Take a bow, citizens, after a good week for this democracy

The president was presidential, and the marchers more than blind followers

WE have come to the end of yet another dramatic week in the life of this never-go-slowly republic. It was a week in which hope rang loud and in which we should take comfort in the functioning of our democracy

Beginning with President Jacob Zuma's bowing to public opinion and dealing with dodgy elements in his administration and the arms-deal commission's terms of reference, to Julius Malema's march, this week told us that a healthy heart beats inside the chest of this republic.

Watching Zuma make his triple announcement on Monday, my mind wandered back nine years to another significant date. It is a date which has previously been referred to in this space as an unglamorous yet defining moment.

That date, April 17 2002, was the day on which the government of South Africa bowed to public opinion in its approach to HIV/Aids. On that day then-president Thabo Mbeki was also compelled to leave the Aids debate stage and allow the country to develop policies and programmes that would respond to the Aids crisis, rather than fiddle with discredited scientific theories.

As officials said at the time, the government could not find itself on the wrong side of public discourse on a matter in which it should have been leading.

The fact that public opinion in an eight-year-old democracy could force an ultra- stubborn president and a government with a nearly two-thirds mandate to change was a testament to how far we had come.

Monday was no different. In recent weeks Zuma has made some tactically astute decisions in response to actions by members of society. His decision to release the Donen Report and appoint the arms deal inquiry were direct responses to court action by The Argus newspaper and campaigner Terry Crawford-Browne. On Monday he finally did what he should have done long ago and acted on the public protector's reports into the dodgy police building deal and Sicelo Shiceka's jailhouse flings and five-star hotel stays.

Those who are miserly with praise will say Zuma had no choice but to act and that, with ANC elections looming, he is proving he has cojones (as if anyone ever doubted that). Of course he had no choice and of course the Mangaung conference looms large in his head when he makes significant decisions. We may criticise him for taking Nkandla time to apply his mind and for fielding and retaining some duds in government. The point is that in making these decisions he behaved like the president of a democratic republic. He listened and he acted appropriately.

But we must not forget that this state of affairs is due to this newspaper's doggedness in getting to the bottom of Shiceka's abuses and the dodgy lease. It was an NGO, in the form of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, that took the matter further by reporting it to the public protector. The public protector did her job by thoroughly investigating the issue and making findings. After that the ball was in the hands of the public, who bayed for the blood of those who had betrayed their trust.

Zuma merely completed the circle by acting in the public interest.

What remains to be seen is what he does with the discards. Being removed from office should not be the final sanction for people who willingly and knowingly abuse public money and betray their oath of office.

This was our democracy at work.

The same applies to the arms deal. For about 12 years we have been told fibs and half-truths about the cleanliness of the arms deal. But a vigilant society and a relentless media refused to believe such balderdash, to borrow a word from the cantankerous chief from Ulundi.

We now have a chance to uncover truths. Even if the job of the commission takes two years, it will have been worth the sweat of the past 12 years. By then those who are suspected of benefiting will still be of healthy age and able to share communal showers with bank robbers and hijackers.

Society's role will be to make sure that no short cuts are taken and that the commission's findings and recommendations are taken seriously.

The last feather in our democratic cap was Malema's march. The march may have been occasioned by Malema's own troubles and his misguided economics, but it did serve the purpose of highlighting the desperation of South Africa's poor. The fact that you had more than 8000 people willing to bear the heat and walk more than 60km without the prospect of a medal at the other end should tell us all something about the resonance of Malema's economic freedom message.

Nuanced in that language and not only in the blunt "nationalisation" and "expropriation" terms, the "economic freedom" message is finding fertile ground even in sophisticated quarters.

Malema may be a dangerous demagogue and not everyone's cup of tea, but those who marched with him were not ignorant disciples. The march was their democratic voice. We should listen.