Former president Jacob Zuma has been given a fifteen-month jail sentence for contempt of court. Around the country, around the world, headlines scream delight. But have we learned our lesson?
Soon after everyone agreed that “racism is not the problem” regarding an allegation against Jacob Zuma, he was found guilty. I’m not surprised. But Zuma should have gone to jail for more than a decade before he became president, not for a few months thereafter. The difference between sentencing a retiree now and blocking a corrupt presidential candidate fifteen years ago has been an insufferable cost.
This dolorous outcome was produced by a simple fact. Back when jailing Zuma mattered most, his keepers said, “racism is the problem” and that keeping Zuma in power was the solution. Even unto death.
This is no exaggeration. Two of Zuma’s greatest threats were Bulelani Ngcuka, the chief prosecutor who brought Zuma’s accountant to conviction and opened an investigation into “Gedleyihlekisa” himself; and the Scorpions. How were they smeared a generation ago?
Ngcuka was branded “impimpi”, “apartheid spy RS452”, and a puppet of racist whites, while the Scorpions were accused of pursuing a racist agenda.
So, the Scorpions were disbanded, after which Zuma’s iklwa (assegai) sank from the head into the heart of South African law enforcement. The revenue authority, the intelligence service, the prosecuting authority, grassroots policing, the courts…no organ of law enforcement was spared the mighty spear whose stated aim was to rid the scourge of “racism” from our body politic. It was “surgery” by a million gashes, trillions of rands wasted, jobs and electricity shed. Meanwhile race-hustlers saw their fortunes rise to the chorus of umshini wami, alongside group-think denunciations of “clever blacks”, “uncle Toms”, “bloody agents,” and “white monopoly capitalists” who didn’t give a damn about Zuma’s looks but damned his looting.
Ordinary South Africans who thought the battle against apartheid had already been won were alarmed, many were incredulous to be told that white spooks were still hegemonic. Enter a cadre of journalists to kickbox apartheid ghosts for money rather than scrutinize living looters, especially when Zuma first stood for election as president.
Stop Zuma!
As the official opposition, the DA became the third great threat to Zuma, by fighting for oversight in Parliament, in the courts, and proclaiming this battle of wills on the streets. “Stop Zuma. Stop Corruption”. It could not have been simpler. You stop it before it happens, or weep after.
But Steven Friedman called this a “strategic mistake by the DA. The posters indicate that they are worried about [Zuma] because they have some kind of cultural problem with him”. Challenging the culture of corruption that Zuma was about to thrust into the Union Buildings was more than Friedman could stomach.
Peter Bruce found the “Stop Zuma” campaign “so disturbing I cannot even write about it.” But, unable to help himself (or anyone else) he did write about it, asking if “Stop Zuma” means “Stop the Blacks. Stop Zuma?” before also withholding a DA endorsement on the basis of this rhetorical question.
Karima Brown, not to be outdone, wrote in the Business Day that “the DA’s professed post-racial view of itself was once again exposed as mere window-dressing when it used Zumaphobia – seen by many as a ‘swart gevaar’ ruse – to whip up minority fears about an ANC victory”. Remember that? Our “leading lights” said Zuma wasn’t the problem, “swart gevaar” racism was. RIP Karima Brown, and RIP fake racism.
In the Pretoria News, Christine Qunta described “Stop Zuma” as a “swart gevaar moment” too, which showed “apartheid’s legacies” of “racial superiority and inferiority” were the real problem in play. “These still prevail”.
The list of people who thought stopping Zuma’s corruption was an act of racist dog-whistling goes on, including S’Thembiso Msomi, Jacques Rousseau, Sandile Memela, Charlene Smith, and the editorial leaders of the Eastern Cape’s Herald. The list is well compiled here by Jacques Maree. But even this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The evidence from polling
To see evidence of the madness of crowds led by race-hustlers, consider the following polling, collated from Ipsos and IRR-commissioned demographic surveys. Once Zuma’s acolytes (who did most damage) dug their fingers into the public purse, most people were apparently so convinced that what really mattered was preventing a racist plot to foil President “Authentic” that a majority started thinking this country was going in the right direction. It is almost too much to look at, but look and learn from history lest we repeat its folly.
With Zuma’s election, confidence in the country was restored. Reality came to bear eventually, as productivity declined, money started bleeding into elite back pockets, and loathing replaced reason in the mainstream discourse. But amazingly, by 2015, with the EFF and Bell Pottinger on the rise on the back of a newly enriched patronage network, revanchist hope replaced decent aspiration. The minor delusion that 2015 was a “right direction” year evaporated when, at the peak of the “Zuma Must Fall” protests, EFF leader Julius Malema said racism was not the problem, alliance with Zuma was.
The race card fails
“If not wanting Zuma is racism, then we are racist,” Malema thundered to ten thousand people outside the Union Buildings, and finally the bubble was burst. If even Malema would no longer use the race card to defend Zuma the latter had nothing left to shield himself in public and ordinary people no longer had any reason to pretend they were subject to anything but daylight robbery.
So, finally, long after the damage was done Zuma was undone, and we got serious about our problems. Zuma’s latest sentence is another small step to slaying the dragon that has long since been defanged. The bad news is this came too late to stop the rot; the lesson is that accountability came in when the race-card was thrown out.
Similar stories can be told about Ace Magashule and Zweli Mkhize. Both fell once corruption charges could be raised with no cadre of journalists to distract from the shocking details of citizen abuse by reference to fake racism. With those two we got serious about our problems more quickly than with Zuma, and got to a part-time solution more quickly too.
So that is good news, right? South Africa is finally doing away with a handful of pilferers without letting the race-card get in the way. Not enough. It is not enough to get rid of a few bad apples if you do nothing about the toxic mould infecting the whole kettledrum. It keeps banging on about everywhere-racism and more-state solutions that demand “unity”, BEE, and above all fealty to whoever is now in charge of wiping out the “racist” economy.
Racism is not the problem
In Zuma’s case racism was not the problem, but now the same people who said it was will repeat the mistake in the next case and the next. “Leading lights” will continue to blame mass unemployment and poverty on a few thousand “land thieves”, they will continue to say the problem with South African health is that the government is not interfering enough, they will continue to bemoan the shrinking number of dollar millionaires for not shrinking enough, they will continue to ignore black leaders inside and outside the DA who are sick of BEE, and if you have any doubt, consider this.
If Clicks put out its notorious ad this September instead of last September do you have any doubt that the race-baiting outcome would be different? If you think that’s just “advertising”, consider the law. Cadre deployment has been defended by President Cyril Ramaphosa, and while almost everyone agrees that BEE isn’t working, the proposed solution in Parliament is a “Pepuda” legal amendment that would enforce quotas in every synagogue, mosque and church, every school, club, and business, and in every other facet of public life you can imagine.
Racism is not the major problem in anyone’s eyes except those who see a direct route from state power to personal enrichment. That is the fundamental source of corruption in this country, and no one is going to jail for it. Just the opposite. On this track it will soon be illegal to say “racism is not the problem here” even when the facta probanda support its truth. The difference between that outcome and one worth hoping for is the willingness of South Africans to learn the lesson of Zuma’s fall from race-hustling immunity to disgrace.
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