Life worse for ordinary people under his presidency
ON THURSDAY you will be tortured by yet another soporific state of the nation address.
The torture is less in the dullness of the presenter, but more in the evisceration of the historic significance of the event.
The strangeness of the dresses and hats worn that day has, over time, blinded our national mind into accepting that such is a day of sheer pomp and ceremony.
A state of the nation address in its pristine historic sense is so serious a business that thinking people would find it a reduction of their being to stand in front of a mirror before heading to parliament.
A parliamentarian who appreciates the deeper meaning of an occasion of that category would sleep in a library the night before, to elevate his mind to the level where it can fathom the voice of history when it sets out the schemes of appropriating the future.
That kind of mindfulness is found only in social contexts where the light of knowledge has revealed to a nation’s consciousness that politics is a serious business of making society, and that history embodies the seriousness of such business.
If politics is the business of making society, and history the realm of such business, then politicians must be viewed as architects of society. Thus a president cannot escape his historic burden as society’s chief architect.
Not only does this conception of politics give us a philosophical basis for determining the worth of a president; it arms us with the most reliable barometer to gauge the value of each state of the nation address.
It is demanded of us by this elevated conception to listen to President Jacob Zuma in 2017 with the ears that want to know where his latest talk fits in a bigger historical mission – if there is any.
We are bound to return to the beginning. As Zuma was fighting to become president, what idea of society did he sell as his vision of the future? What exactly did he intend to make of our society?
It would indeed be unfair to assess Zuma against other people’s visions, which is why we must identify his own. Until and unless we are able to find it, we cannot tell if Zuma’s 2017 state of the nation address represents progress or regress in the serious business of making society.
By now the reader must be scratching his head to remember Zuma’s unique promise to us. Did he promise a million jobs? Did he promise to fight corruption? What exactly did he promise?
To be fair, Zuma has never pretended to be original. He has made it clear by his conduct that he is a man of tradition – either Zulu or ANC traditions.
Traditionalists obey the commandments of the dead. They wear leopard skins designed not by themselves, but by corpses that have long decomposed in graves. Such is called tradition.
On the plane of history, Zuma promised South Africans nothing, except mouthing the simplest of ANC slogans: creating a democratic, nonracial, nonsexist and prosperous society.
So, when Zuma stands before our nation Thursday, we must forget that he exists. We must let him disappear into the bigger ANC dream of creating a democratic, nonracial, nonsexist and prosperous society.
Were we to view Zuma as an individual historic player, it would immediately appear that his actions since he took office have done little to deepen democracy, or to make South Africa prosperous.
It was during his tenure that unemployment skyrocketed to 27% (if we use a narrow definition of unemployment).
In simple language, life has become worse for ordinary South Africans since Zuma became president. His singing and dancing have been entertaining, but he left us hungrier after the act.
It was during Zuma’s reign that our economy lost more than R500billion in a week after firing Nhlanhla Nene.
Today, investors are scared to come to SA for as long as the madness associated with Zuma is still there. There are indications that he will fire Pravin Gordhan after this year’s budget speech.
It was during Zuma’s reign of madness that Hlaudi Motsoeneng was unleashed to run amok at the SABC, trying to control our minds like that evil Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
South Africa is more divided along racial and tribal lines under Zuma than under any president since 1994. Some people are now busy establishing their own private prosecuting authorities to protect themselves against a rampantly corrupt state.
As Zuma stands in parliament this Thursday, millions of South Africans will pray: “Dear God, why have you punished our beautiful land by giving us this man?”
It is not difficult to predict Zuma’s state of the nation address – a shapeless mass of words with no bearing on history. History will remember Zuma among the worst leaders ever to visit mankind.