Mashele, anti-Zuma propagandist

PRINCE Mashele has certainly distinguished himself as propagandist-inchief for the anti-Zuma and anti-ANC brigade.

Among peers he displays neither pride nor scruple. In the column he writes for Sowetan he never fails to demonstrate the poverty of his thought. The July 11 piece (“Should Zuma serve time in prison?”) is more of the same.

The piece is woven around a statement attributed to the younger brother of President Jacob Zuma, Michael Zuma. The patent misrepresentation is that the Zuma family is haunted by the spectre of his inevitable imprisonment on the basis of 783 charges whose withdrawal by the former National Director of Public Prosecutions [Mokotedi Mpshe] was declared invalid and set aside by the Constitutional Court.

The chorus about the presumed guilt of the president by so-called constitutionalists is legendary. None stop to ask why 783 charges except to throw enough mud in the hope something sticks. The case against President Zuma has always been poisoned by counter-revolutionary motives since the fight against the Strategic Defence Package began in 1996. You cannot accuse Mashele of never offering policy alternatives for the completion of the national democratic revolution.

He can only support those who wish to roll it back. Playing the man is their stock in trade. Mashele is an insult to African intellectual tradition.