Right or left? The arm struggle and Polokwane's choice

Ever heard yourself say: “Could Zimbabweans not have read the writing on the wall?”

What are South Africans waiting for, a plane to write it on the sky? Simply put, the choice at Polokwane is: Would it be better to remove my left arm or my right arm?

Pundits have proclaimed Jacob Zuma is better; no, Thabo Mbeki is better. Actually, the real question is how after only 13 years of attempting democracy is ons so diep in die kak?

We have a minister of health who is reportedly an alcoholic and a kleptomaniac who recommends salad — beetroot and carrots with a delicate vinaigrette, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic — to combat one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

The nation is waiting to see the commissioner of police arrested on racketeering and corruption charges. Lunatics may not be in charge of the asylum in South Africa, but there is cause for introspection on precisely what the police mean by “crime management”, “crime control” and “criminal justice”.

Then there was the deputy minister of home affairs who ran a leadership institute from his office using government funds. And, no, it wasn’t the Tony Yengeni Academy for Staying out of Jail despite fraud and allegedly driving drunk — a course well attended by district police commissioners and judges.

Has anyone kept tally of the number of ambassadors, members of Parliament and other politicians who have been accused of rape or sexual harassment of women colleagues or employees?

For almost 50 years we were a pariah state under apartheid; it was shameful to be a South African. Then Nelson Mandela came out of jail and proudly South African wasn’t a term for which corporates had to pay thousands of rands to use on stickers — it was something we all felt. It saw a season of the greatest human endeavours South Africa has ever seen, a burgeoning of creativity and common purpose in our shared humanity.

This was our land, our country and we were going to sweat blood to make it work. We now have the strongest economy since apartheid began wrecking the nation with racial divisions — and guess what, we’re back to square one, a nation increasingly racially divided. A new elite has replaced the old elite and the poor still battle hunger and disease.

Our rivers are filthy; power failures are causing pipes to malfunction and push effluent into streams instead of sucking it in. Maintenance at sewage works is not up to standard and Stellenbosch Professor Jo Barnes, who received two state awards this year for her work in assessing the damage of pollution on communities, says typhoid is increasingly being recorded in upper-class neighbourhoods.

In Witbank, a town filled with guest houses because we have so many foreign workers compensating for our skills shortage, the guest houses clean their own water and have their own electricity generators. They say the town’s tap water is dangerously polluted and sometimes there is no water for four days at a time. And, we’ve all learnt how to read novels during work hours while power stoppages cripple the economy — and yet no one at Eskom has been fired for its pathetic lack of management despite huge pay packages.

And that is why we are at this sad juncture, because we all believe we are entitled to whatever we want and no one is accountable.

The African National Congress’s 52nd conference at Polokwane begins on the anniversary of one of the most savage battles in South Africa’s history, that at Blood River in 1838 when 470 Voortrekkers slaughtered 10 000 Zulu. In later times, the ANC called it Umkhonto weSizwe Day. It is a date that commemorates war and the point that eludes those who set this date is that there are never victors after war, and damage can be long-lasting.

In this, the wealthiest country of Africa, where tiny Gauteng alone generates 11% of Africa’s gross domestic product, a country that astonished the world by producing a carefully crafted negotiated settlement to apartheid and one of the world’s finest and most progressive constitutions, we have two unsuitable people standing for election for the post likely to lead to the presidency of South Africa. If our opposition could get its act together, that outcome would cause less panic, but it has yet to present real hope to South Africans.

Thabo Mbeki seems determined to be a Hastings Banda or a Robert Mugabe, a president for life in a country we all believed “could never be like the rest of Africa” — a country that would slide into corruption and contempt for democracy. He is not entitled, in terms of the Constitution, to stand for a third term as president of the nation and yet he is determined to do so.

Jacob Zuma faces charges on corruption relating to the arms deal and was acquitted of charges of raping an HIV-positive woman.

The middle and working classes are cleaving and becoming more racist in their commentary. Ethnic fascism is again in play. We run the very real risk of a return to tribalism and anyone who witnessed the violence of the late 1980s and early 1990s knows how dangerous that is.

As for the status of women: yo-yo-yo, as some might say. The thought of having a polygamist, acquitted of rape, who makes his girl children observe Zulu culture — which can include delivering food to men while kneeling — as a president does not thrill me. But too, Zuma is a man who loved his mother, who has strong sophisticated daughters. He has an ex-wife who became a Cabinet minister while married to him. Personally Jacob Zuma shows more respect to women than his opponent. I hope he has the wisdom to implement — not talk about or backtrack from — women’s rights.

Cosatu’s Zwelinzima Vavi at the weekend said that those advocating 50/50 representation in the ANC were legendary womanisers who wanted more women in power for sinister reasons.

The national executive committee of the ANC — which met on Monday — demanded an apology, saying gender equity was not an individual position but ANC policy. NEC member Frene Ginwala said Vavi was ignorant and sexist (his track record shows he is not). “Implications of this statement are that women are mindless beings, easily manipulated and are incapable of being in positions of political leadership without dispensing sexual favours,” she told a radio station. Perhaps not all women, but there have been enough interesting sexual liaisons in the Cabinet to query her comment. Rumours, from those journalists rely on as sources, tell of the woman ambassador who was punched in the snoot in a Tuynhuys elevator by the wife of a very important man for being less than discreet in her liaison.

Fortunately we don’t have a tabloid media here who pursue the sexual liaisons of individuals, but if we did then Vavi’s comment might show greater truth than Ginwala’s.

This dirty little power struggle has brought out the meanness and despair in everyone. Certainly the ANC that goes to conference again in 2012 will not be the ANC of today.

Zuma as former ANC head of intelligence in exile has been able to play the game with and against Mbeki only because he has as much on Mbeki as the latter has on him.

Dante wrote that “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality”. There are times when it is better to sit and bake. This is one of them.

It is also said that true character is revealed during crisis. But Polokwane is just the beginning; it’s the curtain-raiser. The real test will come in the months to come. Heaven help us all, because it seems we’re incapable of doing the good that needs to be done ourselves.

And yet, I believe there is a candidate who has the capacity to perform what Mandela once did with this land. If he tries, he will face enormous opposition from the vanquished. It will be then that we as citizens will need to put prayer beads aside and heed Dante’s words. I fear that if we fail now, we lose our country; the rainbow dream crashes and burns.