If blood is spilt for Zuma, it will be on the ANC’s hands

0Shares

By Ismail Mahomed

The sentencing of former president Jacob Zuma to 15 months in prison for contempt of court is a stunning victory for the rule of law, and those planning on engaging in acts of violence in support of Zuma will follow him to prison.

As Jacob Zuma continues to fight his 15-month prison sentence, and crowds grow larger outside Nkandla, who will be held responsible if violence erupts, asks Ismail Mahomed.

If there is any blood to be spilt or lives to be lost in the next few days as a result of the crisis in KwaZulu-Natal, it will have to rest on the collective shoulders of the ANC, both as a post-liberation political party and as a government. Jacob Zuma is merely the by-product of a party that has long ago lost all its morality.

From the early days when Tony Yengeni’s 4×4, Baleka Mbete’s faked driving licences, and Nkosazana Zuma’s Sarafina hit the headlines, it was the ANC collective that turned its nose up against the people, closed ranks to protect the corrupt, and sent a strong message that its political leadership has a right to bribery, illegality and corruption because it is above the people. And even above the law!

It’s not surprising then that from those seeds of corruption in its infant years as a government, the ANC spawned a forest of corruption that bore fruits that only its party members, families and inner circle could enjoy. It bred a culture of impunity; and Jacob Zuma was baptised in it as its party leader.

From Zuma’s rape trial, right through his farcical Nkandla fire pool, all the way to his accepting a bribe from the French arms company Thales, the ANC cheer-led and defended him.

He was not the only one to benefit financially from the exorbitant arms deal corruption. Party members whose parents brought them up on the smell of an oil rag suddenly learnt to feel the texture of money; and they wanted lots of it for themselves and by any means whatsoever that they could land their hands on it.

In the ANC’s inner circle, a political leader who could not weave into corrupt deals that would buy him extravagant cars, palatial homes, labelled clothes and holidays paid for by the tax payer, that leader was branded as impotent.Power in the ANC is not measured by a constituency of followers.

Power in the ANC is measured by how many hungry people would be prepared to join a rent-a-crowd event or another political rally, where the crowd can be blessed with a packet of chicken wings, a T-shirt with a slogan that hypnotises them, and a bottle of fruit juice that would sweeten their throats to sing old fashioned freedom songs.

Behind the scenes, from where the busloads of rent-a-crowders would sit to eat their chicken wings, the new ANC elite would be like pigs eating at a trough. It is under this culture of greed and impunity and a total disregard for the founding values of the ANC that Jacob Zuma became nestled in the Gupta’s Saxonwold Shebeen; and he remained cheer-led by the troupe of ANC sweethearts who thrived under his watch. Jessie Duarte, Mac Maharaj, Ace Magashule, Angie Motshekga… the list is endless of this band of fools who fuelled the monster.

Zuma makes brief appearance outside his Nkandla home while suspended Magashule arrives

Former president Jacob Zuma made a brief appearance outside his Nkandla homestead to greet his supporters. Suspended ANC Secretary-General, Ace Magashule has also arrived to support Zuma.

Even with Zuma thrown out as president and with the Guptas safely ensconced in Dubai, there was no ceremony to cleanse the soul of the ANC. It had already become cancerous.Thievery and corruption had become its lifeblood.

Even so much so that when the nation has to protect itself from the Covid-19 pandemic, billions have been stolen from the coffers by ANC members and their inner circle; and increased the risk of fatalities in the country.

In just 50 days short of reaching its 10 000th day in Parliament (today is day 9 958), the ANC has taken Nelson Mandela’s dream of a country of hope and prosperity down a path of ruin, destruction and decay. The ANC’s 10 000th day of being in power will be on Women’s Day, 9 August, this year.

Perhaps, only the gods will know if Justice Sisi Kampepe’s hand in the Constitutional Court was held by the spirits of Charlotte Maxeke, Victoria Mxenge, Helen Joseph and the many departed ANC women who wanted a country for their children where all would be equal before the law. And even if it was their hand guiding hers, unfortunately, the Spear of the Nation that once drove the ANC is still far more greater, far more violent and far more accessible than the Constitution from which Justice Kampepe found inspiration.

As the apex court of South Africa, its ruling should have been forceful enough from day one for government to mobilise its police and armed forces to prevent the illegal gathering of Zuma’s supporters at his homestead.

With every beat of the toyi toyi, it is more than just a song of support for Jacob Zuma.It is a song of rebellion against a collective ANC leadership that has failed this country, driven more of its people to poverty and fermented racism and xenophobia to defend itself; and which is now leaving its greatest fool to face the music for all its own weaknesses.

The gathering of the mobs is a rebellion against a party that has made one fallen man its biggest victim, whilst those who remain in the party’s inner circle shield themselves, get rid of evidence, eliminate whistleblowers and continue to eat like pigs at a trough.

At a time in our country when the Constitutional Court has made an unprecedented ruling, and which has led to the kind of mobilising of forces in KZN and which poses significant risks of violence and bloodshed, President Cyril Ramaphosa chose to go to a funeral across our borders. At a time like this, he should have delegated representation and stayed at home.

As the country’s commander-in-chief, he should have commandeered the armed forces to break up Zuma’s gathering of the crowds, not to show his wrath for Zuma, but rather for him to exercise the National Disasters Act to save the crowds from becoming super-spreaders that will endanger the health and well-being of an entire nation.

At a time when hospitals are in crisis, Covid-19 numbers are rising and government is still dithering with rolling out vaccines, saving the lives of the crowds should have been far more important than him sitting back and playing chess on his iPad. He is making a bloody wrong move.

If it won’t be violence and bloodshed between opposing forces that will blemish the next few days, then it will be an increase in Covid-19 deaths that will come from a super-spreader event which is banned, but for which the president and his men have no balls to stop.

Either way, whether it is death by violence or death by Covid-19, the deaths will be on his watch – like Marikana too was – and on the collective consciences of a party that has lost all its morality.

–News24

– Ismail Mahomed is a multi-award-winning arts administrator and playwright. He was the former Director of the National Arts Festival and former CEO of the Market Theatre Foundation. He currently serves as the Director of the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes extensively in his personal capacity on matters about the arts, civil society and social change.