Thanks Pallo Jordan for the retraction

By: Thami ka Plaatjie

It was an unwelcome surprise to read an article that was purportedly attributed to comrade Pallo Jordan wherein he was entering the public fray as a rejoinder to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s article.

This move, after his long exile from public engagement and political hiatus, was viewed with both apprehension and a sense of trepidation.

Many things have happened in South Africa, it was argued, that warranted the engagement of his ilk, to wit, the killing of Africans in Phoenix, the vexed aftermath of local government elections and the outcomes of the Zondo Commission. But he was seen to have kept conspiratorial silence only to be awakened by Sisulu’s article.

Also read: We have legitimised wrongdoing under the umbrella of the rule of law; writes Lindiwe Sisulu

Alas? it turns out that all this heightened apprehension is just fake news and blatant forgery as he chooses to call it. A hotchpotch of rudimentary nonsense publicly displaying their juvenile plumages.

As one of my admired thinkers, methinks that the honourable Pallo did well by retracting and exposing that diatribe attributed to him for what it is; hogwash!

Imagine the difficulty that a Doctor Khumalo would have to face when he squares off and be expected to dribble the legend Pele in the pitch. On the contrary, a Doctor Khumalo would rather ask for an autograph from the legendary Pele.

I scanned in vain for some verisimilitude in the fake ghost-written article. Imagine an African accusing another of racism, this they punt as part of their opening salvo. This was one telling fact that the writer is a hired political assassin. Much of what is in the fake article amounts to the honking of a gaggle of geese who are notorious for their noisy and rowdy conduct. At best the writer(s), assuming that they are a gang, were merely farting against thunder.

It is a welcome relief that comrade Pallo has called off their bluff and exposed their desperation of wanting him to lend credence and respectability to their pugnacious plan. The sails have been emptied from what was billed as a political showdown. Damp squib is the apt befitting expression of the cancellation of this makeshift circus.

They are in short supply of a crop of willing and abiding lackeys and flunkies to peddle their lies and would not be ashamed to enlist any respectable person to wear their colours and yield their dagger. Such a criminal stupidly is a mark of utter desperation and wonton witchcraft. Comrade Pallo has exposed them as subsisting on a poor diet of superstition and discarded debri.

Also read: Has acting Chief Justice Zondo crossed the ethical line in attacks on Minister Sisulu?

According to the historian and intellectual Paul Johnson, we must “demolish altars and enthrone reason”. They want to enthrone arrogance, indifference and calous disregard of the “sea of poverty”. They are content with the status quo and are blind and deaf to the clamouring noises of the victims of the widening rift and gulf of poverty. They would rather keep monastic silence and if push comes to shove they will spring into defence.

To them, freedom means the assurance of their own social mobility through having a share of the spoils that fall from the table of the white master. Mind you, this white master’s power has been accrued from the theft of the mineral resources and the land of the very same natives.

These natives are beholden to the notion that they cannot be their own bosses, save as servants and juniors shareholders in the wealth of their own. Rather than play a liberating role in the affairs of their people, they are pleased to become the trusted managerial staff of the transnational and multinational interests that employ them in return for some alms of shares.

They are hoisted as modes of success and wealth attainment by publications such as Forbes. Their wealth attainment has nothing to do with their business acumen, business dexterity, innovation or any such streak of genius. No!

They are but glorified beneficiaries of white patronage and are emblematic of appointed stooges who must keep the masses at bay, confused, and drugged by promises of a better life.

Also read: Judge Raymond Zondo’s outrage is misplaced

Under the false pretext of leading the masses. they accumulate obscene wealth for their patrons to an extent of running down most state-owned entities with the aim of selling them to their patrons for a song. They are brazenly immoral and their immorality is concealed as business by the mainstream media over which they exercise a stranglehold.

In all of this spectacle, we are asked to keep silent as if we are all swarm to secrecy. They contend that the poor have themselves to blame and must just work hard to attain a better life and upward mobility. We must cease to worship political idols and refuse to be blinded by false faith.

The Pan Africanist Nigerian activist and scholar Azikiwe Mnandi once wrote: “Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell a man moderately to rescue his wife from the arms of a ravisher; tell a mother to extricate gradually her baby from the fire into which it has fallen, but do not ask me to use moderation in a cause like the present.”

I’m elated that Professor Pallo Jordan has refused to sanction the activities of these mercenaries.

Thanks, Cde Pallo Jordan for the retraction.