Comment

The alleged corrupt relationship between businessman Schabir Shaik and deputy president Jacob Zuma provides basis for the following theoretical assumption: liberation fighters are most vulnerable at the point of independence. That is, in the period between immediately after the liberation struggle, and the beginning of the independence era.

This is the period of individual transition - from being a liberation fighter to being a government official. Some become cabinet ministers at provincial and national levels. Some become presidents: Nelson Mandela; Namibia's founding president Sam Nujoma; and even Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, whose lengthy guerrilla underground life culminated in Zim's presidency.

In this period, image matters. The rugged image of T-shirt and red cap, loosely hanging jacket; worn-out shoes and red socks, and bearded faces that symbolised a revolutionary image throughout the underground struggle years suddenly becomes obsolete and irrelevant. The Lenin, Guevara, Tse Tung and Castro images become irrelevant and rather inappropriate.

Now, yesterday's revolutionaries turned cabinet ministers and presidents are faced with the challenge of projecting an image that befits their position and status in society. They now have to wear designer suits and shoes, drive big German cars, their children need a "secure" and better school - so they leave the township schools and the whole family migrates to a posh urban area.

Even tastes change. French wines, Scottish and single malts assume centre stage. Although most spend many years in exile on the African continent, they now prefer taking holidays on exotic overseas islands.

These trappings of the good image and life make yesterday's revolutionaries vulnerable to bribery and corrupt relations within a capitalist system. Businessmen see these new wielders of political power as an investment, not costs. They easily make the goodies available: designer suits, German cars, holiday resorts, and children's access to suburban or even foreign schools.

The principle is simple: the new governors must look the part. They must reflect the image of ministers and presidents. They must be distinguished from the masses. In fact, the assumption is made that masses will only take them seriously if indeed their images reflect their new status in society.

Alternatively, an argument is advanced that the struggle was not meant to condone poverty in the new dispensation. Therefore, it is acceptable for liberation governors to exhibit expensive tastes and images.

Liberation fighters are also subject to the dictates of human nature. Mainly the desire to look good, to be admired, to be held in high esteem and to be outstanding among others. The capitalist system heightens these human desires that besiege liberation ministers and presidents.

It is this desire, which is both human nature and a capitalist social construct, which the businessmen prey on. Why indeed should they not spend R1-million on a politician when the returns from the politician's influence will earn them R5-million?

And this could be for just one project.

To backtrack: the business temptation of the liberation fighters becoming government officials has three key dynamics. It starts at the point of negotiations.

Firstly, the ANC was subjected to major ideological and chequebook seductions by big business during negotiations. Domestic and foreign business agencies organised economic "international fact-finding missions" for ANC leaders. Exclusive economic policy sessions were organised and paid for ANC leaders in expensive resorts. The aim was to detach the ANC from possibly assuming leftist economic policies in favour of capitalist ones. In this first stage, businessmen and institutions focus on the liberation movement. This ensures that the liberation government creates policies, legislation, institutions and basically an environment that favours the pursuit of capitalist ideals.

The second phase starts when liberation fighters assume governance. There are two dynamics here: organised business continues to seek influence on the liberation government as an institution. However, business institutions also assume individualistic tendencies and start to focus on specific liberation cabinet ministers and presidents.

At this point, businessmen use their acumen to either detect state officials who will rise rapidly both within the movement and government circles. Alternatively, they use their media institutions to create and advance specific individuals they would like to see rise to the top. Later, these individuals will be expected to use their political influence in favour of such businessmen.

The third phase unfolds a few years into independence when the liberation government seems to have firmly institutionalised the capitalist system.

The main feature of this phase is that senior government officials - premiers, cabinet ministers, directors-general and influential parliamentarians - with a liberation history are seduced into the private sector. Overnight companies are created and the comrades become directors. They become nothing less than active agents of capitalist forces that provide both the capital and the business institutional framework.

The ANC refers to this as "redeployment of cadres into transformation of the private sector". The fact is no one gets into business for transformation purposes, but simply to make money. The so-called ANC redeployed do not seem to be deviating from this capitalist practice. The question for another day is whether they are agents of economic transformation or victims of the system.

The preliminary conclusion of this theory, of which the bulk has clear practical manifestations, is that liberation fighters are very vulnerable at the point of independence. This vulnerability is due to human desires, capitalist social and economic construct, and presumed societal expectations on leaders.

Therefore, the alleged corrupt relationship between Shaik - the businessman, and Zuma - a provincial minister who rose to be deputy president, with the potential to be the next president, may be understood within this context.

The implication is that Zuma is not alone in this predicament. There could be several senior ANC politicians in the same position. That is, within an alleged corrupt relationship with some businessmen.

A number of ANC cadres have spent years fighting the apartheid regime underground. They had no regular income, salaries, pension funds or provident funds. Many, alongside Zuma, have catapulted into high public sector positions. They also have had to deal with image changes and business sector influence.

Thus, it is a fair assumption that a number of ANC leaders have some kind of relationship with businessmen. Whether these relationships are corrupt in nature, one can only tell once many of these are readily available for scrutiny.

Unpacking many of these relationships may render serious doubt on the integrity of many senior state officials, or those politicians who have since joined the private sector.

In short, Zuma is not alone in a relationship of convenience with businessmen. It is a relationship driven by historical factors, human nature, economic and social. Unfortunately for Zuma, he has emerged as the epitome of this kind of relationship.

Dumisani Hlophe is a political analyst at the Centre for Development Research

With acknowledgements to Dumisani Hlophe and The Star.