Recently I viewed a list of African National Congress Council members who have criminal records, or who are under a cloud of suspicion.
The ANC have an 80 member National Executive committee. These 80, elected by the 3,800 delegates of the ANC are effectively the leadership of the rainbow nation. Quite how this conforms to the accepted principles of Democracy in which fundamental human rights of individual citizens are protected by the collective and in which the views of the population-at-large, not just a ruling elite, are reflected in the actions of government, I have no idea. Perhaps it would more accurately be described as Democracy 3,800.
One third (33%) of the ANC National Executive Committee have, or soon, to various degrees, will have criminal records. This includes conviction for crimes such as kidnapping, although mostly they are convicted or charged with fraudulent activity.
Most recently a new leader has been appointed to the ANC. JZ as his supporters call him. (Jay Zee). Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma.
Zuma, a practicing Polygamist is best known outside of the townships for successfully defending an allegation of rape, leveled at him by a trusted family friend and house guest who was HIV positive when they had, according to Zuma, unprotected sex. I have wondered why, if this girl lied about the rape which is the only conclusion following a Not Guilty verdict, she was not subsequently prosecuted. Rape is a heinous allegation to be unjustly accused of. Making a false allegation of rape perverts the course of justice and is a criminal offense. You can decide why this young lady was not prosecuted?
In the corruption Court, Zuma escaped conviction along with his financial adviser, Schabir Schaik, who was imprisoned for 15 years in connection with his corrupt relationship with Zuma. Allegedly over a corrupt arms deal made possible by Zuma’s office in the ANC. Zuma’s case was scheduled to start in September 2006, but struck off the roll by Judge Herbert Msimang after the state unsuccessfully applied for a postponement. The new date for the hearing is August 4, 2008. Or is it?
Corruption is endemic in African politics and South Africa is no exception. Just google keywords like ‘corruption, ANC’ and see how many stories come up. (The leader of the ANC and the chief of Police, Jackie Selebi, head a very long list.) The real surprise is when you hear about an ANC politician who is not corrupt. The idea of creating an anti corruption unit in South Africa, given independent powers to investigate and pursue corrupt figureheads was a good one. The Scorpions (Directorate of Special Operations unit) was formed in January 2001, 16 months after President Mbeki promised the national legislature that the government would set up a squad to fight so-called priority crimes. This was a reaction to concerns over the staggering crime wave sweeping South Africa, elevating it to the top of the Worlds charts in terms of murders per capita and jeopardizing prospects for the foreign investment that would help to sustain the growing economy.
The Scorpions had some notable successes, including the Schabir Schaik/Jacob Zuma Arms dealing story. Their evidence would have formed the case for Zuma’s August hearing.
So far so good?
Following his election to the leadership of the ANC Zuma has made his first major initiative, ordering the government of President Thabo Mbeki to dismantle the country's highly successful organized crime fighting unit, the Scorpions.
Lets consider this fact momentarily. In a Country beset with heinous crime, ravaged by an epidemic of aids, mired in a cycle of illiteracy and poverty where the number of people living on less than one dollar a day has doubled since the end of Apartheid, and with only the gift of hope bequeathed by the Mandela effect to light a way forward, the new leader makes his first initiative one that effectively removes the corruption case against him, and rubber stamps the opportunity for unregulated excesses to characterize his term in office. Way to go Jay Zee. Kick the downtrodden when they’re down.
I watched Fergal Keane’s BBC 'Panorama' last Monday which includes an interview with Jacob Zuma. Keane points out the disturbing reluctance by the ANC to confront the Mugabe ‘Black Apartheid’ still decimating the lives of so many Millions in Zimbabwe. A disaster of monumental proportions, even by the elevated standards already made commonplace by Africa’s prevailing Muntocracy. 4 Million Zimbabweans have arrived in South Africa. Mostly unskilled, mostly desperate. Some, like Adonis Musati die of starvation just waiting outside the office for the ineffective South African bureaucracy to process their papers. Others just work illegally. There are good opportunities for a man made fearless by desperation, such as knocking down and stealing power cables and selling the metals contained inside. The Chinese are always on hand to buy up any raw materials on offer.
Quiet how a Country already beset by poverty and crime will absorb another 4 Million needy cases, mostly unskilled, mostly impoverished, is unlikely to surprise anybody.
Instead of intervening in Zimbabwe, as befitting South Africa’s position of moral and economic power in Africa, ANC leadership instead sanction Mugabe’s excesses with their silence, recognizing him as ‘The spiritual father of Africa’. Mbeki is invariably seated at his right hand when African leaders meet and award their usual standing ovation to Mugabe’s entrance. To add a typically South African touch of irony to the ANC’s Zimbabwe effect, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was robbed at gunpoint by three (veterans) shortly after arriving at the MDC’s office in exile in Johannesburg's district of Bryanston to meet foreign journalists. With next Months Zimbabwe election looming, losing his documents and his laptop surely represents more of a loss to Mr Tsvangirai than a profit for the thieves whilst adding another nail to his impossible quest, leaving Southern Africa facing the prospect of a Zuma led South Africa and a Mugabe led Zimbabwe.
As Desmond Tutu observed with a pained voice on Mondays Panorama program, ‘Surely South Africa deserves better.’
I however disagree. The reality, for me, is that you get what you deserve. It’s a law of the Universe. A karmic law. One action causes another. The very essence of balance. You reap what you sow. Hoping for better days is not the same as starting the journey in that direction.
Consider alcoholics. Drinking themselves to death saying, ‘surely I deserve better’ while their livers rot. This condition changes with two events:
~ The will to change and ~ the knowledge with which to effect change.
Effective knowledge in the alcoholics case directs – admit you are an alcoholic and treatment can begin. Starting with the admission ‘My name is.... and I am an alcoholic’ the alcoholic can hope to recover. There is no recovered alcoholic I know who has not traveled this route.
My point?
Africa and South Africa in particular manifest a condition of national denial. The nature of the survival instinct is to invent and then rely on convenient reality. Delusion. Reliance on feelgood fabrication without considering the wider picture. The disease of Africa has to be addressed before it can be remedied. The disease is best described as Muntusim.
Muntuism is a base philosophy that disregards all of mans advances in evolving workable codes to live by. Muntuism is a unique blend of nihilism and total thoughtlessness. A process that places the individuals base needs at the front and end of everything. Muntuism disregards all value in anything beyond short-term need gratification. This includes the value of life. Muntuism recognises no connection between cause and effect. It has no accountability, no conscience and no concept of mercy. Although there are many examples of Muntuism, I will refer to just one. The Muntu’s who shot the musician Lucky Dube for no more than the possibility of a joyride in a BMW.
Researching Muntuism, as I have done for many years, reveals that allowed to progress unchecked, Muntuism conforms to a model of social and evolutionary anarchy that will with all certainty consume not only itself, but all with whom it comes in contact. Allowed unchecked Muntuism is a terminal social cancer.
Unlike cancer there is an existing cure for Muntuism. This takes the form of enlightenment. Education. Education when used in conjunction with an effective rule of law will work. In another of Africa’s beautifully ironic references that characterize the denial based reality of South Africa, the current Aids education initiative is headed by none other than Jacob Zuma. A man whose reputation for wisdom in the HIV area has been reported world-wide.
It is a curiosity to me, listening to the various arguments being put forward in Western media for South Africa, a Country which has an outstanding track record for producing high intelligence individuals possessed of wisdom and insight, that they appear to anyone listening from a first world perspective, to be the work of clueless gormless proponents of Muntuism.
What on Earth is going on. Jay Zee leading the worlds front line in the Aids battle? Bring me my machine gun please.
It is clear that unless the Muntuism issue is addressed South Africa will ensure that Africa’s 100% record of failed Governments maintaining their kleptocracies in the guise of denial based Democracy, will be complete.
Is the polygamist Jay Zee really the best that South Africa can come up with to lead the way forward from what even that denial steeped culture must surely accept, is a crisis?
Or, considering Mbeki’s famous ‘I don’t know anyone who has it’ remark on Aids, which made him the only person on South Africa for whom that would be true, I guess the new line for the ANC will be ‘Crisis, what crisis.’
My name is Jacob and I am a .....
