Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2005-12-11 Reporter:

The Incredible Shrinking Zuma

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2005-12-11

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

In April last year, Jacob Zuma stood before then Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson and was sworn in as the country’s deputy president. In October this year, Zuma stood before Durban magistrate Bilkesh Asmal, facing charges of fraud and corruption. This week, he stood before Johannesburg magistrate M Budricks, charged with rape.

A day later, the ANC, Zuma’s political family for four decades, stripped him of all power, insisting he would not be allowed to speak or act as a leader of the party.

This was the ultimate fall. The man who would be President was rendered powerless even to lead his hordes of rowdy supporters in revolutionary song.

The next time we will see Zuma will be in the role of the accused, ascending and descending the steps of court. We will be treated to some uncomfortable details about his life, some of them sordid.

His mob will continue to rally outside the courts, hurling insults at the institutions of the republic. But they, too, will be powerless as the courts process Zuma in the way it is done in societies that respect the rule of law.

He will be a smaller figure than the man who stood before Chaskalson in April 2004.

That is the tragic story of Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, a man who dedicated his life to building a democratic republic, only to be devoured by democracy’s spoils and compromised by his own weaknesses. His fall from grace has not only robbed him of a political career, but robbed South Africa of a tireless worker and a man of the people.

The nation will dissect the so-called Zuma saga as we seek answers as to where things went wrong for this man who was destined for great things in his land and beyond. As a people we will also have to look beyond him and begin to think about life after Zuma.

We will have to recognise what this saga has taught us about ourselves and the leaders we choose.

We now know, through the testimony and verdict of the Schabir Shaik trial, that the man who would have led us after 2009 is a seriously flawed human being. We have seen him leading the charge against institutions of governance, attempting to turn public opinion against the very structures which he hoped to inherit as President. We have been privy to his lack of judgment, something which would have come back to haunt us once he was ensconced in the Union Buildings.

Fortunately, Zuma saved us from himself.

As South Africans we should now begin the hard conversation about what we have learnt from the rise and fall of Jacob Zuma. We should be talking about the qualities we want in our leaders and what sort of person we want to lead us into the post-Thabo Mbeki era.

The ANC and its allies, as the country’s political centre, should lead this discussion. The party must account for why so many heroes of the liberation struggle have been allowed to lose the service ethos that defined the fight against apartheid. The country will have to establish how we can regain some of that ethos and apply it in today’s materialistic society, which so quickly turns good men and women into avaricious monsters.

With acknowledgements to Sunday Times.