Former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s constant refrain concerning his investigation and prosecution by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is that the process is reminiscent of his persecution by the apartheid criminal justice system in the not-too-distant past. Whether Zuma genuinely feels this way, or this is part of a political strategy to drum up popular sentiment against his impending trial, cannot be known by anyone except Zuma himself and his closest confidants. But clearly the apartheid analogy is a theme he has decided to emphasise over recent weeks.

Speaking to thousands of supporters gathered outside the Durban Magistrate’s Court — not to mention a media contingent including local and international broadcasters — Zuma said he never thought that a decade after the country had defeated white minority rule, he would find himself in court — yet again, the victim of a system seemingly designed to oppress him.

Supporters in the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League, KwaZulu-Natal ANC, the South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) take the view that the individuals, and even the state institutions, to have caused Zuma’s downfall are illegitimate and are in the service of an anti-working class counter-revolutionary agenda.

To some it might appear strange, even cynical, this public spectacle of pained victimhood from arguably one of the country’s most powerful figures.

It is true that ANC leaders have been hauled before courts in their time, found guilty, and sentenced to long terms in prison, and it is not wrong to invoke that history of judicial persecution.

But many argue that Zuma cannot be the aggrieved figure that he publicly claims to be. Even allowing for the possibility that he is innocent of the charges against him, he most certainly is not the tragic victim of a venal, racist system out to get him at whatever cost.

He is being prosecuted under entirely different conditions. His appearances to face allegations that he defrauded the democratic state have been before a magistrate appointed by the very dispensation that he fought long and hard to achieve. If Zuma prefers to play the victim, it is said, he might reflect on the fact that he is a victim of the success of the revolution he helped bring about.

It is also argued that Zuma’s supporters are playing a dangerous game when they call into question, with Zuma’s implicit backing, the integrity of state institutions such as the Scorpions, the NPA, and the courts themselves. These are now our institutions, an integral part of our new state, it is said. We must claim them as our own. To disparage them because one of our supposed heroes now finds himself on the wrong side of the law is throwing the baby out with the bath water. The system is not racist. It does not act disproportionately against those who fought against apartheid. It cannot be used to settle old scores. To argue otherwise is sophistry and political dissembling to escape liability for wrongdoing.

All of this is very persuasive stuff, except if you sat inside courtroom 12 in the Durban Magistrate’s Court last Tuesday. Zuma made the second of what will be a long series of appearances during his coming corruption trial.

The experience was a salutary lesson in how little has changed in the functioning of our courts. But for the fact that a black woman sat on the bench listening to the arguments of prosecution and defence, the whole thing could have been taking place in apartheid SA, circa 1976.

To begin with, the prosecuting team was white, the defence black, which totally undermines the argument that it is the new order that is prosecuting Zuma. A prominent Cosatu leader came up to me during an adjournment and held up my media accreditation card, which read “The State vs Jacob Zuma”. He examined it closely before asking: “Which state?”

Argument between prosecution and defence was delayed for an hour, as head prosecutor Billy Downer insisted that Zuma stand in the dock “like an ordinary accused”. In what naive fantasy world is the former deputy president of the republic an ordinary accused?

Zuma’s lawyers pleaded for their client to be spared the ignominy of the dock and be allowed to sit next to his defence for close consultations. The spectacle went on for too long, and one of the officials of the NPA later remarked: “I don’t understand what Billy hoped to achieve with that stunt.” To those who sat in the public gallery, the answer — total humiliation — seemed obvious.

The court’s staff was all black but was commanded by a burly white policeman who at one point was referred to as “baas” by one of his black underlings.

In one galling incident, the “baas” attempted to stop the noise from the public gallery by wagging a thick pink finger — € la PW Botha — and declaring: “I’m warning you people.” His audience included provincial premier S’bu Ndebele, former South African National Defence Force chief Sphiwe Nyanda, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe and ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe.

From the back of the courtroom someone shouted “Amandla!” and the place reverberated with the response of all present. But for the knowledge that both the accused and his leading cheerleaders were all members of the new ruling elite, it was a sickening throwback to the struggle trials of the past.

Whatever the outcome of The State vs Jacob Zuma, impartial historians will remark that for a period of three hours on the morning of October 11 2005, room 12 of the Durban Magistrate’s Court was a time portal. I would like to think that this is what the black constable meant when he warned us to quieten down as his pompous white superior was approaching. His “baas” reference was tongue-in- cheek, an ironic reminder to the gathered elites that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

This is our country, for sure, but it is not yet our state.

Mde is political correspondent.

With acknowledgements to Vukani Mde and the Business Day.