Ending with a whimper
Jacob Zuma’s life was intertwined with the liberation struggle from an early age, writes Nadine Dreyer, and those years deeply marked him
When Jacob Zuma made his dramatic appearance at the Zondo commission into state capture this week, South Africans resorted to their favourite sport of poking fun at a political figure. We are world champions at the kind of gallows humour that ridicules those who seek to rule us. Andile Mngxitama of Black First Land First hit the nail on the head when he tweeted: “Dear all, just remember, Zuma started a chess club on Robben Island. When others were reading Hegel, he was perfecting his chess moves.” On February 2 1990 FW de Klerk had made the dramatic announcement that the ANC would be unbanned and Nelson Mandela released. Documentary footage filmed shortly afterwards shows Zuma addressing activists demanding to know why the ANC was entering into negotiations with the apartheid state. Many were wary of entering into a pact with the devil and deeply suspicious of the enemy’s motives.
Zuma comes across as articulate, passionate, funny and dynamic. He points out with wry humour that no liberation movement had ever had the luxury of starting talks only at the moment when the enemy are on their backs, staring down the barrel of an AK47.
He disarms everybody by throwing in a bit of gossip about the Lancaster House agreement, which paved the way for negotiations in Zimbabwe a decade earlier.
Zuma’s masterful seduction gives some insight into why he was earmarked as a rising star in the movement. It sheds some light on why a figure now widely loathed and derided was trusted by Oliver Tambo — a liberation strategist without peer
He describes how a reluctant Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo were bundled onto a plane to London and ordered by the presidents of three frontline states not to return until they had agreed to a deal.
He gently pokes fun at rival political movements in SA voicing scepticism about the looming peace negotiations. “Where are their armies?” he jokes.
Zuma’s masterful seduction gives some insight into why he was earmarked as a rising star in the movement. It sheds some light on why a figure now widely loathed and derided was trusted by Oliver Tambo — a liberation strategist without peer— with critical missions as the country moved towards seismic change.
Tambo had tasked Zuma and Thabo Mbeki with exploring talks with the National Party government in 1987 at the height of state brutality and under a state of emergency. After De Klerk’s 1990 announcement, Zuma was one of the first leaders sent home to start the long process of negotiations.
Intertwined with the struggle
With all the scandals Jacob Zuma has been entangled in it’s easy to overlook just how intertwined his life has been with the liberation movement.
He was born in rural Nkandla in 1942. His father was a policeman who died when Jacob was only five years old. Zuma snr had two wives, and Jacob was the eldest of three boys born to his second wife.
After his father’s death, his mother was forced to find a job in Durban as a domestic