Some highly educated people weaponise their scholarly brilliance not to serve society, but to build arguments that benefit only themselves. They hide moral preferences behind the authority of research.
Mary de Haas is one of the clearest examples of this phenomenon.
For decades, she has positioned herself as an authority on policing, crime and violence. She speaks with the tone of a researcher, the posture of an expert and the confidence of someone citing a lifetime of fieldwork.
Yet the pattern is unmistakable: personal moral preferences dressed as “analysis”.
Instead of separating evidence from a personal worldview, the worldview is quietly placed at the centre, and the evidence is arranged around it.
Authentic research works like this: you gather data, analyse it honestly, reach a conclusion that emerges from the evidence, only then do you speak. In other words: evidence, interpretation, conclusion. This is scholarship. This is integrity. This is the scientific and intellectual duty of academics. But misleading scholars reverse the order.
Here the scholar does something very different: they already hold a strong personal worldview. They already know the conclusion they want the public to accept. Then they look for evidence that can be arranged to support that predetermined conclusion.
− Chris Kanyane, Pretoria
Workers had G20-20 foresight
Congratulations to Johannesburg’s municipal workers for spotting the G20 summit being hosted there as a rare opportunity to secure a hard-to-find R4bn in pay increases — they displayed perfect G20-20 foresight.
Even when one considers that the summit is expected to bring an extra R3.6bn into the city, the R4bn extra cost is still an overall net R400m loss — and this money has to come from somewhere in an already cash-strapped city.
How many other major international conferences or sporting events will be held in South Africa remains conditional on Samwu’s opportunistic wage increase demands. Joburg residents should enjoy these surely very temporary uplifted standards in their city as their services budget is surely now depleted.
− Robert Nicolai, Howick
Feline felicity
Credit where it’s due. The headline on page 5 (Nov 16) was simply brilliant. “Cat’s love kitten: betrayal ended our purrfect love.” I couldn’t help but “meuw” in delight, so full marks to the sub-editor!
− Brijlall Ramguthee, Newlands
ANC lost in the woods
I doubt the ANC will ever come out of the woods. The damage it has caused is colossal.
The National Party used political power to empower Afrikaners. The per capita income of Afrikaners improved due to state intervention. The ANC has used politics to enrich its leaders and politically connected individuals.
I ask myself if Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi and President Cyril Ramaphosa were not aware of what was happening in Tembisa Hospital and Ekurhuleni municipality. Corruption has been allowed to flourish.
The rot that ravages South Africa is laid bare at the Madlanga commission. The proceedings and the findings of the commission will dent the ANC brand.
The MK Party is made up of a faction that broke away from the ANC owing to dissatisfaction. I don’t see the MKP emancipating black people from social ills.
The DA will not benefit much from the disillusionment of voters because many black people still harbour resentment against predominantly white political parties owing to 46 years of apartheid oligarchy.
− Lindani Ngcobo, Ntuzuma
Afrikaners, too, reject US lies
South Africa and the US have a shared history of apartheid and segregation. Both countries officially abolished these inhumane systems, but remnants have been simmering under the surface.
Under the Maga administration a focus on race resurfaced and resonated with like-minded groups in South Africa. Individuals and delegations openly admit that they informed their Maga counterparts of negative developments in South Africa around white people, and more specifically, Afrikaners.
Against this background the Maga administration’s creation of a so-called “Afrikaner refugee programme” caused an angry reaction from patriotic South Africans of all population groups.
A group of 44 white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans felt compelled to take a stand against the false narrative of a focused onslaught on whites and an accusation of white genocide. Besides being false, the claims divide our country again on historical lines. The Afrikaners issued a statement: “Not in our name.”
Our message about the false narrative has already resonated in the media and public opinion in the US. The least we can ask for is for patriotic South Africans to refute this false narrative that causes immense damage to our country’s image. The Trump boycott of the G20 is the most concrete example.
− Dawie Jacobs, Pretoria
Missing the point on BEE
Grant Son has a vested interest in keeping BEE going. He is one of the people who gets a salary from it; he serves on the boards of various state companies as well as being a member of the Black Management Forum, the key “old boys club” for keeping the system going.
The problem Son does not mention is that the country is not growing at all, as there is no productivity. State-run enterprises are being run into the ground, paying too much for everything to make BEE points.
South Africans are paying about 30% more than we should for Eskom’s electricity, with over 7,000 people losing their jobs in downstream foundries this year.
Our once world-class mining industry is teetering due to lack of investment, lack of skills and strangulation by BEE rules, losing 300,000 jobs in the process.
The air force and the navy have planes on the ground and ships in port as there are no skills to keep them going. Trains hardly function.
So, Mr Son, what went wrong? Why don’t we have SOEs, a defence force and municipalities that are successful?
The reason is that there is a huge skills shortage in these communities. They have created their own ecosystem; you don’t have to work hard, you get easy contracts and you can perform at a standard lower than world-class and employ your unqualified friends. There is no competition.
Basically, there is only one other country in the world today that has racist economic policies — Malaysia, which has had them for over 50 years.
Apart from benefiting a very small minority who have enjoyed superlative gains, it is now widely accepted that Malaysia’s affirmative action programme has not benefited most Malays.
Asian Development Bank economist Jayant Menon said the “affirmative action programme has failed its focus group while marginalising everyone else in the process”.
“Rather than increasing social cohesion, it has contributed to disunity,” he said. “As a result, Malaysia’s skilled labour and capital have tended to migrate overseas, compounding the costs of affirmative action.”
The difference between the two countries is that South Africa is on its knees economically, and we just cannot afford BEE anymore.
The marginalised population are starting to realise that their economic survival is going to depend on having a free economic system, where the most productive people can get on with creating opportunities for everyone, whoever they are.
BEE is dead, because it cannot deliver economic growth and it steals from productive people and rewards the unproductive.
− Rob Tiffin, Cape Town
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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