How complicity enabled corruption to destroy society

Being close enough to the corrupt gives you the responsibility to act

- SIKI DLANGA

SOME of the vehicles seized from the Sandton home of Hangwani Maumela by the Special Investigating Unit.

(SIU/ X)

PROXIMITY is complicity. These words came to mind as I lay awake contemplating the president’s nephew’s Lamborghinis as they become the newest symbol of corruption as people perish in hospitals.

I was thinking of the role of friends, family members and particularly the churches’ role in a corrupt society. If we knowingly enjoy the perks of proximity with those who enjoy stolen wealth without calling them out, that makes us complicit.

As complicit as the white people who defend their gains from apartheid and colonial wealth that came because of black deaths, thefts and pain. One injustice justifies another. How many white churches, for example, do you know who have come out to renounce past injustices and committed to works of reparations?

One or two perhaps, like In Harmony, which has made reconciliation its core belief. Largely, the preacher preaches against the current corruption while the stench of the past lingers over the pews. This is infectious because the ground he preaches on accuses him and his forebears of the same.

The most loving act a friend or family member can do, is to correct their friend even if they reject it. That could save the wrongdoer. If Hangwani Maumela is indeed the president's nephew as reported; why did the president not intervene? The president loves to quote Mandela.

In which world would Mandela allow his nephew to commit such crimes as a sitting president? Why did the president not use his prerogative as an uncle and especially his presidential power to halt Maumela’s contracts or ensure that all monies were restored to the hospital? It is both his responsibility as a president and as a very distant uncle.