Shaeeem we ’ ve lost our sense of shame
HOW THE WRONGDOERS BECOME THE VICTIMS
SOUTH Africans have invented the term “shem”, often gently pronounced “shaeeem”.
It is a corrupted version of the English noun “shame”, which means disgrace, embarrassment, dishonour...
In proper English, the behaviour of a thief or a corrupt politician is “shameful”.
But in our own bastardised version of English, “shem” or “shaeeem” is an expression of deep-felt sympathy.
A colleague tells me that this invention could have been derived from the Afrikaans slang phrase “ag shame”.
It’s a mystery that a word that describes all that is embarrassing and all that should be avoided by conscientious human beings has been turned around to mean something noble, an expression of empathy to someone’s loss.
One wonders whether this is not perhaps partly at the heart of the political malaise in our country: our inability to give proper descriptions to things.
Failure to give proper descriptions or meaning to things or phenomena is essentially a failure of diagnosis.
As is often the case in medicine, a wrong diagnosis is certainly likely to result in a wrong medical prescription or surgery.
In politics, the wrong diagnosis of a political problem could result in a dangerous policy choice. Misdiagnosis is a big problem in our politics.
If a politician is caught with his hand in the cookie jar, an investigation is launched into his conduct, or he is arrested and dragged into court, some of the victims of that theft will say, with gentle kindness, “shaeeem”, to the thief.
Remember what Baleka Mbete did when Tony Yengeni was about to step into prison for defrauding parliament? She could have put Usain Bolt to shame when she sprinted up to Yengeni, gave him a hug and said “shaeeem” in a gentle tone.
A deserving forceful expression for wrongdoing should be “what a shame!”
But political elites caught on the wrong side of the law or rules in SA are easily made to become victims of some dark force as a result of the misdiagnosis.
If it’s not a dark force that has caused them the trouble, it’s a counter-revolutionary force or a neo-liberal offensive, the bogeyman media or the Central Intelligence Agency of the US.
Once the wrongdoers have been made victims of this unverifiable dark force or forces they miraculously win public sympathy.
They are somehow cleansed of the wrongs. They get the evergently pronounced “shaeeem”.
Even in death, criminals, who brought the institutions they led and their families into disrepute, get a resounding “shaeeem”.
The point is that, we have no sense of shame any more. President Jacob Zuma, for example, is totally unashamed that under his watch his home in Nkandla became the worst looting ground of public money.
His army of defenders are heaping a gentle “shaeeem” on him. The appropriate response from all self-respecting South Africans should be “what a shame!”
Once it’s been accepted that what happened in Nkandla was a disgrace, more so when public resources were looted for the benefit of the head of state whose constitutional duty it is to take care of them, then we can look for a way out of the shameful scenario.
But there is no way out of the shame at the moment because we are trapped in the supposedly less burdensome “shaeeem”.
It’s striking that since the Nkandla scandal was exposed by the media and confirmed by public protector Thuli Madonsela, no politician has resigned in acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
Politicians have been reshuffled and in some cases promoted because what they did deserved a “shaeeem”. Zuma is yet to apologise to South Africans and his party for causing so much embarrassment.
Instead, he is prepared to dismantle the office of the public protector, in violation of his constitutional duty to protect it, so that he can avoid paying back a portion of the Nkandla costs.
But how can he apologise and pay back a portion when the whole ANC, itself a victim of the scandal because its image has taken a battering, has pressed the button for all its members to say, in unison and with the respectful tone, to the president, “shaeeem”?
The same problem applies with regard to General Riah Phiyega.
Under her command, police officers shot and killed striking mineworkers in Marikana. They employed the wrong tactics, apparently with the clear intention to kill.
Many of the police officers involved face prosecution following the recommendations of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry’s report. Some reportedly suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Yet Phiyega is not ashamed. Had she been ashamed she would have stepped down voluntarily, even if she was not fingered by the report. The fact that she was implicated makes her departure from the top job urgent.
To bow out after such revelations would not be an act of cowardice. It would be an act of bravery, confirming that as a human being Phiyega still has her conscience intact, regardless of past mistakes. It would be an act of reasserting that conscience.
Alas, Phiyega now relies on provincial commissioners to tell her to ignore whatever her subconscious might be communicating to her at night.
All nine of those commissioners are saying to her, in gentle tones, “shaeeem”.
What a shame!