Silliness of our politics

WE ARE well and truly into the silly season. It is not just the promise of bargains to be had by consumers or tills that will be ringing merrily that is fighting for column space and airtime in the media.

Instead silliness is our politics. With an election just a few months away politicians are making sure they ’ re in the forefront of news coverage, hence, the sudden and frequent visits to areas they otherwise would not be bothered about.

A case in point is the little misunderstanding between President Jacob Zuma and Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance. It happened in Saldanha, Western Cape.

On Thursday last week in the Cape, as Zille was making a speech, she was booed by apparent ANC members. The president, the supposed chief defender of our country ’ s constitution, sat stone faced and did not intervene nor reprimand his supporters.

He not only failed Zille, but the country.

He could have seized the opportunity to deliver a stern reprimand to his supporters. He could have risen above petty party politics. To add salt to injury, the incident took place at what was supposed to be a government function, not a political event.

Luckily, later the president seemingly saw the light, and told his followers they needed to give others the platform to have their say no matter how unpalatable the utterances.

It ’ s called tolerance. Indeed tolerance is one bitter medicine we need to swallow if this democracy is to work. We need to tolerate dissent. It must be a value we live by. Shamefully, our first citizen did nothing to uphold this value in Saldanha.