Rats go overboard as the bad ship Zuma begins to list, sink and hit the rocks
Rats. Nasty creatures at the best of times, and ones that become especially odious when the captain of a ship finds himself in the middle of the ocean frantically hauling bucketsful of water out of his rickety vessel.
Like any sensible CEO desperately trying to keep his company afloat, the captain screams at his flunkies to grab their mops and get busy — pronto. But rats have acute survival instincts and, realising that the ship will inevitably go the way of the Titanic, they ignore their captain and leap overboard, in the process demonstrating impressive freestyle techniques worthy of Michael Phelps.
In this post-Nkandla era, Citizen Zuma must empathise with any captain left abandoned and solo in the middle of the sea with only screeching seagulls for company.
After years of playing artful dodger with South Africa’s justice system, the national director of public prosecutions, Shaun Abrahams, on Friday announced that Zuma would go on trial for the string of charges that had been brought against him in 2009.
“I am of the view that there are reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution of Zuma in the charges listed in the indictment,” Abrahams told a press conference. Out of the mouth of the guy who for years acted as if he were trying his best to save uBaba from those orange overalls.
Reflecting on the similarities of his current predicament and that of the captain’s, the former president can take comfort in that his fate is as integral to politics as butter is to bread. The sage who figured that history repeats itself was onto something.
Any school kid with a Shakespeare primer crammed into his or her satchel will tell you that the most notorious example of the rodent syndrome occurred yonks and yonks ago. Picture ancient Rome in 44BC. A local know-all is loafing on a pavement, sticking his nose in everybody’s business. Enter the great Julius Caesar, rehearsing phrases bound to bore his acquaintances as he strolls to work. Drivel such as, “Cowards die many times before their deaths/The valiant never taste of death but once”. The pavement special musters enough courage to warn Rome’s foremost resident to beware the Ides of March. He gets a snort and a kick in the pants for his troubles. Instead of doing something sensible and opting for a duvet day, HeWho-Conquered-Gaul sets off to do what he loves best, ordering around his fellow Romans.
Meanwhile, behind Caesar’s back, a group of senators have decided to go all rodent and burn their Caesar posters and T-shirts. Then they sharpen their knives and have a group hug. A collective decision has been taken to silence the big guy permanently.
The conspirators stab Caesar 23 times in broad daylight in the Roman forum. No sooner has he cried “Et tu, Comrade Brutus” than he is surrounded by his assassins and succumbs to his inevitable fate.
Richard the Third is another memorable bloke who paid the price of surrounding himself with rodent types. The English king was slain on the battlefield in 1485 having been betrayed by some of his supporters who had secretly decided to back the other stallion. While he was shouting, “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”, some of his generals were secretly negotiating a Codesa with his mortal enemy.
While nowhere as bloody, except in a figurative sense, the political farce that is the Zuma Show is following a similar trajectory to that of Caesar and Tricky Dick.
No sooner would the former president’s aides have asked Stuttaford Van Lines to quote on the trek from Mahlamba Ndlopfu to Nkandla than the former president would have experienced good buddies inexplicably ignoring his calls. There will be fewer Christmas cards on the mantelpiece this year. Zuma will find himself a scratched fixture on VIP guest lists.
Just like it’s difficult to find a white person who admits to supporting apartheid back in the day, Zuma stalwarts are hard to excavate at the moment.
Rumour has it that even former Zuma stormtrooper Collen
“Oros” Maine has been eating humble pie in the new dispensation. Imagine the youth league foghorn with the loudest decibels rehearsing elaborate rituals of obeisance to appease the new commander-in-chief. And this after his enthusiastic endorsement of Ramaphosa’s opponent at the December conference.
As he reflects on history, former president Thabo Mbeki must be quietly chuckling in between puffs on his pipe. What schadenfreude! Will Zuma turn to him for survival lessons on how to handle life after being ejected from the presidential throne? When he was booted out by Zuma in 2007, Mbeki had to observe the long line of the newly converted making the trek to Nkandla. So would his response to Zuma now be: I don’t give a rat’s arse?