More smarts, less hype?

Dear Reader,

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=105770&sn=Detail

Before you read on and (hopefully) get lost in my thoughts on the above, do peruse the link above and take in what uMntwana wakwa-Phindangene has to say on recent political events, for the train of thought that delivered this blog set off from the station that was his ever-eloquent and incisive words.

I am not going to discuss the actual political situation that led to it, nor venture to debate its factual and substantial (de)merits. Firstly, more than enough has been said about it by people way more qualified than this balding 25-year-old desk jockey. Secondly, well, I’d rather not. Anyway before I get further from my point, regular readers of my Sports Leader space will know my train of thought is rather partial to the scenic route, like Jonah on his reluctant way to Nineveh. This piece is more about the style and manner of the statement.

In his statement, reasoned and fluent as it is — in uShenge’s inimitable style — he does a lot more to undermine both factions in the ANC and shed a flattering light on uMntwana’s standing than any guns blazing, rhetoric laden, explicit attack on the ANC (as per some of our other politicians) ever could. When dealing with an audience that has largely picked sides as ours has, explosive rhetoric amounts to little more than preaching to the choir, you’ll impress the pants off your supporters while the other camp simply grows ever more resolute in their defiance. Public Speaking 101 really.

So what does Prince Buthelezi do? He sidesteps the potholes of the path well trodden and charts a new course. And people wonder why he’s lasted this long when his doom has been foretold since I was in cloth nappies.

In the opening paragraphs, he sets out his case as a concerned citizen with a due respect to propriety, decorum and respect for one’s foes/ colleagues ever present in his tone and vocabulary. Then he moves on to paint himself as a defender of democracy who cannot sit idly by while the house built on suffering and sacrifice burns.

Now at this point ANC loyalists may get jumpy and start retreating to their battlements, ready to defend the impending attack on the ANC, but ever the wily battle-learned fox, he doesn’t do that. He instead sets out his credentials as an ANC cadre from the early days of the struggle and highlights his biological and ideological links to ANC royalty. He relates how his political tuition came from the very store of intellectual and moral capital that today’s ANC is so desperately seeking guidance from.

He aligns his struggles with the IFP to the same suffered by the ANC and ties his party and thus himself to the same cause and thus the very same legacy. But he is careful to let the reader know he remains his own man outside the ANC but living to the noble ideas it is accused of betraying by cadres within its ranks.

Having now not only maintained his audiences’ interest and garnered a not insignificant amount of sympathy to his cause, he moves swiftly to sound a call to arms that supercedes that of the supposed ANC dissidents by making the much talked about conference bigger than the ANC and thus making it imperative that a broad range of voices outside the party are listened to and their views afforded a legitimacy that would not be possible were they voices on the outside shouting down those inside the church and bitter about the apathy their cries invoke.

He also in timeless fashion, finds a space to suggest a role for traditional leadership, a lifelong cause of his, yet it is not arbitrarily jammed so it sticks out like a wors roll stand at a Hare Krishna convention.

Throughout his statement, the tone of a calm, wise, experienced voice is maintained and the reader can’t but feel the writer has an intimate understanding of his subject.

Now there is the kind of politics that I can get excited about: cerebral, logical reasoned and very true to its intellectual roots without any hint of the condescension that usually bogs intellectualism down.

Certainly in our time there has been a place for Malema/ Mokaba (Leon even?) style passion over coherence rabble-rousing oratory, but surely the time has come for SA politics to mature beyond the naked us and them style and grow the hell up?

I don’t necessarily agree with the tone and (my) perceived underlying intentions in that statement. I know however that it stands a greater chance of swaying my views than 90% of what has been written and said out there on our supposed crisis.

But then again, I am just a youngster still trying (very disinterestedly) to make sense of things. Maybe I need to spend yet more time talking sh*t to the animals (as the ever excellent Silwane — thoughtleader.co.za/silwanekanjila — is wont to) and broaden my understanding before spouting forth.

Yeah, whatever …