THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

Sir,

As soon as I read on the internet: ‘Please defend PM from political attacks - Joy’, I knew I was going to respond. I cannot sit idly by in Canada and not be concerned about what happens in Swaziland, simply because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Joy should know that we are all caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality and tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all of us indirectly. It is a shame that she deplores the political attacks and criticism levelled against her husband, but her statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the perceived attacks. I am sure that she would not want to rest contentedly with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.

It is unfortunate that she now feels that her husband is politically attacked and criticised, but it is even more regrettable that he left his opponents with no alternative.
A part of me can understand where the prime minister’s wife is coming from with her pleas. However, I believe it is important for her to know that there are just and unjust laws and those that need to be obeyed and those that need to be broken.  She may as well ask, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” She needs to be told that the answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust.
I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws.

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
The prime minister’s wife has to agree with Saint Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”  She might probably wonder what the difference is between the two. How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

In the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, ‘An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law’. Any law that uplifts human personality is just.
Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.  Hopefully after this short explanation, Joy would tread carefully before uttering statements that her husband, who is also the prime minister, should be above constructive criticism.

She cannot deny the fact that injustice engulfs the country and citizens will obviously look to the head of government for answers. Swaziland’s ugly record of brutality has reverberated around the world.
Here in Canada and elsewhere there is an awareness of the challenges in Swaziland.
Joy is now duty bound to bare these hard, brutal facts to her husband. I am sure even she is aware of the fact that the political opponents she lambasted had on numerous occasions sought to negotiate, but government made it difficult to engage in good faith. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given; it must be demanded.

Martin Friedlander, Canada.

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