"The notion that the values and principles that drove the anti-apartheid struggle would survive unblemished into the democratic erais no more"

In the early 1990s the political community was awash with tales of foreign arms dealers moving in and out of South Africa. Word had reached them that South Africa would soon be embarking on a military retooling exercise and that it was time to buy influence. But this being the eve of the transition to majority rule, they were not interested in the National Party apparatchiks who ran the government at that stage. They were only interested in the ANC, the government-in-waiting.

And, so the stories went, suitcases of dollars *1 and holidays in exotic locations were offered to top ANC military men and others in strategic decision-making positions.

Whether anyone in the ANC leadership took any of these gifts we may never know. But what we do know is that many of the relations cemented then were to prove important a few years later when the government embarked on the strategic defence review, the process that led to the signing of the $4.8-billion arms deal in 1999.

We now also know that it was that deal, now dubbed “controversial” by peaceniks, which cost us our innocence as a nation and showed us just how corruption works in the big, bad world.

Today we know that Joe Modise, the great hero of the military struggle and former Defence minister, was corrupted by the arms deal and left behind a sullied legacy. Tony Yengeni, a man who had risen to ANC Chief Whip and probably had a ministerial career ahead of him, saw his reputation fall apart when it was revealed that he had been involved in corruption related to the arms deal. The convicted fraudster ­ who likes to appear in public wearing bright yellow jackets ­ has come to represent the official face of corruption.

And we know of many others who received loyalty-inducing gifts from arms companies.

The arms deal’s latest victim is Deputy President Jacob Zuma, a man who was within a whisker of the highest office in the land. No matter how much he and his supporters try to stage a fight-back campaign, Zuma’s political obituary has been written. He is yesterday’s man, someone who allowed a heroic political life to end in disgrace. With Zuma’s impending exit from formal public life, South Africa will have lost one of the finest minds in politics and someone who still stood to make a great contribution to our evolution into a great country.

But the biggest victim of the arms deal is our innocence ­ our naive notion that men and women who worked to build a free and democratic society were immune from the disease that was endemic, but remained hidden from public scrutiny, in the country that we killed on April 26 1994.

The notion that the values and principles that drove the anti-apartheid struggle would survive unblemished into the democratic era is no more. Question marks have been placed over how realistic the preservation of the struggle-era service ethos is.

The arms deal taught us that even good men and women are corruptible.

Take Zuma. Here was somebody who was universally admired for his humility, political acumen and peace-making skills.

In his quest to please Schabir Shaik, the shady businessman who effectively owned him, he agreed to work against his country’s investigative agencies on behalf of a French arms company. On behalf of the French, his task was to work against his country’s interests, his organisation’s principles and ultimately to violate the Constitution and laws he had taken an oath to uphold.

In trying to dig himself out of the hole, Zuma has waged war against the National Prosecuting Authority, another state organ. This war, which has claimed the scalps of the NPA’s former head, Bulelani Ngcuka, and some of his lieutenants, has been ugly and unseemly.

It was a war joined by Zuma supporters and a host of others who had been investigated by the Scorpions. The Scorpions may have withstood the first few rounds, but their tenacity and doggedness have certainly earned them permanent enemies in influential circles ­ enemies who may yet see to it that the unit is shut down.

The next institution in the firing line was the judiciary, especially in the person of Judge Hilary Squires. Judge Squires’s crime was to find Shaik guilty of bribing Zuma and defrauding his own companies.

Rather than being disgusted by the act of corruption, Zuma’s supporters have trained their guns on the judge and sought to discredit his judgment by pointing to his Rhodesian past.

They have also started a whispering campaign that effectively blames President Thabo Mbeki for Zuma’s predicament. According to this conspiracy theory, Mbeki somehow orchestrated the investigation into the corrupt relationship between Zuma and Shaik in order to frustrate the deputy president’s rise to the nation's top position.

Armed with this flimsy theory they are mounting a massive counter-offensive that is bordering on rebellion against the centre.

This titanic battle is turning the current period into the most divisive moment in South Africa’s post-1994 history as it pitches comrade against comrade, and even threatens to arouse pockets of latent ethnic and racial prejudice. *2 Even the Left, which is normally very clear on issues of morality and ethics, has been turned into an apologist forum for corruption because its preferred presidential candidate has been found to be compromised.

That is what corruption has done to our national project. It has torn us asunder ­ divided not on issues of policy or ideology, but on what should be a clear issue of the rightness or wrongness of corruption. It has clouded our sense of moral judgment and made us confuse villains for heroes.

It needn’t be that way *2. This is a moment in our history when we should be using the lessons of the arms deal to set markers for our future. We should be drawing lessons about how the corruption serpent strikes, how its poison courses through the body politic and infects society.

We should be debating how we are going to strengthen the antidotes to this poison ­ the investigative agencies, the judiciary and the national legislature’s oversight capacity.

There should be a national discussion raging about how we make sure that popular outrage at corruption does not get overwhelmed by populist loyalty to individuals who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Members of our society need to understand that they are the ultimate victims of the kind of relationship enjoyed by Shaik and Zuma. Our society also needs to understand that only its rejection of corruption and corrupt individuals will entrench a culture of honesty in the public and private sectors.

Finally, we need to draw lessons about what our society needs to do to prevent good men and women from becoming infected with this disease.

South Africa, a land on the cusp *3 of economic prosperity, will in future be entering into many mega-deals where there will be great incentives for corrupt activity. There will be more arms acquisitions in future, acquisitions which will bring to our shores grubby men with suitcases of dollars and other temptations.

Within the coming year the first steps in the construction of the Gautrain will be taken, a project that will carry lucrative and tempting subcontracts. As the 2010 World Cup draws closer, there will be many opportunities that will tempt greedy individuals to take short cuts in securing tenders. And as the government and parastatals roll out their massive infrastructure programme, there will be many ­ at all levels of government ­ who will want to seize the chance to corrupt and influence decision makers.

While it is the responsibility of all South Africans to entrench a national culture of morality and ethics, this effort needs to be led from the top. This will obviously begin with the removal of Zuma from office, a move that will send a message to all public servants and businessmen that this society takes its commitment to clean governance seriously. South Africa’s ruling party needs to be unambiguous in its pronouncements on corruption and must act accordingly. There are welcome signs that the era of going softly on party members involved in corrupt activities is behind us and that the ANC now intends to act firmly against errant members.

But for us to fully understand this phenomenon and take all the steps needed to stamp it out, we may need to retrace our steps to the early 1990s when those grubby men first arrived to soil our souls.

We may just have to be courageous enough to re-open the entire arms-deal probe and let the nation deal with whatever comes out. It will be a most useful exercise which will leave tomorrow’s South Africans with no reason to use the excuse: “We did not know how it worked.”

With acknowledgements to Mondli Makhanya and the Sunday Times.

*1 Actually gym bags. They's less conspicuous, many people carry them around (nearly) every day and they easy to exchange at the gym or coffee shop.

*3 But not quite there.

We will never get there if the national infection is not pre-empted - Viva.