President Jacob Zuma Laughs Alone
An important element to unlocking South Africa’s true potential is that we should stop fearing those in power. Without this none of us will ever be equal. But it is a reflex acquired through centuries of jealously policed inequality that cannot be unlearnt overnight.
Hennie van Vuuren,
Director, ISS Cape Town Office
President Jacob Zuma has an infectious
laugh. His guffaws break the ice and disarm the tensest situation. At that
precise moment no answers are demanded on the infamous arms deal or police
corruption because the nation has the giggles and the President laughs loudest.
An ambassador – clearly charmed – once remarked to me that it is a ‘beautiful
laugh’ – and then laughed from his belly. The spell had been cast and from that
moment on he had a crush on my President.
However, for many South Africans the love
affair with our President is on the rocks. The polls reflect a growing unease
with politics that appears increasingly driven by self-preservation: preservation
of power, preservation from prosecution and preservation of moneyed lifestyles.
A potentially toxic mix and the basis of political impunity. How far are the
President and those around him prepared to go in pursuit of this goal?
In the shadows, formal and informal security
networks are settling scores and doing the dirty work of those in power.
Something sinister is afoot. A collusion of interests between people who have
guns and people who have money is starting to infect our politics in an
undeniable manner. The murder of a dozen ANC politicians, including a
whistleblower, in the past three years is an indication of this and the ruling
party has appointed a task team to look into it.
Why is this left to an ANC task team to
investigate when it should surely have been a matter that demanded attention
from the country’s spies at the State Security Agency? They have unparalleled
resources at their disposal, yet City
Press reports that the ANC’s Deputy General Manager will lead this
investigation. Why did the ANC leadership not call in State Security Minister
Siyabonga Cwele’s spies? Or are they not to be trusted to lead an investigation
and report to the President and to Parliament? Do the country’s elected
political leaders not represent the aspirations of a nation and not only party
apparatchiks?
One answer is that some politicians no
longer trust the state spies. While undertaking research on the unfolding saga
of alleged corruption and murder linked to suspended police crime intelligence
chief Lt-Gen Richard Mdluli a few months ago, I was struck by the fact that
some of the country’s highest ranking current and former police chiefs were
afraid to speak on their cellphones. It was a case of ‘batteries out of
cellphones first’. They, like former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, answer
their phones with the rhetorical ‘Hello Mr Mdluli’. Are top cops really that
afraid of an alleged criminal network that had come to control police crime
intelligence? This directly under the nose of the Minister of Police, the
Minister of State Security and the President?
What is certain is that a climate of fear is
gripping politics in the country and it is being driven by securocrats. This is
by no means a direct parallel to the machinations of the apartheid state.
However, the trend is worrying. Some of the feared repression is coated in
policy processes such as the Protection of State Information Bill (the Secrecy
Bill), and the current draft of the General Intelligence Amendment Bill – the Secrecy Bill’s ugly twin known as the
‘Spy Bill’. These pieces of legislation will block the free flow of
information, protect the corrupt and allow for the monitoring of communication
on email, MXit, Facebook, Twitter and Skype – providing more insight than spies
sitting in shebeens and potentially more effectively controlling the politically
disaffected urban population (those whose lives do not revolve around shopping
malls).
On the other hand, the proposed Traditional
Courts Bill (the ‘Chiefs Bill’) will ensure greater power for unelected male
traditional leaders at the expense of elected leaders. Thereby potentially drawing
together the strings of a patronage network in rural areas that is largely
accountable to the man who dispenses the money in Pretoria. These three pieces
of legislation, in tandem, will ensure that a conservative-minded state
apparatus inevitably works against the values of an open society. It has the
potential to keep a lid on urban and rural social dissent while ensuring the
possibility of unchecked accrual of wealth and power to those who loosely
control the network. It is cynical politics. Is this what 100 years of ANC
struggle was intended to culminate in?
This does not only manifest in policy.
Consider the sinister manner in which the editor of the Mail & Guardian and senior members of the M&G Centre for
Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane)
have been made to report to the police in what appears to be a pre-arrest
process in the past week. This foreplay to possible criminal sanction is all
because of an exposé that links President Zuma’s spokesperson Mac Maharaj – a
public servant – to corruption in tenders awarded while he was Minister of
Transport. Did Mr Maharaj consult with his direct supervisor before pressing
criminal charges? Is the intention to charge or scare investigative journalists?
Either way, the matter is a disgrace to the Presidency.
Other attempts at intimidation happen when
things go ‘bump in the night’ in a manner where nobody can pin the direct blame
on the state apparatus. Earlier this year Constitutional Court Judge Sisi Khampepe
and Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane’s homes were burgled and laptops stolen. According
to Sikhakhane, who also acts for Malema, one of the documents stolen was an
affidavit by Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale requesting a probe into Mdluli`s alleged
abuse of state resources. He suspects foul play. I have personally been
circumspect when such allegations are made. This is a country with high levels
of crime and an urban middle class that has developed an appetite for the crime
fiction genre. However, in the past eighteen months my own office has been
broken into twice late at night using exactly the same method of entry, which
requires the skill of a cat burglar. On one occasion my external hard-drive (containing
a draft manuscript of a book on the arms deal) was stolen. In recent weeks the
visitors took nothing, as the hard-drive was safely stored elsewhere (and for
the record I am not sitting on some smoking gun). All other shiny objects were
left untouched. It may be ordinary crime or coincidence.
What is far more worrying is the alleged
‘suicide’ of Arms Deal Commission of Inquiry secretary Advocate Mvuseni Ngubane
in May this year. On the same day he met the President he climbed into his
luxury vehicle, with no know financial or personal problems, and shot himself,
to the dismay of friends and family. A muted shock followed in the press at the
death of a man who in practical terms would be the most powerful person in the commission.
Whatever the reason for his death, it no doubt has delayed the work of the
commission, which is unlikely to start its public deliberations before the ANC’s
national conference in Mangaung and will
now probably only end its work after the 2014 general elections – a happy
coincidence for corrupt businessmen, arms dealers and politicians alike.
We live in a country
where enormous potential lies outside of its elite and within the ranks of
ordinary people who want a more just, fair society. An important element to unlocking
this potential is that we want to fear those with power far less. Without this
none of us will ever be equal. It is a reflex acquired through centuries of
jealously policed inequality that cannot be unlearnt overnight. But when a
handful of securocrats, spies, politicians and police, together with their
business associates, operate outside of the law they undermine the work of
everyone in their ranks. They also send a signal to our society that repression
remains central to maintaining power. This must have been present somewhere in
the minds of the youth gang in Khayelitsha outside Cape Town on Sunday night,
29 July, as they intimidated learners and terrorized an entire community with
knives and pangas. An ‘ordinary’ gang holding up the mirror to our politicians?
These are no laughing matters.
