The South African grapes of wrath
And so the day came when the party elected as their standard bearer a deeply flawed man, a politician with no moral compass. For many years already he had been in an endless cycle of financial trouble and near-open corruption. His sexual escapades regularly made the front pages; his chauvinism was legendary. In the lead-up to his anointing, he was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a woman. That shower story was gold for his detractors.
Many were alarmed when he assumed the leadership of a venerated grand old party, and then became president of the country. His inaugural address to many observers sounded like the country’s epitaph.
The then-new president was known to be a Putin ally. His early moves were KGB-style actions, like taking over the Department of Justice, the intelligence services, and the police. Over the years he appointed a string of factotums, who proceeded to destroy their designated institutions – the tax collection service, the fabric of the state’s machinery, and the system of values itself. He had a good reason for such moves – he was always driven by paranoia, convinced that his past would catch up with him and that he’d end up where he knew he rightfully belonged – in an orange jumpsuit, with some of his children. To avoid jail, he had to stay in power.
His lackeys worked with near impunity. For who was to investigate, arrest and prosecute them? There was nothing to keep him, or them, in check. They would regularly lose in courts, but then the next day would go on as though nothing had happened.
But the bulk of the blame for this monumental decline belonged to the president’s own grand old party, one of the largest and oldest political formations in the world. Not only did they elect him their leader, twice, but they steadfastly supported him through the worst of his indiscretions. No matter how idiotic his statements, no matter how incompetent his decisions, how visibly corrupt he was – they were always shielding him at the expense of their own vanishing dignity and credibility.
It was a time when all energy was devoted to wreaking chaos. The president’s environmental policies were nonexistent – the country remains one of the world’s worst polluters. He was obsessed with coal. And of course, Russia, Russia, Russia …
Foreign nationals were often demonised and attacked in the streets; violence against women and children reached epidemic proportions. The president reportedly owed so much money to so many shady people all over the world that he could only offer one thing as repayment – his own country. His deals with Middle Eastern moneymen will take years to fully uncover. He always believed Russian-trained intelligence officers more than his own professionals.
After so many terrifyingly bad decisions and a corruptionaddled reign, he was finally turfed from the presidential palace.
We’re talking about Jacob Zuma here, of course, but the parallels with Donald J Trump and the Republican Party are painfully obvious.
In so many ways, South Africa comes from the US’s future. Two years after his overthrow, the criminals who aided and abetted Zuma and his foreign masters over a decade are mostly still roaming free. He too remains a free man, while the destruction he wreaked on the country and people’s minds is still damaging us all, and will continue to do so for many years.
The legacy of Zuma’s misrule is astounding. Real unemployment was sitting at around 40% even before the Covid-19 pandemic; more than half of all youth could not and will never be able to find a job. Eskom was considered the world’s best utility in 2004; its failure now could sink the entire economy.
The looting and mismanagement of the Zuma years only meant that we’ve started the fight against the virus while on the back foot. It did not go well from there.
The US is a country greatly more developed than South Africa, and yet over the past four years, that fact has hardly mattered. American people are at each other’s throats like they have not been since the Civil War. Government departments are demoralised and disorganised, starved of expertise following an exodus of experienced public servants. The Covid pandemic only served to scratch away their existing scabs and go straight for society’s wounds.
Should the voters on 3 November decide that another four years of Trump is a fine idea, South Africa’s late- and post-Zuma suffering will be in vain. They could have learned from us.
Perhaps the most important lesson of Zuma’s tenure is that it’s far easier to break a country than to rebuild one. At least Americans can still do something about their fate. There’s still time for them to wake up and smell the South African grapes of wrath.