Denying the denial

Ours is not a nation in denial. Sure, much has been said — and denied — about the president’s views on HIV and its causal link to Aids. Comparable stuff has been written about his views, and those of the Cabinet collective, on crime, corruption, energy and Zimbabwe. And until very recently, I subscribed to that view.

But since Saturday, when our commander-in-chief dropped in for tea with that murderous thieving despot named Bob, I’ve seen the light. Our president would have us believe that there is no crisis when electoral laws are flouted, electoral officials are arrested and state-sponsored goons are let loose on the opposition.

No, it’s not denial, just old-fashioned lying — the wilful offering of untruths as fact. Denial suggests a vulnerable, human response — things are so bad that the only way to cope is to construct an alternative reality. The lies are actually believed, as the truth is too awful to contemplate. Not so for our president, who seems incapable of such a reaction.

Unfortunately Thabo “I Don’t Know Anyone Who Died of Aids” Mbeki is not the only world leader peddling falsehoods as truth. So too are Iran’s Mahmoud “There Are No Homosexuals in Iran” Ahmadinejad, the United States’s George “Weapons of Mass Destruction” Bush and China’s Hu “Tibet Is an Internal Matter” Jintao. What about Hillary “Pants on Fire” Clinton, whose take on historical events is as accurate as her smile is sincere? And there are others.

Just last week I attended a debate that considered the thorny issue of a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. In his engaging and humorous way, Judge Dennis Davis explained why Dubya’s latest “peace” initiative is doomed to failure — and what Israel needs to do if peace is really what it wants. In response, Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein suspended rational thought and engaged in debate that would embarrass a fifth-grader.

According to Goldstein, Israel is an innocent abused wife whose concessions will never lead to anything other than further abuse. In Zuma-esque style, he fed his largely responsive audience a diet of simplistic and contradictory homilies, failing to acknowledge that Israel had done anything wrong other than under-fund its Foreign Affairs Department. “We’ve lost the war of words,” he opined, or something equally banal to that effect.

Now I’m no Hamas groupie and I do not subscribe to the school of thought that would deny Israel’s right to existence. Nor do I believe that anti-Israel sentiment is necessarily anti-Semitic (although I recognise that it often is). But one needn’t be committed to the Jewish state’s destruction to recognise the injustice of occupation and the dangers — both physical and psychological — that its continuation poses to Israelis themselves.

But the chief rabbi would have us believe that now is not the time for peace. Instead, the status quo can and should be maintained — subject only to the construction of more West Bank settlements (which he argues should not be termed as such) and a much larger public-relations budget. That’s either pathetically naive, as suggested by his fellow panellist, or downright untruthful. Certainly, there’s no evidence of denial.

Which brings me back to our dear lame-duck president and his take on Zimbabwe. Despite all his shortcomings, I was prepared to give credit where it was due, having heard that he was primarily responsible for ensuring that the amended electoral law made provision for the posting of results at each election station. Perhaps he would ultimately ensure a somewhat free and almost fair election, as he had suggested.

But the weekend’s antics have left egg on his face and possibly blood on our neighbour’s streets. Fresh from his meeting with the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai, Mbeki could not possibly have been hoodwinked by Mugabe. He is neither naive nor ill-informed. Nor can he possibly be in denial. Which leaves only one conclusion, one that is really just too awful to contemplate. Crisis? What crisis?