Jonathan Deal - Witness D: Dying for the truth in a “predatory” State

In his latest interview with BizNews, Safe Citizen Founder Jonathan Deal tells Chris Steyn that the assassination of Madlanga Commission Witness D is “a perfect illustration of where on the one hand the government has completely and utterly lost control of the security environment in which South Africans must live and work and raise their children every day, while on the other hand, they are obtusely pushing an outdated ideology.” Slamming the African National Congress (ANC) over proposed changes to firearm ownership legislation, he quotes a colleague writing that “the State has become predatory with the left hand feeding on its own citizens, while the right is seeking to disarm those same citizens.” Giving an update on the Nedlac consultation on the Firearms Control Amendment Bill, Deal shares this feedback from a member of the gunowners fraternity that attended the latest engagement : “Government walked in, expecting compliance. They left, understanding resistance. The takeaway is blunt. They are not ready for this fight. We are.”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:02.596)Has the State become predatory? Somebody who believes so, a Safe Citizen founder, Jonathan Deal. Welcome, Jonathan.Jonathan Deal (00:13.486)Chris, thank you for having me on your show. We really appreciate the opportunity to flesh out this very important subject on BizNews.Chris Steyn (00:22.404)You're welcome, Jonathan. Why do you see the State, the South African State, as a predator?Jonathan Deal (01:13.706)Okay, Chris, the point of departure for labeling the state as predatory actually comes from something that was penned by a colleague of mine in the former firearms fraternity this weekend. And he described it thus, he said, the State has become predatory with the left hand feeding on its own citizens, while the right is seeking to disarm those same citizens. And that is very much I think in the minds of many South Africans now, even South Africans that have never considered owning a firearm, not even shot one in their lives before, becoming aware of this push of the ANC to disarm private citizens. And I do have a theme that I would like to use to contextualize this interview with you. And that theme is, and this is based on the conduct of the State, the Civilian Secretariat for Police Services and NEDLAC representing effectively the State on last week, December the 4th around a so-called stakeholder engagement on the Firearms Control Act. And the theme that I would like to use is when ideology meets amatuerable. And I'll expand on that later in the broadcast. But what I would like to say at the moment is the ideology of the African National Congress was exposed perfectly as amateur vote in that meeting. Now let's get back to the predatory theme. Sorry, I interrupted you.Chris Steyn (03:01.76)No, no, continue, Jonathan.Jonathan Deal (03:04.16)Let's get back to the theme around predatory with the State feeding on its own citizens. In one of our recent BizNews interviews, I hauled out the testimony of Witness D, saying how chilling it was in its simplicity and its detail, and how brave he was to do that. And as we now know, Witness D was assassinated, I think over the weekend at 8.30 in the evening in front of his wife and children outside his home.What this can possibly mean for anybody else who is prepared with courage and conviction to come and sit in front of one of these interminable commissions and actually tell the truth about what is going on in our police services, our metro police and our governments. What this can mean for those people and how it would impact on their decision to actually say anything or just keep very, very quiet and stay hopefully very alive. So it is a perfect illustration of where on the one hand the government has completely and utterly lost control of the security environment in which South Africans must live and work and raise their children every day. And while on the other hand, they are obtusely pushing an outdated ideology. Also, of course, with a new twist to it, as we have discussed in the past, in terms of their decision, their desire to have the populace of South Africa disarmed. And we have discussed before that any government in the world, doesn't matter how democratic they are,Jonathan Deal (05:08.494)…probably would like to have a disarmed populace. It just makes much more sense when it comes to pushing the citizens around. But in the middle of the mayhem in which South Africans are expected to live, it is just beyond the pale.Chris Steyn (05:26.82)Jonathan, I know you are convinced that the African National Congress has an ideological motive to disarm South African citizens, but what about the other parties in the Government of National Unity or parties not necessarily in government?Jonathan Deal (05:45.528)Chris, in 2021, when this Bill, which is being considered again in 2025, which is effectively the same Bill with lipstick on it, which was admitted to, by the way, by the Civilian Secretariat, most, I think every single political party took a position. They were an absolute minority who supported the government’s proposed amendments in 2021. The majority roundly rejected it.…we do have a statement from the Democratic Alliance around this Firearms Control Amendment Bill coming out in firm opposition to it. I do believe that that had a lot to do with Ms. Ian Cameron in terms of being the Spokesperson for Police for the Democratic Alliance - and I think thatthat reflects a lot of the work that he's done in this environment and his concerns. What is of enormous concern to me is how legislation like this can be developed on the instructions of the Government of so-called National Unity in the Safety and Security Cluster with specific and direct instructions to the Civilian Secretariat and rolled out in NEDLAC, which is a government forum paid for by the taxpayers in secret to a selected audience. And it occurs to me that the other parties in the so-called Government of National Unity appear to know nothing about it. Much like when the Expropriation Without Compensation Act was passed, and also the National Health Act. The leader of the DA came out as being most surprised and taken aback and actually it was reported in the media apparently before they knew about it. And it does call into question the effectiveness of the so-called Government of National Unity. And one of the people that I had a conversation with recently,Jonathan Deal (08:08.93)Just said, he said, that is the problem. There is no more official opposition. It is a Government of National Unity. And when we lost the official opposition, we lost the opportunity for any opposition to the ANC to actually stand up and work outside of that allegiance. So it is of enormous concern.Chris Steyn (08:31.448)Jonathan, sorry, Jonathan, you've had a huge problem with NEDLAC's consultation on the Firearms Control Bill. Please give us an update on the latest engagement.Jonathan Deal (08:45.88)Thank you. So that's where the ideology and amatuerville comes into play. And I call the Nedlac meeting Premier Amatuerville. And it was at this showcase brought on top of its own head by the Civilian Secretariat and Nedlac that the State exposed its careless arrogance. They have this arrogance about developing legislation and passing laws and skirting any form of proper stakeholder engagement, any form of proper public consultation, but worse than that, actually developing and pushing irrational and unworkable legislation, all the while claiming that it is in the interests of safety and security in South Africa. It's absolutely mind boggling. So I have some extracts from one of the persons who attended the meeting. And this is published by SAGA, South African Gun Owners Association. And I'm not sure who else was there from SAGA, but Mr. Damien Enslen was there. He's the chairman of SAGA and a specialist firearm fraternity. This is quite a powerful statement. I'd actually like to read it if you don't mind, because I don't think that I'll do justice in paraphrasing it. He says, from the get-go, sorry, according to SAGA, yesterday changed the game. The Nedlac dialogue on the Firearms Control Amendment Bill was supposed to be a polite policy session. Instead, the firearm sector walked in, tore the veil off a deeply comprised…Jonathan Deal (10:39.576)…process and forced governments to confront its own contradictions. What was exposed was staggering. A recycled 2021 Bill pushed through an opaque and procedurally defective process, propped up by zero empirical evidence and a series of increasingly unbelievable explanations. Government promised international best practice and evidence-based policy. What it delivered was political theatre with no substance. SAPS withdrew its presentation at the last minute. Let's read that again. SAPS withdrew its presentation to that meeting at the last minute. CSPS, which is the Civilian Secretariat, could not produce the new research it keeps referencing. Ballistic and ammunition provisions collapsed under scrutiny. And the attempt to spin 118,000 public objections from 2021 as a balanced mix was obliterated. Independent data showed that more than 97% of those 118,000 rejected the bill outright. That rejection still stands.To make matters worse, Nedlac allowed a private ammunition coding firm to pitch a commercial product in a national policy forum. Martin Hood objected, SAGA seconded, they were ignored. That alone comprises compromises the integrity of the entire process. Yet. the real story is this. The firearm community arrived united, disciplined and strategically aligned. SAGA, SAAADA, CHASA and GOSA and legal experts pushed back with precision, exposing every fault line. The controlled breakaway groups were stopped. The agenda was forced back into a full plenary. Government walked in, expecting compliance. They left, understanding resistance. The takeaway is blunt. They are not ready for this fight. We are.Chris Steyn (12:52.558)So Jonathan. What next? What is the next step in this fight?Jonathan Deal (12:59.682)Well, let's just talk about NEDLAC for a moment. That was absolute music to my ears. Safe Citizen was not there for the simple reason that we are a public organisation. We represent the public. We're not a gun-owning association. And the general public were excluded from this selected engagement. In fact, I'd like to just remind the people that are watching, your viewers that are watching this broadcast that NEDLAC selectively engaged only with people who they wanted to hear from. In other words, their own echo chamber. And it was only after August and September this year when Safe Citizen and others started confronting them in the media about their lack of inclusivity that they started inviting other stakeholders. There were still a lot of people missing from that meeting.Wherever one stands on the spectrum, the political and community spectrum in South Africa, whether you like AfriForum or you hate AfriForum, one has to admit that AfriForum has a role and a voice to play in civil society in this country. They were excluded from this meeting. They were never engaged. So how one can claim stakeholder engagement when you have excluded one of the largest and most able civil society groupings in the country. I don't know. So the commercial firearms industry and the formal firearms fraternity will carry this fight forward in that arena. And they have the financial ability to do it and the standing to do it. Our job at Safe Citizen is to…Jonathan Deal (15:01.122)…tease out the role of the public. In this context Chris, it's undebatable that the public voice needs to be heard. And this is not a gun owner issue. It is a matter of great significance around the safety and security of South Africans.If the ANC is allowed to ever make laws like this, it will spell the end of freedom for South Africans. Free choice on religion, schooling, possession of property, health, military, police and simply bureaucratic state overreach.So you asked me what's what is on the cards in terms of taking this forward. I think the best news for the public and for Safe Citizen is that Dear South Africa and Safe Citizen, as I have said before, have aligned around taking this campaign and this issue into every household that dear South Africa can reach. And at this point in time, it's round about 1.5 million households. That's a lot of people. But 1.5 million is still a small amount of people in terms of the population of South Africa. And there are undoubtedly tens of millions or at least millions of people who are not necessarily connected to platforms like Dear South Africa on the internet and on social media. It becomes the job of the people who are, to speak about this in their communities and to raise it and to start spreading the word. And many great movements in history have started with a very small beginning. And I believe that if we work on this, we can make it happen in terms of spreading the word. Safe Citizen has also started a concept called Town Hall Meetings.Jonathan Deal (17:06.626)…Virtual Town Hall meetings; started our first one last week and it was reasonably successful. In fact, I'm pleased to report that we had more people on the meeting than Nedlac had on their meeting. And that was with all the money that they had spent and our meeting cost us nothing. So in terms of positioning, Safe Citizen is a platform that they can't challenge. If anybody, including the minority groups, according to the government, who were the people that they wanted to appease. Can you believe it? The Civilian Secretariat said that this act was developed and brought back to appease special interest groups. And I would imagine one of them was Gun Free South Africa, that poor organisation with a very unfortunate name, and it will never come to be, not in anybody's lifetime that's alive today.But Safe Citizen is a platform that they cannot challenge. And if any of those special interest groups want to fight against Safe Citizen, I have one question for you. Are you for or against community safety? And if you're for community safety, you can come and join us at Safe Citizen. It's for free and you'll be doing your country a service.Chris Steyn (18:25.432)Thank you. That was Jonathan Deal, the Founder of Safe Citizen, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn.

Jonathan Deal - Witness D: Dying for the truth in a “predatory” State

Related Stories

Rob Hersov: The small municipality that fixed itself — a blueprint to rescue South Africa

Despite court defeat, govt still wants to steal your healthcare

Jonathan Katzenellenbogen: Fight for Joburg is Treasury v ANC patronage machine

John Matisonn: DA’s Schreiber’s deportations provide political inoculation