Is Zuma Forrest Gump with a 'sheeple' following?

[Disclaimer: The author of this blog has never studied politics, journalism or any other discipline remotely useful in analyzing the ANC conference or any other political situation. Furthermore, he has been spotted at the student union canteen typing furiously on his PC in between healthy gulps of beer. Believe his pseudo-analysis at you own risk.]

I have been forced to insert the disclaimer by the Press Ombudsman. Apparently some people had been using this blog as their only source of news from the ANC conference. Let’s all agree that this would be a lot like drinking beer exclusively as a source of one’s daily recommended allowance of protein.

I have been asked repeatedly how I felt when Jacob Zuma was announced as the new ANC president. How I feel about Zuma being elected president of the ANC is the same way I have felt about it since he became the ANC’s deputy president ten years ago. It’s a feeling I like to describe as, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ Or, tomato/potato.

Since the results were made known, 4 567 326 posts have been written on the matter (Yes, I have been counting). Wading through all these words, I have managed to do what I think I do best: sift through the BS and summarise what has been said.

There is a sprinkling of minority views who either believe that the Zuma victory is a great thing for the country or the ‘wait-and-see’ cautiously optimistic views. But on the whole, the overriding theme is that the impending Zuma presidency of the country is a terrible, terrible thing that can only end in land grabs, petrol queues and us forking out R2 500 000 for a loaf of bread within five years. Many intelligent, rational reasons have been advanced for this line of thinking. I’ll share my favourite ones.

1. Zuma is not intellectually equipped for the job — the people who voted for him are sheep who got swayed by that retarded song.
2. Zuma’s judgement is questionable, as evidenced by his legal troubles with bribery, corruption and rape. Even if he’s innocent, he seems to attract attention for all the wrong reasons.
3. Zuma’s utterances have exposed him as a sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and chauvinistic Zulu traditionalist.
4. Zuma’s ascendancy to power has been on the strength of a strange congregation of “the wounded coalition”, who have nothing in common but a disdain for Mbeki. He will have to repay these debts by the dispensing of patronage that can only lead to a left-leaning banana republic kleptocracy.
5. Zuma didn’t win this election as much as Mbeki lost it. Zuma just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Such watertight logic is difficult to counter. I will leave that to the intimidatingly super-smart intellectuals who skulk around the Friends of JZ website. I’m much more interested in points 1 and 5. The sheep who were won over by Zuma on the basis of song and how Zuma was the unwitting beneficiary of Mbeki’s ineptitude as opposed to being the architect of his ~~notorious~~ famous victory. I will deal with the song-swayed “sheeple” first.

So, are Zuma supporters sheep?
When I arrived on campus on the Tuesday, the day of the election, my mind was preoccupied by much more pressing issues. Matters such as the fact that since I’d arrived in Polokwane it had been raining non-stop. Having spent most of the previous week in wet Malaysia, I called this going straight from the monsoon to Noah’s floods. The last time my toes were dry had been about two weeks before, although I’m pleased to report that my boxers had remained dry most of the time I was in Polokwane.

The first thing that struck me about the polling station was the lack of singing from anyone. My immediate observation is that this didn’t augur too well for Zuma. It is my assertion that Zuma’s campaign strategy had revolved around two pillars:

1. Being as vague as possible about any actual policy issues.
2. Singing

Zuma did well in maintaining the discipline around the first pillar. The few times he slipped up, such as the death-penalty issue, he shot himself in the foot and quickly made a strategic retreat. Where I think he and his election machinery outdid themselves was in the singing department. Oh boy, did they sing or did they sing! When my surreal consumption of beer finally catches up with me and I lose the few marbles I have left, be kind to the madcap you’ll see at a busy downtown Jozi intersection belting out Umshini Wami.

You might be shaking you head sadly at this revelation. Cry the beloved country if leadership is to be decided on the basis of who’s got the better song, you might be muttering under your breath. You might even be giving your well-worn passport a lean and hungry look and contemplating life on shores yonder where you’ll frolic in green meadows amidst much sheep bleating.

My response to that would be to hit you on the head with a rolled-up copy of Umrabulo (the ANC political magazine) and telling you to snap out of it. Using song to influence thought and modify feelings has been an acceptable form of ~~persuasion~~ brainwashing since Day One.

I don’t know about your ancestors but mine used to beat war drums to strike the fear of God into the hearts of an advancing enemy back in the day. Pick your favourite Disney movie and imagine it without the violins during the tear-jerker scenes.

When I was a single young man, the most important knicker-shedder at my disposal at the end of a date was Barry White bellowing out from my stereo system until the young lass was reeling against the ropes. The reality of the existence of God in my life was as much a function of the incense burned in church as the hauntingly-beautiful hymns churned out by Fr Alban at the organ. Three bars of any Nat King Cole song send me into uncontrollable mating behaviour. And by the same token, after listening to any Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana song, I have to physically restrain myself from snorting white powder, banging my head against hard surfaces and painting my fingernails black. This is just the reality of music — more mind-altering than any hard narcotic you could possibly smoke.

So, while everyone else is ridiculing Zuma as an intellectually bankrupt buffoon with nothing else but a song, I think he’s a freaking genius for his astute use of this powerful weapon. By the second day of the ANC conference, the Mbeki supporters finally woke up to this fact. The realisation that this battle was not going to be won on the strength of three-hour-long anti-insomnia speeches was sinking in. So what did they do? They came up with their own song. Oh, it was a feeble song in comparison — a cross between a Southern Baptist spiritual and a kindergarten ditty. And the lyrics were hardly inspiring at all — just a repetition of their man’s name.

Thabo! Thabo Mbeki! Thabo.
(Thabo Mbeki. Thabo Mbeki.) X47

I know next to nothing about the mechanisms of hypnotising the masses with song but I felt that this song was inadequate. I felt that a song that was a Mahalia-Jackson-meets-the-Gummy-Bears-theme had no chance against the rousing force that is Umshini Wami. By the end of the second day, most of the media contingent was hard at work on their “Zuma trounces Mbeki” articles. You just smelled it in the songs. In the end, the battle turned out to be a lopsided massacre.

Is Zuma a Forrest Gump type who accidentally acquired the ANC leadership?
In the unlikely event that you reading this from C-Max while getting a foot rub from Ananias Mathe and you’ve been there for ten years, Forrest Gump is a movie character with an IQ of 75 from a 1994 Hollywood flick of the same name who accidentally stumbled his way to some lofty heights throughout his life.

Listening to some of the commentary one would be forgiven for thinking that Zuma was some kind of bumbling Forrest Gump character who went around accidentally winning over the hearts of ANC members assisted by his equally inept sidekick, Bubba, in the form of Mbalula/Vavi/Nzimande. In a word, no. What a lot of people (and I suspect Mbeki and co) missed was an elementary fact — the ANC leadership would be decided upon by ANC branches. This was the theme that was repeated to me over and over again by ANC delegates throughout the week.

While the perpetually furious “Terror” Lekota was firing salvoes using SABC cameras, the other side was having one-on-ones with the rank-and-file. While Mbeki was appearing in TV interviews from air-conditioned studios, the Forrest Gump machinery was shaking the clammy hands of the guys who held the true power. One couldn’t help but sense the palpable glee in the voices of ordinary ANC members’ voices as they kept repeating, “This conference is the highest decision-making body of the ANC”. This is what the Forrest Gump and his Bubbas understood with a razor-like sharpness. The Mbeki team strategy was just as effective as hunting for sardines in the jungle.

As the ending proved, there was nothing accidental about what transpired in Polokwane..

[email protected]