When we can’t tell our priests from our politicians, we’ve lost our moral compass

At times it feels we’re teetering on the brink, or that the country is being unhinged from its moorings and drifting. We’re not only losing direction as a country, but we seem to have lost our sense of what is right and wrong. Anything goes. Nothing is off limits. Adults, of fairly sane minds I’m sure, block one of the country’s main national motorways — the lifeblood of the economy — firebomb trucks, help themselves to the goods and nonchalantly walk away. They would probably get home with their loot and chastise their children for nicking a nickel, telling a lie or some other minor indiscretion. The irony will be lost on them.

The authorities arrive after the deed is done to swat away any lingering looters and to proudly announce that the wreckage has been removed and the motorway cleared for traffic. There’s no word about any arrest of the criminals who have put at risk the lives of motorists, not to mention the economic wellbeing of the country. There are no consequences. Life goes on.

Up and down the country unoccupied land has become a magnet for the landless and the homeless. They flock to these open spaces in what is a politically inspired campaign. The police, already struggling to contain rampant crime, are forced to devote resources to a problem caused by politicians.

The poor are desperate, we’re told. As if poverty is enough reason to break the law. But the poor are merely a supporting cast, pawns really, in a show not of their making. Wily politicians have their eyes on the prize — next year’s general elections.

The sight of Jacob Zuma in the dock for fraud and corruption hardly three months after he had been forced out of office brings home in a more forceful and dramatic fashion the parlous state of our societal values. For almost a decade this man was South Africa’s leader, determining and directing its destiny. No wonder we are where we are. A country, like an organisation, often takes on the character of its chief executive. A fish rots from the head down. The past 10 years have been a slippery slope to the gutter. Almost.

It’s a bit unfair perhaps, and a complete cop out, to lump all our problems in Zuma’s lap. But what’s also troubling is that among the motley crowd of shysters, hangers-on, out-and-out crooks and the politically aggrieved who turned out to chaperone Zuma to court on Friday were men and women of the cloth, even bishops in their flowing robes. Religious leaders and undertakers have been at the forefront of whipping up sympathy for Zuma. That’s par for the course; they usually march together burying the dead. But men of God — unlike undertakers — should at least have a sliver of morality. Or does tribe trump morals?

This morning these men and women of the cloth, with a deft flourish of their colourful robes, will be sweating profusely and foaming at the mouth as they preach the word of God and urge sinners to repent. The sinners they have in mind, I guess, won’t include Zuma, whom they’d eulogised two days before. The irony will be lost on them.

These matters are not about rich or poor, black or white, left or right. But we tend to make them so. We first look at who is involved in whatever misdemeanour before we either empathise, defend or condemn. To paraphrase the old Carl Schurz saying, “It’s my people, right or wrong.”

Many black people, like everyone else, feel strongly about corruption in the government, for instance. But they’re often ambivalent about it because at times it seems as though all black people are painted with the same brush. And so they take a defensive posture. And the real thieves and crooks are able to escape or find refuge, if not sympathy, in the crowd.

Then Steinhoff comes along, which like Enron before it, has become a poster child for corporate crime — and everybody gleefully jumps on it. The government almost feels vindicated and the miscreants are dragged to parliament, not so much to state their case but to be paraded as either the exhibit or evidence of white-collar crime. They, too, should be seen to squirm in public.

But corruption is as prevalent in the private sector as it is in the government. Remember the multibillion-rand collusion among construction companies building stadiums for the 2010 World Cup? These are part of the same society that is in need of redemption. And the one should not be used to overplay or underplay the sins of the other. Corruption is corruption.

Local cricket fans, like everyone else, were appalled by the ball tampering involving Australian players. The culprits were severely censured and are now treated pretty much as outcasts.

One wonders whether the action would have been as decisive if these were South African players. I somehow doubt it. The crucial difference is the values of the two countries. The Australian public was appalled and embarrassed by the action of its cricketers, and demanded swift action.

We would probably have come to the defence of our players, as we did with Hansie Cronje, for instance. In fact some of our former players now pontificating on television about the Australians’ misfortune embraced Cronje even after he had admitted to cheating.

Harold Macmillan, the former British prime minister, once advised people in search of a sense of purpose to look up to their archbishop, not their politicians.

We’re in something of a quandary because at times like these it’s difficult to tell them apart.