Uneasy lies he that wears a shower head

02 April 2017 - 02:00 By Bruce Whitfield
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You are unlikely to find too many young people who relish studying Shakespeare. His texts are more than 400 years old, the language dated and the stories out of sync with current problems. It's hardly surprising that the Department of Basic Education is re-evaluating his relevance.

But considering the political machinations, passion, greed and avarice in South Africa over the past week, we can use Shakespeare to tell a modern story. When it comes to core themes of treachery and deceit, Shakespeare was the master. Perhaps by the end of this column, the department may be convinced of the author's merits.

Either way, here goes.

Prologue: Shakespeare was a fan of the prologue. It gave context. So let's start with Marcellus in Hamlet: "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

Moving rapidly to Act 1, Scene 1, to the witches in Macbeth: "Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble."

It became clear this week that a conspiracy was being cooked up to rid President Jacob Zuma of his nemesis, Pravin Gordhan, who he appointed under duress. Gordhan, while on an international investor road show this week, was summarily summoned home.

In Act 1, Scene 2, it was as if the soothsayer in Julius Caesar was talking directly to the president. "Beware the Ides of March," Zuma seemed to be hearing. Caesar ignored the omen; Zuma appeared keen to not take any chances.

Then, in Scene 3, at the funeral for Ahmed Kathrada, who last year wrote to the president imploring him to step down for the good of the country, mourners invoked Polonius in Hamlet: "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

They also might have used a line by Escalus in Measure for Measure: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall."

See? Shakespeare knew a thing or two about the human condition.

In London and New York as Act 2 dawned and where investor road shows had to be cancelled with unseemly haste, foreign capital channelled Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream: "What fools these mortals be", as South Africa saw the cost of borrowing rise and the currency decline.

By Act 3 the certainty of a reshuffle was imminent. "All the world's a stage," says Jacques in As You Like It, "and all the men and women in it, merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in time plays many parts." Precisely what Gordhan has been doing since Zuma was forced to reappoint him. He has been the key government link with business, labour and civil society, provided oversight on the budget, all while flying the flag of optimism for ratings agencies, which after the road show cancellation seemed happy to select another line from Hamlet: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend."

Moving on to Act 4 and following the assassination of Caesar (no one is suggesting this as a strategy), Brutus is challenged on his role: "... not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more".

A growing number of ANC leaders have been increasingly outspoken on leadership. Zwelinzima Vavi has been candid about his role in Zuma's ascent to power, as has Julius Malema. The collective mea culpa is reminiscent of Lady Macbeth, who cannot clean her hands of the blood from a murder. For Zuma, as the play draws to a close, he must be wondering who his true friends are and will be inspired by the same lady: "Out, damned spot! Out!"

As he faces the potential meltdown of his leadership, he should consider the fate of Richard III, who, on realising the battle was lost, looked around desperately: "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" The odds of Zuma finding such an exit might be as remote.

Whitfield is a speaker on the political economy, a financial journalist and broadcaster

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