The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) deigns to tell President Thabo Mbeki what to do and no one laughs at the absurdity of its pretensions.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) and the juveniles that make up the vanguard in defence of former deputy president Jacob Zuma think they can summon national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli to a meeting so they can give him a piece of their small minds about the conduct of his Scorpions, and we in the media respond as if this is the latest dramatic twist in the Zuma saga since the raid on his properties and those of his close associates last week.

Have we no sense of humour? Have we not the healthy cynicism that is, quite frankly, the only thing that can help us negotiate our way through the theatre of the absurd that Cosatu and the SACP want to turn SA into?

How else except through the theatre of the absurd ­ in which nothing makes sense, human life has no intrinsic meaning and dialogue is incoherent, at best ­ can one explain recent events.

First, we have Cosatu shouting from the rooftops that Zuma is innocent until proven guilty and then demanding that he be given his day in court. Zuma, who has been singing a similar tune for the past two years, and Cosatu are granted their wish and what is their response? Mbeki must drop the charges against him and reinstate him as deputy president, they demand. They say, for good measure, they will make the country ungovernable if Mbeki does not play ball.

Cosatu’s demand and threat raise a number of questions, chief among which is whether Cosatu folk have ever bothered to read our constitution. Have they heard of the separation of powers?

Government was apparently so taken aback by the crassness of Cosatu’s demand that its first instinct was to ignore it.

But, unsure how Cosatu’s stunt was affecting public opinion, the cabinet decided on a polite statement reminding Cosatu that SA was a constitutional state, and Mbeki could not interfere with the judiciary.

The statement was nice enough but government would have been better served by a short statement that went something like: “The cabinet has duly noted Cosatu’s demand and its response is as follows: Ha, ha, ha.”

That would have been the best way of dealing with Cosatu’s silly demand. In the theatre of the absurd, dialogue does not have to make sense or follow any rules of engagement.

Responding with humour to Cosatu and the many juveniles threatening to turn SA into Shitville if Zuma is not absolved of all guilt and given his job back would set the tone for what is going to be a long drama.

It would also make it easier for the National Prosecuting Authority to respond to the SACP when it demands a meeting with Pikoli. He could send them a letter saying: “Your, er, letter refers. Ha, ha, ha. Thank you for your correspondence.”

To be fair, Pikoli might not have the time but it would do him no harm to humour the SACP, the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League and other Zuma supporters.

The youth league likes to claim that it has yet to lose a succession dispute in the ANC (a debatable point). It thinks it is on a winning streak and that Zuma will be the next president of the ANC and SA. The league thinks it is the kingmaker in the ANC. Well, people in mental asylums have been known to think themselves Jesus of Nazareth. But you do not always make them see the error of their ways by telling them they are crazy.

Sometimes, it is better to just indulge their delusions and let them think they are what they think they are. “So, you think you are the kingmakers,” we should say to the deluded. “Okay, then. Let’s see if you can make Zuma’s corruption charges go away.”

The league and other juvenile groups cannot and will not make Zuma’s charges disappear. But their delusions of power are such that they are not going to stop thinking they can. We cannot get vexed over this. We cannot lose our cool. That would be a waste of precious time.

What we can do is laugh at them and at ourselves for being dragged into this theatre of the absurd. We cannot make Cosatu, the youth league and company see sense by getting into a froth and telling them how ridiculous they are.

But we can, hopefully, shame them through humour. Not Leon Schuster’s toilet humour or the kind of comedy sketches you see all the time in townships.

We can shame them by just appreciating their stunts ­ all sound and fury *1 but little significance ­ for their absurdity. It is not often, after all, that you get a drama fashioned after the theatre of the absurd staged here.

Dlamini is political editor.

With acknowledgements to Jacob Dlamini and Business Day.

"This investigation reminds me of Shakespeare's Macbeth when he said after a long soliloquy "... It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

The NPA Investigation : Statement by Deputy President Jacob Zuma

Issued by Office of the Presidency

Attention News Editors

For immediate release

15 August 2003

http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/special_items/statements/zuma_statemnt.html

With acknowledgement to the Office of the Presidency.