The Zondo Commission is the best thing in years for South Africa (the only good thing?). It is invaluable even if it never leads to a single conviction of the criminal gang which has been looting this country since 1994. This is because of the insights it gives into the endemic, state-sponsored corruption that is destroying our economy while making a small elite extremely rich. Recently it has been giving extra insights into the attitudes and ambitions of this elite. It has proved fascinating.
Recently our fascination has been with the goings-on of Malusi Gigaba, who held various ministries under President Zuma, and his soon-to-be ex-wife, Norma. The Sunday Times last week devoted a whole page (fully illustrated) to the couple. According to Norma, Malusi has over 200 suits, all expensive, most tailor-made. Norma herself saw nothing wrong with buying a pair of sneakers for R11,000. She says Malusi asked her to keep her spending to R100,000 a month. Later on she was furious when he gave her a credit card with a limit of R3,000. “There is nothing in my life that I can do with R3,000 and he knows it”.
The striking thing is the utter lack of shame of either Gigaba. On the contrary they are obviously proud of their wealth and feel entitled to it. She poses not as a rich looter but as a poor victim. It goes further than that: they seem to feel that acquiring this wealth, and the status that goes with it, is what is expected of them. In a country with mass poverty, 43% unemployment and a child grant of R460 a month, Norma Gigaba, with her R11,000 sneakers, says there is nothing she can do with R3,000 a month.
Julius Malema is the same. He sees nothing wrong with posing as an African working-class hero and wearing red overalls in parliament while openly wearing a Breitling watch and the most expensive European clothes and apparel, including Armani, Gucci and Louis Vuitton. (At least some of Gigaba’s suits were made in South Africa, while all of Malema’s adornments seem to be made in Europe.)
Duduzane Zuma, son of the former president, was driving a Porsche in 2014 when he killed two black women. In a land of the hungry where the ANC Government never stops speaking about “inequality” and “Radical Economic Transformation”, Duduzane Zuma is completely unabashed about his massive wealth and sumptuous luxuries.
Across the border, Robert Mugabe’s son drove a Rolls Royce past his starving countrymen. His widow, Grace, owned sixteen farms from which she drove the black farm workers into destitution. Neither would see any contradiction between the way they live and their pretensions to be the champions of the poor and the scourge of white imperialism. In our municipalities, where poor black people suffer hardship and disease because of failing water supply and sanitation, the ANC mayors feel that their number one priority is a gleaming new BMW with blue lights flashing.
Some years ago I spent a long time (much too long) at Dubai Airport. It is clean, efficient, safe and friendly but for some reason I hated it. There I saw the world’s most expensive brands and luxury goods. I went into a shop selling Louis Vuitton handbags and came away mystified. Afterwards I said to a friend who is a financial journalist, “I can’t see any difference between one of those Louis Vuitton bags costing R60,000 and a bag at the stall of an informal trader on Fish Hoek Main Road costing R60”. His answer was significant: “You can’t but they can.”
I think this is the key. Human society is divided into classes (Marx was right here but wrong about its implications – tragically wrong as it turned out). Each class is constantly monitoring itself, checking on its members, quick to demote anyone not observing the right codes and protocols, or without the right belongings and properties. Africa is the most class-conscious continent of all. For the African ruling class, the absolute highest priority is to conform to the manners, pageantry and above all possessions and dwelling places of the superior class. To belong to the ANC upper class, you must send your children to a private school or Model-C school with mainly white teachers, or else you are scorned. The black upper classes seem constantly to be checking each other’s labels and brands. If a ruling class lady spots a peer with a handbag that is not a real Louis Vuitton, a sneer forms on her upper lip. That sneer is more to be feared than a policeman’s truncheon.
This is why you see over and over again ANC grandees, accused of corruption, giving a sort of puzzled look. “But I’m only doing what all the rest are doing. How can I get a BMW and Gucci shoes unless I steal like them? Except it isn’t really stealing; I’m entitled to it.”
What about the black working classes? What about the hungry black masses? Oh, my dear! How yawn-making! “Waiter! Another Johnny Walker Blue over here!”.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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