Leadership based not on hope but fear

What an indictment of President Jacob Zuma. His only notable act of leadership at the helm of a nation adrift was sparked not by hope but by fear.

It was only after the gruesome murder of a washed out neo-Nazi, a man shunned by both family and Volk, that the president plucked up the courage to be a statesman. He made a national broadcast to appeal for calm then, the following day, reined in the firebrands of the African National Congress Youth League from singing songs calling for the killing of farmers.

South Africa drew an almost audible sigh of relief. While the stark polarisation between white and black racial extremists remains and both sides fizzle and splutter in private, it seems that tit-for-tat killing is not on the cards, at least not for the moment.

The irony is that the country would not be in this parlous state, just months before it hosts one of the biggest sporting spectacles on the planet, if Zuma had not steadfastly ignored growing racial tension, fanned by the ANCYL’s unending stream of abuse and threats of violence. Zuma created a youthful monster, a homegrown Frankenstein, which he, too, now cowers from.

It is telling that while the ANCYL is now mercifully silent, albeit undoubtedly briefly, Zuma has not once repudiated a statement by its leader Julius Malema. Not when he threatened judges; not when he scorned women; not when he demanded mining nationalisation; not when he suddenly discovered a love of liberation songs that call for rape and murder; and not when he broke a court order on “hate” speech.

Malema has since gone to Zimbabwe and rubbished one half of its coalition government; and promised Zanu-PF land grabs in SA. The ANC, its mediation credibility in that country in tatters, has rebuked Malema for his promises of support for Mugabe but remained stonily silent on the issue of land grabs.

The Malema vitriol, the president instead assured SA, was the admirable passion of youth. This man would in the future make a fine president, he promised.

It is telling that it took the murder of Eugene Terre’Blanche — yesterday’s man, an ex jailbird, the national laughing stock for his preposterous posturing, and whose death appears to stem from a wage dispute rather than politics — suddenly to spur Zuma to put the lid on Malema’s racist poison.

Zuma’s acted because Terre’Blanche’s Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) speaks a language that Zuma understands — the language of hatred, division, fear and murderous retribution. Sadly, it was only when the AWB promised retaliation that Zuma suddenly called his hounds to heel.

This is a real problem for a tentative democracy because it sends all the wrong signals to extremists. It says that the best way to make gains on behalf of one’s constituency is to make clear that one is willing to resort to violence. In diverse societies, however, good leadership requires the knack of convincing fractious foes to compromise for the greater good.

It is dispiriting that while Zuma’s self-proclaimed hero, Nelson Mandela, understood and could manipulate this dynamic, the president himself appears not to have a clue.

It is dispiriting that the ANC’s sudden restraint has more to do with managing international perceptions ahead of the Soccer World Cup than it has do with what happens in SA in the long term. It is also dispiriting that the death of a particularly vile racist has given a shot in the arm to a white supremacist movement that previously was on life support.

Terre’Blanche’s murder is outrageous, but no more so than that of any of the more than 18 000 of our fellow citizens slain each year. Cry not for him, but rather for the beloved country that so lacks leadership.