Be afraid, be very afraid for the future
IT IS NOW A CRIME TO THINK LIKE AN AFRICAN
SOME people call me a prophet of doom, and they’re probably right.
The truth is, I am afraid for this country, very afraid. Every day brings depressing news. No sooner had President Jacob Zuma told us to stop thinking like Africans than his supporters heckled (DA leader) Helen Zille at a government function.
The president sat stonily as he used to when Julius Malema attacked everyone. I heard Zille complain that Nelson Mandela would not have stood for it. True that, but that ’ s just not Zuma ’ s way. Not long ago it was Smuts Ngonyama (former ANC head of communications), and who knows who it will be next.
I frankly doubt if we have the consciousness that is needed to sustain a democratic society. People who have been humiliated and degraded are often tyrants in the making.
But then again, we seem not to have much of a choice when it comes to alternatives, both within the ruling party and outside it. If they want their party to hold on to power and retain their positions, party members are going to fall behind a leader who tells them to stop thinking like Africans.
It used to be – under (former president) Thabo Mbeki – a crime not to think like Africans. Don ’ t be un-African was the injunction.
Under Zuma, it is a crime to think like Africans. Don ’ t be too African is the new injunction.
Which is which comrades, to be or not to be? I hear you say the president was just joking and I should get over it. Please forgive me, I ’ m just a humourless academic, I don ’ t get the joke.
As if falling behind JZ will not be enough of a quandary, party members also have to fall in line behind a deputy president who is being accused of masterminding democratic South Africa ’ s first massacre of workers, Whether those accusations are true or false, the question that will not go away is: On what constitutional authority did a private businessman instruct cabinet ministers?
The party is in a bind on this one too. Even though the folks in KwaZulu-Natal might want to replace (ANC deputy president Cyril) Ramaphosa with Nkosazana DlaminiZuma, a Zuma- Zuma ticket might just not sell – pardon the pun. Today ’ s ANC reminds me of the Soweto boxing sensation of the early 1970s, Anthony “Blue Jaguar ” Morodi – no offence to Blue Jaguar. When asked which opponent he feared the most, Blue Jaguar would say: “
Biko is turning in his grave
(“No such boxer had been born yet ”). That was until Mdantsane ’ s Happyboy Mgxaji came along and gave him a wallop.
Zille may of course present herself as the Happyboy of our times. But I can also hear (ANC secretary general) Gwede Mantashe say, in a paraphrase of Lloyd Bentsen ’ s memorable rebuttal of Dan Quayle: “Helen, I knew Happyboy. I grew up with Happyboy. Happyboy was a friend of mine. Helen, you ’ re no Happyboy.”
Fair enough, but then Mantashe should not be too reticent because he also knows how a lion can be brought down by a pack of hyenas biting away at it.
But the hyenas at least have a strategy. Not so our opposition parties. And that ’ s a real nub for South Africa – generally. The mere fact that opposition leaders cannot even form themselves into an alliance gives an indication of the kind of rulers they would become.
They would be what in isiXhosa is called oozwilakhe (it ’ s their word or the highway). We have seen, on our continent and elsewhere, how former democrats have turned into tyrants.
What then, if neither the rulers nor the opposition offers any hope.
My secret plan, which comes out of desperation more than anything, starts with running for president of Azapo – please, don ’ t take this literally comrades, it ’ s just a manner of speaking.
I would then do what Oscar Arias did when he was elected president of Costa Rica.
A respected military man, he abolished Costa Rica ’ s military. No country has attacked Costa Rica since.
Similarly, my first order of business would be to de-register Azapo as a political party. What is the point of spending all that money and energy to put one person in parliament so they can speak for a few seconds during question time?
Azapo would then do what AfriForum does for its constituencies, or what progressive white-led organisations such as Section 27 and Equal Education are doing for our own children, while we sit on the sidelines and watch.
(Deceased Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve) Biko must be turning in his grave.