The Arrogance of Power. Xolela Mangcu
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took us during his eight years in office. The same emotional ups-and-downs characterise my approach to Zuma’s administration – initial excitement, followed by great disillusionment.
The columns also throw the spotlight on us, the citizens. I hope they show what happens when good men and women give up their power to speak out against wrongdoing. As the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin once put it: ‘Happy are those who live under a discipline which they accept without question, who freely obey the orders of leaders, spiritual or temporal, whose word is fully acceptable as unbreakable law. That may make for contentment, but not for understanding what it means to be human.’
But it was Matthew Arnold – Berlin’s predecessor at Oxford – who provided the prescient observation that ‘there is a natural current . . . in human affairs, [that] . . . will not let us rivet our faith upon any one man and his doings. It makes us see not only his good side, but also how much in him was of necessity limited and transient; nay, it even feels a pleasure, a sense of an increased freedom, and of an ampler future, in so doing.’ That is how South Africans responded to Mbeki, and that is how they will still respond to Zuma, or whichever leader takes their trust and goodwill for granted. That at least is what the results of the 2014 elections seem to signal.
Writing a newspaper column over such an extended period of time comes with its own hazards. First, it is a public reflection of oneself. You can tell someone’s personality by the columns they write. Many of my critics have complained about the way in which I insert myself in the story. I am not a shrink, so I can’t say why this is the case. It could be a bad case of narcissism, or that I like to claim my own voice. Two other factors may have contributed, though. When I started my doctoral studies – and there we go again, I hear you say – my supervisor complained that he could not hear my voice. He would not read my dissertation until I had learnt to write in the first person. The other reason could be related to what The Kennedy School of Government’s Marshall Ganz has said about narrative:
Some of us may think our personal stories don’t matter, that others won’t care, or that we shouldn’t talk about ourselves so much. On the contrary, if we do public work, we have a responsibility to give a public account of ourselves – where we came from, why we do what we do, and where we think we are going. . . . If we don’t author our story, others will – and they may tell our story in ways we may not like. Not because they are malevolent, but because others try to make sense of who we are by drawing on their experience of people whom they consider to be like us.
So that is perhaps why my writings will be punctuated with references to my family, my home town of Ginsberg in the Eastern Cape, Steve Biko, black consciousness, and the life of the mind – so that the reader can know where I am coming from, so to speak, thus to better engage about where we both need to go.
In writing these columns, I have been guided by my own inner voice, for better and for worse. In the process, I have earned as many enemies as friends, neither of whom are ever permanent. There are at least two personal criticisms that I have never really addressed. The first is that I don’t have the slightest clue about the politics of the ANC. This jibe has often been accompanied by an invitation to join the party, and stop criticising from the outside. I could have done that a long time ago. I have indeed thought about the opportunity costs of not being in the ANC. After all, I could have pleaded fealty to the party and turned into an instant tycoon, no questions asked. I could have done the same for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), for that matter. But I think something dies in you when you do that. But I don’t know – I’ve never tried.
The second criticism is that I have been made a multimillionaire several times over by the billionaire ANC politician Tokyo Sexwale, which is why I was so excited about him as an alternative to both Mbeki and Zuma. It’s hard to refute such allegations without showing how little money I have in the bank. The truth is that I’ve never seen, smelled or counted a million rand in my entire life. In the celebrated remark of a Gauteng politician (no names, no pack-drill): ‘I’ve never ever seen the door of a million.’
I cannot possibly address all these criticisms, just as those who have been at the sharp end of my pen could not – which is why the door for conversation between citizens and leaders should always stay open, a quality that has proven to be a major distinction between good leaders and bad ones. The only thing I can say in my defence is that my writings are motivated by a sense of shame about the direction we have taken over the past 20 years. Not only are we trapped in the path laid down for us by the system of apartheid; there does not seem to be any imaginative responses to it on the horizon. And, as Benedict Anderson has remarked, ‘if you cannot be ashamed for your country, then you do not love it.’
A presidential chronology
In 1991, at the ANC’s 48th national conference held in Durban, Nelson Mandela was elected as president, succeeding Oliver Tambo, who was elected as national chairperson. Walter Sisulu was elected as deputy president.
Following the ANC’s election victory in April 1994, the national assembly elected Mandela as South African president. He appointed the leader of the National Party (NP), former president F W de Klerk, as his first deputy president, and Thabo Mbeki as the second.
In December 1994, at the ANC’s 49th national conference held in Bloemfontein, Mandela was re-elected as president, and Thabo Mbeki as deputy president.
In 1996, following the NP’s withdrawal from the government of national unity, Mbeki became the sole South African deputy president.
In 1997, Mandela announced that he intended to retire as South African president in 1999 and would not be available for re-election as ANC president. In December, at the ANC’s 50th national conference held at Mafikeng, Mbeki was elected as president, and Jacob Zuma as deputy president.
In June 1999, following the ANC’s victory in the general election since the transition to democracy, the national assembly elected Mbeki as South African president. He appointed Zuma as deputy president.
In December 2002, at the ANC’s 51st national conference held at Stellenbosch, Mbeki was re-elected as president, and Zuma was elected as deputy president.
In April 2004, following the ANC’s third election victory since the transition to democracy, Mbeki was re-elected as South African president for a second and final term.
On 30 May 2005, the Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was found guilty on charges of fraud and corruption relating to financial transactions between himself and Zuma. On 14 June, Mbeki dismissed Zuma as South African deputy president, and Zuma resigned as a member of parliament.
In 2007, Zuma mounted a campaign to contest the presidency of the ANC. In December 2007, at the ANC’s 52nd national conference held at Polokwane in Limpopo, Zuma was elected as president, thereby unseating Mbeki. Kgalema Motlanthe was elected as deputy president.
On 4 August 2008, Zuma appeared in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on 16 charges of racketeering, money laundering, corruption and fraud. On 12 September 2008, Judge Chris Nicholson ruled the charges were unlawful on procedural grounds, and added there was reason to believe the decision to charge Zuma had been politically motivated.
On 20 September 2008, the ANC national executive committee announced it had decided to recall Mbeki. The next day, on 21 September 2008, Mbeki resigned as South African president. Motlanthe was elected as interim president until the 2009 elections.
On 12 January 2009, acting upon an appeal by Mbeki, the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned Judge Nicholson’s ruling that Zuma had been unfairly charged and that Mbeki and other members of his cabinet had interfered with the prosecution process. This meant that the charges against Zuma were automatically reinstated. On 6 April 2009, however, the NPA announced a decision to drop all charges against Zuma.
In May 2009, following the ANC’s victory in the fourth general election since the transition to democracy, parliament elected Zuma as South African president.
In 2012, at the ANC’s national conference held at Mangaung in the Free State, Zuma was re-elected as president, and Cyril Ramaphosa as deputy president.
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