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Dear President Zuma,
The former Public Protector demonstrated an unparalleled equanimity in protecting us from the all-powerful state action, throughout her term of that office.
She rekindled our, hitherto, waning spirit of striving for the achievement of a purely ethical state, under the guidance of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.
We are now able to envisage the kind of ideal moral world that we can achieve, within our power, as human beings.
This journey is very lonely, because of our conditioning to regard a social position, occupational role, education, wealth or any special qualities or talents of our own creation, as a measure of everyone’s worth.
Past racial policies and present practices have further limited our capability to evaluate human life to skin level, undermining the respect that we should have for ourselves as moral beings.
The former Public Protector made us see value in a human rights culture, and our worth as absolute, irreplaceable, and as intricately interweaved with that of everyone else.
Now we understand that we require the functional completeness of all our powers – as a human race -for the dictates of the will to be made operative.
In the process, she exposed the social entrapments we create, and promote as ideal for all to pursue, and how these have replaced our intrinsic, unconditional and inalienable worth as human beings.
In the process, she took some intricate, moral decisions of human life, which triggered insults and other unsavoury reactions from unscrupulous politicians and other religious and social minions.
Her recognition that her very own existence, the nature, depends on the moral law, enabled her to face extreme and unchecked provocation without flinching.
It is her remarkable ability and capacity to act freely and also morally, that kept her reputation and dignity intact.
Her moral obligation to strive for objectively good ends for all, enabled her see the insults hurled upon her as a person, as the general ignorance which blinds us from seeing our complete selves.
However, without a united public support, and united relations with others, she could only do so much, and no more.
The good ends she tried to take us to, do not come with rank, wealth, or other worldly privileges, which we arrogate through religious and political force and fear.
They must be adopted and willed by each one of us as rational individuals, and also as finite physical and dependent force.
More importantly, they need an understanding, by all of us, that all humans are moral agents with a particular kind of natural constitution.
We can do so only if we individually identify with all others in an ethical community
Each person has a duty to promote these ends, and any rule or authority that is designed to ignore or pervert them is immoral.
We owe it to ourselves to develop our moral reason to present us with the Idea of a morally ultimate end for all human beings.
But, our subjective inclinations and desires hinder us from identifying this idea and claim it as our own duty.
Very few of us understand that only through our moral reason, can we protect the morally obligatory ends for all human beings as moral-physical agents, including you and me.
This duty calls upon all of us, both as individuals, as well as a collective, to construct our own path to our own moral destiny, which must pass over the bridge of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.
Accordingly, your selective use of our court processes to get your individual wishes in disregard of our rights, can only destroy the bridge.
Courts are institutions created by the powerful politicians to serve us by state man-made laws.
Prudence in the sense of worldly wisdom, is the skill of a man in influencing others in order to use them for his own ends
Mere legality does not always seek to achieve moral law and respect for all humanity. It may run counter to ethical reasoning.
The establishment of an ethical society goes beyond the requirements of mere legality, and demands that we obey the moral law, for its own sake, not for anyone’s convenience
People who capture a state can pass laws that are disdainful of their slaves, and detrimental to human dignity.
Slaves are worthy to their capturer for their marketable skills and abilities only. Just as in business, their price is based on their time.
They are only things with an extrinsic, conditional, and subjective value, and their worth matters only in so far as someone is prepared to pay a price of their will, in exchange for their physical skills and abilities
Their value is not absolute and unique, and it can be replaced by something of equivalent or more value, at any time.
Money, not moral worth, is the ultimate standard by which they are measured.
Slaves have to treat themselves through servility, to curry their owners’ favour, and obey the slave-masters’ laws.
Since no one can control another without physical violence, such a business can only be sustained through lies, greed, and servility.
All these further violate the inherent dignity people have as moral agents – the dignity of humanity in its own person
In pursuit of your individual happiness, and prudential advantage, you disregard everyone’s legitimate interests.
Yet, your end is not your individual happiness, but continuous preservation of your moral integrity.
And therefore your duty – as a sworn guardian of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, is to preserve, protect and promote our common good.
Your individual happiness, and prudential advantage, lies not in your disregard of everyone’s legitimate interests,
Real happiness comes with self-preservation, and the preservation of all human species, as moral human beings, without the sensuous and physical nature.
This requires the creation of an enabling environment for the development of moral reason.
Your talents bear no significance if they cannot lead us towards the achievement of a universal good, which is of far more value than self-preservation.
The oath you took obliges you to lead us in our search for a better understanding of its meaning (Bill of Rights), and development of our talents, not as mere means of self-gratification
As a head of state, it is your special duty to verify every finding by the former Public Protector, especially that of State Capture.
This moral duty is handed down to us at birth, and we are stuck with it for life. So we cannot stop thinking about it.
I owe to myself to alert you of the pain these apparent violations cause to me, if true.
And the impediment they impose on my duty to contribute towards the collective destiny of all, including you.
Yours truly,
Mncedisi Both
