Fire Zuma and save country
IN Joseph Sebarenzi’s book, God Sleeps In Rwanda, he relates a Cherokee Indian story that goes like this: an old man was explaining to his grandson the nature of good and evil. “My son,” he said, “there is a fight between two wolves inside us all.
“One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, inferiority, false pride and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
According to these authors, the grandson looked at his grandfather with fear in his eyes and asked, “Which wolf wins”? “The one you feed,” said the old man. Ever since President Jacob Zuma came to power, my mind has been pondering this story. If there is a capacity for evil in everyone, no matter our ethnicity, religion or economic status, then the president knows this too and has tapped into the dark wolves inside us.
The result is that many ministers are harbouring “smallanyana skeletons”, as said so succinctly by Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini to explain why ministers in government were not standing up to oppose the wrongdoings of the president. The cracks of moral decay in South Africa are perfectly located in this kind of mental make-up of our president.
The introduction of the “Polokwane morality” was the undoing of everything the great African leaders had achieved prior to that point. South Africa was immediately sucked into the cycle of lawlessness and politicised criminality, which fanned corruption and the erosion of our moral fibre.
After Polokwane, right and wrong depended on the views of the dominant faction. Ubuntu, an ancient cohesive social code espousing a moral value for everyone, was redefined to suit the newly crafted “Polokwane morality”.
It was after this newly adopted “morality” was applied, that we saw people blatantly lying to the nation. Others began looting public resources willy-nilly.
In 2013 Zuma announced, “Everything you touch will multiply. I’ve always said that a wise businessperson will support the ANC.”
Ethical behaviour was thrown out of the window, and human conduct and values were now labelled “liberal or imperialist tendencies”. Look at how our previous public protector was accused of being a CIA spy.
The civil servants, and those who are supposed to serve the people, tended not to respect or obey the laws that they were supposed to enforce, to establish a just society. Under Zuma, we have seen numerous attempts to abandon the rule of law.
From Nkandla to Eskom, Transnet, SAA and SABC, these public entities have stumbled under the cloud of corruption and theft. Zuma’s views on impunity were evident when he was quoted in the National House of Traditional Leaders in November 2012, “Every problem can be resolved. Prisons are done by people who cannot resolve problems.”
The political tenure of Zuma is fast dragging us back to the dark days of South Africa, when right and wrong were decided by might. Who would have imagined a massacre like Marikana would happen in the new South Africa?
Intellectual analysis has been discouraged. Zuma’s famous comments about black intellectualism made an impact on the intelligentsia.
He said black people who “become too clever . . . become the most eloquent in criticising themselves”. We have seen in the last few days that censorship was rife at the SABC as violent protests in Vuwani were forbidden to be aired and analysts sent home from SABC studios.
As the country continues its decline to disclaim its position as a great and a promising nation, Zuma’s legacy of plunder is going to be central in our people’s social, economic and political decay. The obvious and truthful narrative will be that our country, under his leadership, was an unmitigated disaster.
Our country and his party, the ANC, can save our country only by repudiating his leadership and social antics. He took South Africa in the direct opposite direction to that envisaged by the great leaders of this nation.
The underhandedness that accompanied his campaigning, which at times was driven by an appeal to blatant ethnicity and tribalism, was bound to be a course for the kind of political pandemonium that we are experiencing at the moment. When a president has such disregard for our constitution, as we saw when he ignored the public protector’s report on Nkandla, then we mustn’t be surprised when others disregard constitutional and parliamentary procedures either.
Look at how the SABC contingent walked out of the SABC inquiry a couple of days ago. Parliament had to subpoena them at great cost to the taxpayer. They were only displaying the contempt shown repeatedly by their boss.
The reported current plan by Zuma to install his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as president is a ploy to sustain his reign by proxy. The national agony would persist for generations to come.
Dlamini-Zuma’s presidency will put South Africa under continued spells of destructive and incoherent rule.
Civil resistance is a proven method of protest and movements like Save South Africa are garnering much support as they grow.
But despite this, if, at the end of his tenure as president, Zuma hands the ANC over to the “premier league” (factions of the premiers of Free State, Mpumalanga and Limpopo), South Africans would have no choice but to choose to have the country governed by Mmusi Maimane or Julius Malema, collectively or individually (DA and EFF). Who says that would not be a better option?
The ascendancy of Cyril Ramaphosa to the helm of the ANC, and ultimately to the presidency of the republic, will be the most viable option for South Africa’s survival and the salvation. This is particularly so if the change were to happen in the next six months.
Ramaphosa, with all his weaknesses, will be the only one who can salvage what will be left after Zuma vacates the presidency.