6 February 2007
The FNB-led political campaign to mobilize public opinion against government has been stalled, at least temporarily, at the eleventh hour. However, the whole sorry busy has exposed many things..
FNB, like the other major financial institutions in South Africa, has been exceedingly reluctant to make any significant effort to address the huge problems of poverty, joblessness and the lack of access to banking and credit facilities that millions of South Africans confront. Despite resolutions taken at the Financial Sector Summit in 2005, the social resolutions remain largely unfulfilled. “We are a first world financial institution’, they have told us, “social problems of poverty and under-development are something that government must address.’
The SACP agrees that we must not be denialist about the very serious crime challenges that still persist. In particular, the violent nature of much crime is of huge concern. While all sectors of our society are affected, violent crime impacts overwhelmingly upon impoverished and marginalised communities with few amenities and with high levels of unemployment.
We need to be tough on crime, but we also need to be tough on the underlying causes of crime – in particular, the crisis of underdevelopment confronting around half of our population, with the aggravating circumstance of extreme inequality. These realities make the FNB initiative particularly hypocritical..
Johann Rupert, in his letter to Business Leadership SA chair, Michael Spicer, further gives the game away. He continues to support the FNB initiative on behalf of his company Remgro, saying that since the Business Against Crime group met the President in August “a number of friends, acquaintances, colleagues have been murdered, violated and robbed.’ Any violent crime, no matter against whom it is directed, must be absolutely condemned. But it is clear that the likes of Rupert have still not crossed the Rubicon of empathy for the great majority of working class and poor South Africans.
We welcome the divisions within the camp of big business that the FNB initiative has opened up, and we note that many senior business leaders applied pressure on FNB to postpone the campaign. But we are concerned that these divisions may be little more than tactical. An initiative like Business Against Crime is to be welcomed, but it easily defaults into a narrow law-and-order perspective, in which the protection of the ill-gotten wealth and life-styles of a tiny minority become the major objective..
Contact:
Malesela Maleka
SACP Spokesperson
Tel: 011 339 3621
Fax: 011 339 4244
Cell: 082 226 1802
Email: Malesela@sacp.org.za