South Africa’s democracy will be under enormous pressure for as long as the ANC refuses to renew or re-invent itself, writes Eusebius McKaiser.
It is tempting to laugh at President Jacob Zuma’s hubris. But that would be utterly irresponsible given the ruinous impact of his arrogance on our society.
Twice in the past week his arrogance was on full display like an emperor oblivious to his naked shame. He told parliamentarians that he felt abused when he appeared in the National Assembly.
He also called on all of us, especially the media, to desist from constructing negative narratives when talking about the country.
Let’s examine each of these ludicrous claims.
Abuse is what we, as citizens, suffer when the looting from the state continues unabated by Zuma and his cronies who have a rapacious appetite.
Abuse is what hungry children in mud schools in the Eastern Cape experience when ghost civil servants are drawing salaries that were meant to pay for feeding schemes, transport systems and proper structures in which to learn to read and write on a full tummy.
Abuse is what the poor experience on the wrong side of the inefficiency divide in cities marred by apartheid geography and grossly inadequately serviced communities.
Abuse is what we all experience when a president fails to remember his own nine-point plan to stave off an economic recession so that we may yet experience economic growth conducive to job creation and poverty alleviation.
Abuse is what we feel when a president sits in Parliament chuckling nervously and awkwardly or maybe confidently (we can only guess which it is, in the absence of his ability and willingness to construct compelling arguments about what he thinks) instead of him taking responsive government seriously.
An abuse of the word “abuse” is what one sees when a grown-ass man with enormous constitutional, political and material powers and privileges pretends that the odd appearance in the National Assembly with a partisan Speaker shielding him counts as abuse.
That’s not abuse Mr President. That’s what one colloquially calls “taking the piss”. The same disingenuity applies to the laughable appeal that we keep the sunny side up when it comes to public narratives about our country.
No, Mr President, it’s not sunshine journalism that will prevent us from being downgraded by ratings agencies. It is good governance that will. Truth, not lies, will set us free from your dangerous grip.
And so effectively asking us all to lie about the hard truths about our democracy won’t cut it. For one thing, truth is impossible to hide in a time of new media and social media in particular.
Transparency is no longer a normative plea from citizens to their states the world over. It’s now, mercifully, an indelible feature of modernity because technology makes it impossible to stop the flow of information.
This means that the world can see what’s going on here regardless of what Hlaudi Motsoeneng chooses to broadcast at the SABC.
Not even the state security cluster can subvert truth for too long. It can simply delay the lid blowing off.
But lids blow off. So don’t bask in your hubris too comfortably.
Asking us to deliberately subvert awkward and embarrassing truths about the state of the state, the state of our leadership, and the state of our democracy in general, is bloody cheeky.
Let’s be honest (even if that’s not your forte), asking us to collude in manufacturing rosy narratives is really a request that we ignore your ruinous leadership, Mr President.
That would be imprudent on the part of active citizens and democrats, and poor journalistic form from the media if we did so. Not least because your definition of “negative” is “truth”.
The only thing to be said in pseudo-mitigation of the hubris of Zuma is that he is not the only one responsible for how we got to this point.
The more accurate fuller story of the troubled waters we are wading through is a story of the failure of the ANC to provide organisational leadership and oversight over Zuma.
That in turn means that the solution is more complex than recalling Zuma, pronto. Our democracy will be under enormous pressure for as long as the ANC, qua organisation, refuses to renew or re-invent itself.
The opposition parties must be very excited about 2019.
* Eusebius McKaiser is the best-selling author of A Bantu In My Bathroom and Could I Vote DA? A Voter’s Dilemma. His new book - Run, Racist, Run: Journeys Into The Heart Of Racism - is now available nationwide, and online through Amazon.