Asmal heads for new pastures
By Chiara Carter
Instead of planning a well-deserved holiday to mark his retirement from parliament, Professor Kader Asmal, in between packing up his office in parliament's elegant Good Hope building, is busy planning how to fit into his jam-packed diary a trip to Orania, the self-declared Afrikaner volkstad.
"I've been invited and why shouldn't I go. After all, Mandela went there. They know my views are different and ethnic exclusionary behaviour is abhorrent to me. But there is no harm in talking to people who think differently," he says.
That's par for the course for Asmal, whose curiosity about people and the world is boundless and whose love for a good debate is legendary.
'I've been invited and why shouldn't I go'
The veteran ANC leader is also not one to shy away from sacred cows and has strong views on matters ranging from the Zimbabwe situation to the independence of the judiciary, the need to reassess affirmative action through to the dream of a dedicated corps of civil servants and how those who fail should be fired.
Then there's his critical yet passionate relationship with the media; his consuming interest in questions of culture and identity, as well as the latest bee in his bonnet - gross abuse of power in the private sector, such as price-fixing.
Asmal, one of the National Assembly's few good orators, delivered his farewell address to parliament this week and heard tributes from speakers across the political divide. His last day at the podium left him with one regret - at the eleventh hour he learnt he would not to be able to speak at the tabling of his final parliamentary report, a controversial review of chapter-nine institutions. Asmal cheerily concedes the report steps on quite a few toes - some belonging to people in high places. But he hopes to see the report tabled and acted upon, as was the case with other landmark work of his that is now taken as the norm, such as the control of conventional arms sales, the required declaration of interests by MPs and the executive and, of course, his inspired suggestion to have a truth and reconciliation commission.
Asmal decided to retire before the ANC's watershed Polokwane conference last year and says his motivation was simply that he no longer felt the kind of exhilaration he expects to feel for each day.
'There is no harm in talking to people who think differently'
But he is not bowing out from public discourse. The past week alone saw Asmal make headlines addressing several forums. His work address will now be the University of the Western Cape where he has been appointed professor extraordinary.
Despite being nearly 74 years old, Asmal also has to find time to be an energy ambassador for the country, for a winemakers' council and the Nelson Mandela museum in the Eastern Cape, to name but a few commitments.
And with numerous publications under his belt, Asmal, a voracious reader, says he might now get round to writing his own story - not an autobiography, he hastens to add, but rather his political memoirs.
His friend Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, told parliament this week that when Asmal was appointed minister of water affairs and forestry, the professor was a bit disappointed as water was not exactly a high-profile portfolio. Manuel regaled the house with how Asmal proceeded to make water a "sexy" subject.
Asmal says that although his years as "Mr Water Delivery" saw successes notched up, the pinnacle of his time in cabinet was serving as minister of education between 1999 and 2004, no matter how problematic this portfolio was.
"It was what I'd been working towards for 35 years," Asmal says, pointing out that he had begun working life as a teacher and then gone on to become a legal academic in Ireland. He continues to defend his work in the ministry, including the review of outcomes-based education.
To those who would paint a gloomy picture of the country's education system, Asmal points out that a higher proportion of learners remain in class beyond the school-leaving age than in countries such as Italy, Portugal and even Britain.
Asmal recalls that he drank a toast to his mother on the day the constitutional court upheld the ban on corporal punishment in schools. That was because although there were 10 children living in crowded and impoverished circumstances, his mother never once raised her hand to strike her children.
"That's the dignity we must ensure people have," Asmal says.
His chief memory of the first Mandela cabinet is of the intensity and novelty of it all. He recalls cabinet ministers working 18-hour days.
"We knew nothing … even did not know we had to make and keep appointments… We were rookies, virgins setting up a new civil service and country in a few years".
Asmal says one of the wonders was the extent to which Afrikaner civil servants co-operated and by and large continued to do their jobs. He believes affirmative action must be reassessed because of "unintended consequences".
Somewhat provocatively, Asmal observes that there is a "kind of corruption" to people being paid ridiculously high salaries when they lack the skills needed to do a job but are the right colour. This amounts to "instant gratification", he says, but in the end this sort of practice demoralises.
As for the checks and balances of a constitutional democracy, Asmal reiterates that "second-guessing" institutions should be safeguarded. "People who have authority know power can't be absolute … it must be checked".
His speech to parliament emphasised the need to safeguard the constitution and its structures and not be tempted to make short cuts. He also emphasised the importance of the independence of the judiciary and that press freedom was essential for democracy.
He is a firm believer that the executive should not seek to assume more powers and is unhappy with proposals that the high courts be run by the department of justice.
Asmal says magistrates' courts were so badly run that he could not understand why the minister of justice was proposing taking over the higher courts and felt an independent commission on the lines of the Irish system would be far better.
"How can you acquire more power when you can't exercise the powers you have?" Asmal says.
In a year declared Business Unusual for government, Asmal's view is that failure to deliver comes down to not having people in place who can do the job and that civil servants who don't cut the mustard should be booted out.
His greatest regret is that civil servants have not been trained to work in a developmental state and says that effective district officers would do much to combat problems such as truancy, poor administration of facilities and households in distress.
Though retirement means he no longer has to take responsibility for civil servants, delivery or even being present for debates in the house or deliberations of the ruling party's executive, Asmal remains a political loyalist, a movement man to the core.
He admits not having anticipated the dramatic changes in leadership that occurred at the ANC's national conference in Polokwane last year, but says his loyalty is to the principles of the ANC, not individual leaders, and his dedication to the movement will not be disturbed by what he describes as "a change of guard".
His view on the change? It's too soon to say, is his answer.
It seems that, he says, though some of those associated with victors were making sure that the old order was changed, some were saying there would be no large-scale displacement, while others could simply be positioning themselves.
© 2008 Sunday Independent & Independent Online (Pty) Ltd.
