without losing his seat. This has removed accountability between the MP and the people he is supposed to represent, and it puts massive power into the hands of the party leadership. Likewise, ‘Chapter 9 institutions’, such as the Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector, which were intended to guarantee the rights of the individual against the power of the state, have been undermined by the appointment of government supporters to the most senior positions. There are other unfavourable aspects causing uncertainty and dissatisfaction. President Mbeki’s futile ‘quiet diplomacy’ on the Zimbabwean crisis is much criticized because, in effect, it has been interpreted as support for Mugabe’s corrupt regime. A further cause of concern is the government’s original reluctance to provide anti-retroviral drugs to HIV-positive pregnant women and their babies, despite the decision of the Constitutional Court in favour of the Treatment Action Campaign. This reluctance extended, until recently, to all HIV-positive citizens. (It is estimated that 1.8 million people have died of AIDS-related diseases in South Africa, and that some 5–6 million, mostly young adults, are presently infected with the virus). Unemployment has risen to totally unacceptable levels – now between 25 and 40%. There is an alarmingly high violent crime rate and widespread corruption. Investment has been discouraged by rigid laws such as the Employment Equity Act, which lays down racial quotas for employees, and which if not adhered to, disqualifies employers from obtaining government tenders. ‘Affirmative Action’ and ‘Black Economic Empowerment’ legislation, which discriminate against whites, Indians and those of mixed-race, in degrees according to the colour of their skins, has led to the extensive emigration of skilled people, such as artisans, mechanics and technicians. There is also a severe shortage of professionally-qualified individuals, such as engineers, doctors, nurses and teachers, with the subsequent deterioration in public health services and education in state schools. Above all, there is growing dissatisfaction with the government’s failure to deliver on its promise of “a better life for all”: this is manifested by disorder in many black townships; an increasing refusal to vote in recent local elections; and the increased number of strikes by state and other employees – all of which are having a serious effect on economic growth. As Raenette Taljaard, Director of the Helen Suzman Foundation, remarked at the 14th Alan Paton Lecture in 2007: “In a country with persistent legacies of apartheid and the ravages of poverty, hunger and disease, liberalism is required to demonstrate its clear understanding that freedom cannot exist when social needs are not met. This core link between freedom and dignity needs to be reclaimed, reinvigorated as core business of the liberal project in South Africa. We need to strive to inculcate the values of the South African Constitution and carve them into the hearts and minds of

ON DAVID CONSTANTINE’S POEM (for Landeg White, David Constantine & Co)

Your poem for Irina Ratushinskaya On your birthday has reached these Putrid African prison walls it Was probably not meant for; What cheer distant voices must bring Another poet crackling in the Russian Winters of icicle cells. Yet even in this dungeon where Day after day we fester within The walls of the tropical summers Of our Life President And his hangers-on, even here, What fresh blood flushes When an unexpected poem arrives, What fire, what energy Inflames these fragile bones! Indeed we have the verses in common, Notwithstanding The detention camps The laws against poems The black or white Traitor or patriot Binaries; But secure in your Voices of solidarity, We’ll crush the crocodiles That crack our brittle bones. Do not falter then, brother, Do not waver, dear brethren, But craft on the verses Whose ceaseless whisper resonates Beyond the Whitehalls of our dreams!

Jack Mapanje

entire generations of born-free South Africans of all races as the living legacy they can inherit from the troubled past of the land of their birth”.

Helen Suzman was from 1961 to 1974 the sole South African parliamentarian vocally and unequivocally opposed to apartheid. In 2002, she was awarded the International Freedom Prize by Liberal International.

Autumn 2007 | The Liberal | 21