Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
In the course of his gluttonous plundering, “the movement” and/or individuals in “the movement” gained from these sordid dealings. Through all this, he was protected, like many other businessmen of his bent. The shadowy Majali was representative of a network of proxy businessmen and entities that serve ruling-party heavyweights in various sectors of the economy. Be they Chancellor House, Imvume or a host of smaller, but well-connected businesses at provincial and local levels, these proxies give the lie to the ruling party’s pronouncements on a tough anti-corruption stance. Unscrupulous businessmen and their political sponsors have been able to use the name of the party to strong-arm parastatals and government departments into giving them tenders. This network lies at the heart of the institutionalisation of corruption in our country. Sandi Majali has taken many dark secrets to the grave with him. What he did leave behind was a legacy of crookedness that goes deep into the heart of the ruling party, the state and the society. – Mondli Makhanya on Sandi Majali
