Plagiarism accusations against Minister Sisulu are baseless

By: Mphumzi Mdekazi

Misplaced accusations of plagiarism levelled against Minister Lindiwe Sisulu are nothing but part of a bigger plan to discredit her and damage her credibility.

Despite numerous attempts to clarify the matter, there are still so-called analysts and commentators who are persisting with their agenda-driven accusations of plagiarism against Minister Sisulu.

Here are the facts:
Plagiarism is not acknowledging another person’s work or ideas when you use it in your writings, speeches and other scholarly efforts.

In her article, Minister Sisulu specifically cited a book by Lord Bingham which elucidates his Eight principles on the Rule of Law – she reproduced those verbatim. Equally the writings of Professor Raz were duly acknowledged and Minister Sisulu specifically referred to his book, “The Authority of Law” and then proceeded to discuss those.

In an opinion piece, as opposed to a Dissertation that is all that is required and possible.

The writer is not expected to clutter an ope-ed piece with footnotes to the extent these guys seem to imply.

When you use ideas that are considered “common knowledge” e.g. folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, historical events, etc, you are not required to cite sources.

Equally when you use ideas that are generally accepted as facts, e.g. plagiarism is an example of academic dishonesty; the sun rises and sets every day; Christmas is December 25th, etc.

As shown below, the writings of Lord Bingham on the Rule of Law are commonly accepted as the textbook definition of the subject. But the Minister cited the sources.

Furthermore, as illustrated by the following citations, the writings of these authors have been reproduced and discussed in various other publications without any substantive changes being made to their key themes on the Rule of Law.

You cannot expect the reactionaries to understand this, as they are mostly led by academic dwarfs.

Some with ulterior motives and amongst ourselves may find it difficult to comprehend it.

The UK speech referred to reproduced the original source namely the judge’s eight principles verbatim. Minister Sisulu reproduced the same and cited the original source and did not claim these as her original ideas. That is not plagiarism and that tells you how narrow-minded, with low levels of IQ these writers/analysts are with those who have malice on this subject.

The Minister was not writing a thesis or dissertation, but a mere article which doesn’t require these academic rituals. So the ill-will of the detractors doesn’t add value to the intellectual discourse Minister Sisulu brought. They must engage intellectually and leave the red pen outside the window. Catch Minister Sisulu if you can (at least intellectually), but don’t lower the bar by empty criticism. Her accusers thought they have a monopoly of erudite thinking.

Sometimes we need to give logic and common sense a chance.These accusers claim they used Turnitin software which has serious flaws. Amongst those are false positives. So it’s a desperate attempt to discredit Minister Sisulu.
These pathetic lies will not see the light of day.

*Mdekazi is Minister Sisulu’s advisor. He writes in his personal capacity