At the core of Ms Suzman’s struggle to “try bring about which will satisfy changes our human conscience” were her fierce opposition to absence of democracy in the Ninety-Day Detention Law (General Laws Amendment Bill), the notorious Sobukwe Clause inherent in section 4 of the bill, 1962 Bill to amend the 1950 Population Registration Act commonly known as the Race Classification Act, Pass Laws, Bantu Laws Amendment Bill, Bantu Urban Areas Act, and Influx Control amongst others. Ms Suzman was a lone voice of conscience not on behalf of the Progressive Party but also on behalf of the entire oppressed nation against the National Party regime.

Consequently, Chief Albert Luthuli wrote her a letter and said: “I take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation and admiration of your heroic and lone stand against a most reactionary Parliament. I most heartily congratulate you for your untiring efforts in a situation that would frustrate and benumb many. For ever remember, you are a bright Star in dark Chamber, where lights of liberty of what is left, are going out one by one. This appreciation covers your contribution since you entered Parliament as member of the Progressive Party. This meritorious record has been climaxed by your fittingly uncompromising stand in the rape against democracy by Parliament in the debate that made law, which was one of the most diabolic bills ever to come before Parliament. Not only ourselves-will your contemporaries, but also posterity, hold you in high esteem”

Ms Suzman records in Chapter Six that “the normal process of the law maintains law and order only when the majority of the people to whom the laws apply accept and approve them. Powers which circumvented the courts, due process and habeas corpus followed in quick succession.”

This allegory highlighted above is a concrete reflection of the craven attitude that informs the extemporaneous approach to governance in the current conjuncture What by contrast, should always be kept in the radar, is that the complexity of governance, domination and its consequences do not only impact on us and contemporaries but also posterity. Notably, when the pusillanimous approach takes lead, it becomes capillary or passageway towards the construction of a state which none will celebrate. From this standpoint, this is a clarion call for a quicker normalisation of South Africa.

There is a welter of issues that are crying out for scientific interrogation and analysis. The issues include amongst others, interest is to interrogate the rationale for the failed attempts to extend the term of the former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, appointment of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, the disciplinary hearing of the ANCYL President Julius Malema and some members of the youth league. The current discourse revolves around the battle of the soul, heart and liver of the ANC prior to Mangaung 2012. By all accounts, some of these developments reflect the challenge and vulnerabilities to enhance the credibility, integrity and legitimacy of the government, state institutions and the ruling party.

Social change and transformation in a young democratic society such as South Africa informs the multiplicity of dynamics that complicate the questions. Former Chief Justice Pius Langa, in his address Judging in a Changing Society: The South African Context intimates that, “the reason for that is because what is has not always been, and what is not has not always not been.” By all accounts, knowledge, power and truth before 1994 prior to the ushering in of constitutional democracy, administration of justice and transformation of the criminal justice system constituted an external visage oblivious of democratic change.

The cornerstone of democracy following the adoption of the Constitution in 1996 was power based, value driven with the separation of powers and touchstone of a new South Africa. The defining aspects of constitutional democracy include respect for the independence of the judiciary based on the solid, well-reasoned and appropriately grounded principles. This restores public trust, confidence, integrity and legitimacy of jurisprudence.

Knowledge, power and truth are in or of themselves, instruments of cohesion, coercion or a hybrid of both. That is, they can co-exist in a manner that is either antagonistic or non-antagonistic. The antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions lay a basis for the emergence of both the centripetal and centrifugal forces in human development. This goes into the kernel or complexity of governance and leadership from time immemorial. Married to the above, they create a possibility for the emergence of dispersed and discontinuous offensives. The ebbs and flows inherent in any country, to a notable degree, do shape the defencelessness to criticisms of effects, societies, practices and discourses.

We are a people opulent with aspirations. We are a people of yesterday. Yesterday shaped who we became today. Today create a human creature we become tomorrow. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow and a day after Tomorrow contribute to the future we create. In a sense, they enrich the knowledge, power and truth that becomes immanent in human evolution and development. It is a defining moment to recreate ourselves. With all else being equal, they create a possibility for theses, nemesis and synthesis in the study of society.

The creation and sustenance of the country remains dynamic and cyclical based on the decisive management of society’s ebbs and flows. For a country to box above its own weight requires of it to be equipped with leaders of the right frame of mind. Despite its unique selling point, South Africa cannot be absolved from this. South Africa cannot afford to sit on its hands, whose role it is to build a remarkable society that all of us could be proud of. She needs leaders with profundity, intuition, intellectual capabilities and capacity.

Michael Foucault, in his tome, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, reveals popular knowledge, subjugated knowledge, erudite knowledge, historical knowledge, illegitimate knowledge, local knowledge, discontinuous knowledge, disqualified knowledge, clinical knowledge, apparatuses of knowledge, margins of knowledge and hierarchisation of knowledge’s. Accordingly, Foucault, in the parlance of times, noted that “we have a triangle: power, right and truth.”

The acknowledgement and recognition of power and knowledge as enumerated by Foucault will help in the articulation of the current issues that are dominant in the national discourse as alluded to earlier. The issues include amongst others, the envisaged appointment of a commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in the Strategic Arms Procurement Packages in accordance with section 84 (2) (f) of the Constitution. Once the terms of reference, scope and composition of the Commission of enquiry have been released, they will serve as a compass to point the country onto what Suzman calls the “dawn of sanity”. The appointment of the chairman who will preside over the commission requires of the process to be characterised by credibility, integrity and legitimacy. Fair-mindedness in dealing with this matter is both meaningful and crucial to help the country get into grips with the complexity and draw lessons in the national interest.

The general line of analysis drawn from the late Helen Suzman, Chief Albert Luthuli’s letter, Former Chief Justice Pius Langa and Michael Foucault is that the return to sanity will help bring about decisive changes which will satisfy our human conscience. The effective use of Foucaultian power, right and truth will explain the meaning of what he calls a “society of normalisation.”

For that very reason, the organising principle, instruments, state apparatus and even as justification have not necessarily been injected with urgency and radicalism biased in favour of all. The supremacy of the Constitution is not depended on party domination and its consequences as a locomotive for social change and transformation to be upheld by all. The utility of knowledge, power and truth are the touchstones of change and fundamental to the affirmation of constitutional democracy. Much still remains to be done, pursued and achieved.