Warahulu: An anthology of scariness

Is there a word for the ability, no, the power to move people, to stir them to act as you want them to?

Persuasion: “cause to believe, provide a sound reason to do something” doesn’t quite capture the essence. Charisma: “compelling charm, attractiveness that can inspire devotion”; closer, but no coconut. Inspiration: “divine influence, fill with urge to do or feel, animate” is much closer.

But the meaning I’m groping for probably lies somewhere in between all of them. C’mon, all you bright readers out there, help an oke out here, ek sê. It’s like propaganda, but not quite so passive. It’s like advertising or marketing, but not quite so banal or capricious.

In the meantime, I’ll play Jonathan Swift (lightly garnished with Lawrence Stern and JK Rowling) and use the whimsical construct “warahulu”. Warahulu is the ability or power to make otherwise rational, reasonable, sensible people believe at a radical level, in the seat of their souls, that what you say or communicate is the only true, righteous, immutably correct thing to do, and spur them to act accordingly.

You with me so far?

OK. Now that I have found the word I can go on to the next and far more important question: Why does it seem genetically linked to evil men?

History resounds to the names of men — which raises other interesting genetic questions, doesn’t it? — imbued with warahulu. Remember, we’re not talking about despots (say, Idi Amin, Josef Stalin or Pol Pot) or warriors (Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun or Hernan Cortes), kings or queens or emperors, or even serial killers. They just went out and did things or forced people to do their bidding.

We’re talking about people who make others want to do their bidding. Like by remote control. People such as Adolf Hitler, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Eugene Terre’blanche and Osama bin Laden — truly evil men.

Some were custom-cut for the time, like Hitler. He preyed on fears and inferiorities, poverty and a deep desire to blame someone else for the defeat and humiliation the Germans felt.

Koresh and Jones used the eternal quest for spiritual fulfilment and purpose. In both cases they used the Bible, the word of God for both Jews and Christians — which is always a winner because the Bible or just parts of it can be used to justify anything from vampirism to infanticide.

Maybe their intentions began quite innocently. But if David and Jim were innocent as Eve to start with, Charlie Manson was the snake. He didn’t even take part in helter skelter, but cheered his acolytes on.

Despite his somewhat comical legacy, ET had every ounce the little Austrian corporal in him. Had times or circumstances been different, he might have annexed Bophuthatswana, purged Pretoria and ignited events that could have seen a very different version of the late 20th century … and now.

Osama’s charisma, guile, money and zeal have had just that effect. Now Islamic fundamentalism is also poking its dangerously ordinary face in places in Africa. That’s scary.

Aside from black hearts, these men all had warahulu. They could whip masses up to genocidal frenzy, suicide, blind, unquestioning obedience; their followers would and did take bullets for them.

I remember accompanying some journo buddies to Pietersburg back in the 1980s. The Rand Daily Mail hadn’t closed yet, though I had done the Benedict Arnold and scuttled off to the paying fields of PR (hey, a gee and jam-jar were megabucks back then!) so I was an interested spectator in a suit that made me look kind of respectable compared with the likes of Noel Watson, Johan Kuus and Danie Coetzer.

We went to listen to Terre’blanche. There was plenty of ruckus and hurling chairs and fucking up motor cars and half-hearted baton charges from the cops, but the thing that sticks in my mind was the unadulterated mesmeric warahulu of Terre’blanche. He plucked my irrational fears and nightmares like Slowhand with his favourite Fender. I cringe now thinking about it, but such was ET’s warahulu I could actually feel myself being swept up, manipulated, twisted and moulded to his racism, his hatred, his fear-mongering.

Of course, these evil men had an entire package. So did ET. The flags, the insignia, the khaki shirts, the anthems, the hysteria of the crowd, the reach-out-and-touch-it 3D reality all around you. He was Hitler at Nuremburg, Koresh at Waco, Bin Laden at Kandahar. He was William Wallace in a working man’s khakis.

Man, that was scary!

By all accounts what used to be Pietersburg attracted another recently. Not unlike ET, he too boasts virtually non-existent morals, a dubious sense of right and wrong or law and order or good and bad and a multitude of equally suspect friends.

The flags, the insignia, the uniforms and even an anthem with, so we hear, the hypnotic power of “Sieg heil!” — all the trappings of other very evil men are there.

Polokwane has delivered us a Zulu with warahulu and he’s only just begun. I find that scary.