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“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Observer Article 14
19 July 2020

Ours, like many others around the world, is admittedly a society made up of mere mortals and fallible human beings – strong men and women weakened by a multiple of social pitfalls, failed political ideologies and poor judgement occasioned by sheer human error and history. Ours, therefore, is a society that from time to time requires corrective vigilance and alertness on how to redefine itself, its identity and vision.

 It is utterly unfair and a travesty of justice that today in our democracy, we sit back and helplessly watch a nation in a perpetual struggle of self-destruction while seeking to redefine itself away from what made apartheid morality highly questionable. This attitude has given birth to a culture of intolerable silence in the face of sin and evil. And as Stuart Mill says, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

 When we finally attained our freedom from the corrupt apartheid rule, some twenty-six years ago, through the voice of the iconic President Mandela who represented our national aspirations and desires, we vowed in unison on the steps of the Union Buildings that, “never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another”. This we said because of our conviction that what was as immoral as the apartheid rule was, must never again be used to define the identity of our new nation.

  Through this statement we vowed to the world that we shall do all within our capabilities to develop a new human being with a soul alert to the values of ubuntu/botho as correctly enshrined in the preamble of our first democratic constitution.