Jay Naidoo: The fortress around evil

Key topics:Powerful elites shielded Epstein-like abuse networks globally.South Africa faces ongoing child abuse linked to authority figures.Democracy fails if systems protect predators over vulnerable children..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..By Jay Naidoo.I am deeply offended by what is now emerging, revelations that implicate people I once admired.Having been in public office for much of my life, I understand how powerful vested interests operate. I have seen how public figures, as their influence grows, become targets for manipulation by criminal networks that thrive on proximity to power. A casual photograph in a street, a restaurant, or at a conference does not in itself constitute collusion or bad judgement. Any one of us is capable of that.But sustained interaction, when it is publicly known that the most vile crimes against children lie at the heart of a criminal enterprise involving celebrities, presidents, billionaires, and other powerful figures, carries a very different moral weight. That does not smell of innocence. It smells of impunity and agreement.I am a grandfather today. I dread the thought of my grandchildren and the unborn growing up in a world we claim to be civilised, yet one in which our most powerful leaders appear to lack morality or even basic humanity, enabling or excusing the most brutal violence against the innocent children.We see how this dynamic plays out at home in South Africa. Most recently, in the parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee investigating police corruption and political interference, we heard testimony from an underworld figure, Vusumuzi Cat Matlala, boasting openly of bribing senior politicians and state officials. The brazenness of such claims speaks to a culture of impunity that has taken root at the highest levels of power..Read more:.FT: Jeffrey Epstein’s network: ‘Life among the lucrative and louche’.Being someone who across my life stood against injustice and oppression, I have been an ardent supporter of democracy, social justice, and the rule of law. Yet as an Elder, I have asked myself many times why such profound evil exists at the very apex of leadership. How can societies that call themselves democratic allow the most vulnerable among us, children, to be sexually abused by those with power, wealth, and status. What kind of human being commits such acts. And what kind of system protects them.The Jeffrey Epstein case is not an aberration. It is a window into something far more disturbing. Epstein did not operate in isolation. He was embedded in a global ecosystem of privilege, money, political influence, and celebrity that allowed predatory behaviour to flourish in plain sight. For years, credible allegations were ignored, buried, or quietly neutralised. Survivors were silenced. Institutions looked away. The fortress around power held firm.The most obscene lie told in the aftermath of Epstein’s exposure is that this was simply the work of one monstrous individual. That narrative is convenient. It preserves the innocence of systems that failed, or worse, colluded. Epstein ran a network. Networks require protection. They require complicity. They require silence from law enforcement agencies, political actors, financial institutions, and social elites who benefit from proximity to power.The only truly innocent people in this story are the children who were violated. Everything else is noise designed to distract us from that brutal truth.What makes this moment especially painful is the moral disorientation that follows when disclosures touch those associated with great moral or political thought. These are figures whose ideas shaped how we understand justice, power, and liberation. When such authority is ethically compromised, even by association, it is not only individuals who fall. Trust in our intellectual traditions themselves is damaged.Ideas matter, but they do not confer immunity. No contribution to human thought places anyone beyond moral scrutiny. If our moral and political sciences cannot survive honest reckoning with the failures of their most revered figures, then they were never as robust or emancipatory as we believed.This is not only an American problem. The spotlight must now turn home.Under apartheid in South Africa, countless children were sexually abused by men in positions of authority. Teachers, clergy, security personnel, politicians, and business leaders operated within a system of impunity, protected by a violent state and a corrupted moral order. Many of those crimes were never prosecuted. The transition to democracy, necessary and historic as it was, left deep wounds unaddressed.Today, the pattern continues. Stories of underage children being assaulted by powerful men surface with disturbing regularity. Yet convictions remain rare. Cases collapse. Survivors are retraumatised by a criminal justice system that is compromised, under resourced, and in some instances captured. Political connections, financial muscle, and social standing still function as shields.We must ask ourselves an uncomfortable question. How does democracy become so compromised that it protects paedophiles? How does a system built on rights and dignity construct a fortress around predators while preaching morality to the poor?There are no second chances when it comes to the violation of a child. This is not about ideology. It is not about left or right. It is about whether we are willing to confront evil where it actually resides, not in the shadows, but in boardrooms, parliaments, gated communities, and elite social circles..Read more:.Thousands reoffend in South Africa as justice system fails to track them.Accountability must be ruthless and uncompromising. Independent prosecutorial bodies must be protected from political interference. Whistleblowers must be defended, not destroyed. Survivors must be believed, supported, and centred, not treated as inconvenient liabilities. Those who enabled abuse, whether through silence or active protection, must be named and held to account.If democracy cannot protect children, then its moral legitimacy collapses. No constitution, no election, no speech can compensate for that failure.The Epstein case has torn the veil. What happens next will tell us whether we are serious about justice, or whether we will once again allow power to close ranks, bury the truth, and move on.History is watching.So are the children.

Jay Naidoo: The fortress around evil

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