HEH, HEH, HEH
Figure of fun
● The country held its breath just after 10pm on Wednesday, unsure what was about to unfold. A resignation seemed likely, but at that juncture in South Africa’s political history, anything could happen.
Resignation or not, few were expecting Jacob Zuma’s final speech to the nation to begin with laughter. Yet before he began his address, he let out his signature chortle and joked around with members of the press, asking: “Why are you looking so serious?”
That laughter had punctuated key political moments of the past few years. He laughed when the EFF was kicked out of the state of the nation address this time last year, he chuckled when joking about Nkandla in parliament, he giggled his way through Q&A sessions on matters of importance, and on several other occasions when a presidential context might have called for gravitas, he let rip with his signature “heh heh heh”.
For some, his humour was once a welcome contrast to the stiff and aloof chess-piece physique and manner of his biggest rival, then president Thabo Mbeki.
But for many others, the giggling — coupled with dancing and singing — was shorthand for “I am cunning. I am shrewd. I will outwit you and score points over you — and laugh as I am doing it”.
Every media outlet has a stockpile of imagery and footage of him laughing, and often it is used to accompany reports of his ill-doings, creating an impression of him laughing at his enemies’ frustrations.
Analysts have ascribed his cackling to self-effacing attempts to disguise shortcomings, like his frequent inability to pronounce large numbers. Others have put them down to nervous tension or to “a condition”.
He famously told parliament in 2015: “I don’t know how to stop my laughter.” And if Wednesday night was anything to go by, who would disbelieve him?