Do the ANC's supporters understand right and wrong?

While the ANC pays lip service to its commitment to fighting corruption, the Party has gone and nominated both Winnie Mandela as well as Tony Yengeni as candidates for member of Parliament.

Winnie Mandela, the so-called "Mother of the Nation" is in reality nothing of the sort. She is in reality a brutal murderess, a piece of criminal scum whose thugs kidnapped and murdered a young black man, Stompie Sepei. Furthermore, she has a conviction for fraud, having defrauded a bank with a dodgy loans scheme.

Tony Yengeni, the other nominee, was sent to prison for illegally receiving a $50,000 discount on a luxury vehicle.

As Helen Zille points out, there is a jarring dissonance between what the ANC says and what it does. You cannot say you're opposed to crime and corruption, but then nominate Yengeni and Mandela, let alone the corrupt polygamist, Jacob Zuma, for president.

What Ms Zille does not say is that the nominations come from the ANC's branches - the rank and file of the Party (deliberate capital P.) People often pretend to be puzzled by South Africa's extreme crime rate, but given the ANC's apparent lack of concern with crime, it's really pretty simple to explain. Seeing that the ANC gets the majority of votes in South Africa, its members' opinions are presumably those of the majority of voters as well.

Clearly the ANC's Party members do not see anything wrong with crime. Their sense of right and wrong therefore differs completely from what you and I, people of the West, would hold to be true. If the rank and file of the ANC see criminals like Yengeni and Mandela as heroes, then clearly their interpretation of what is acceptable differs totally from Westerners' interpretation of right and wrong.

This is quite a frightening realization. South Africa's crime rate becomes easy to explain. The majority of people in South Africa - the ANC's voters - do not see murder, theft and fraud as wrong. The majority of people are therefore tolerant and forgiving of crime, if not criminals themselves.