Is it still the custom to honour tradition?

So my friend Wynand and I were having a quiet drink at a pavement cafe in Parkhurst the other day.

He has a complaint about Parkhurst being too something or other, I can't remember.

I usually call him Windgat when he calls, because he knows everything.

"I don't understand," I said, "why people who want to lead the ANC can't just come out and say so."

"Because you'd have a hell of a fight and no one would get any work done," Wynand said. "You heard No1 the other day talking about tradition ..."

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"I did," I said, "but I didn't even understand that. What makes a tradition a tradition?"

Wynand's face took on a familiar didactic hew.

"A tradition is a practice among a particular group of people that's handed down from generation to generation," he said.

"So it's a tradition that no one in the ANC can openly campaign for the job?" I asked.

"No," he said, "that's more like a rule. A rule can't be a tradition. The moment you try to make a tradition a rule it stops being a tradition and then people do it because they have to.

"It sort of spoils it in a way."

"Is there," I asked, quietly trying to trap him, "an important difference between a tradition and a habit, or a routine?"

"No," he said, easily spotting my feeble effort. "Habits or routines are normally confined to individuals."

"So is it a tradition or not, like Zuma said, that in the ANC the deputy president usually becomes president?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Wynand said, finishing his Corona and looking around for another one, hoping the waiter would see him.

"Can't you just count them off?" he asked me.

"How far back do I have to go?" I asked him. "To 1912? I don't have the energy."

He asked me when I was born. "Nineteen fifty-two," I said.

"Well then, the year you were born Albert Luthuli became president of the ANC," said Wynand.

block_quotes_start You mean that for as long as I've been alive, these 64 years, more than half the life of the ANC, the deputy president of the ANC has pretty much always replaced the president of the ANC when he moves on? block_quotes_end

"What was he before he was president?" I asked.

"He was deputy president to JS Moroka."

"And who was Luthuli's deputy?" I asked.

Wynand rolled his eyes and pushed the slice of lemon on top of his Corona bottle right into the beer itself.

"Luthuli's deputy was Oliver Reginald Tambo," he said, rolling the "R" in Reginald as he went.

"Shall I go on for you?"

I waved him along.

"Tambo's deputy, even when he was in prison, was Nelson Mandela.

"Mandela's deputy was Thabo Mbeki, though that was after Walter Sisulu, who was deputy from 1991 to 1997.

"Mbeki's deputy was Jacob Zuma. Jacob Zuma's deputy is Cyril Ramaphosa ..."

I had put up my hand.

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"You mean that for as long as I've been alive, these 64 years, more than half the life of the ANC, the deputy president of the ANC has pretty much always replaced the president of the ANC when he moves on?" I asked. "That's unbelievable when you put it like that."

"Is more than half the life of an organisation enough to establish a tradition in it?"

"It is," said Wynand, "if it's over 100 years old."

"So when Zuma says it isn't tradition for the deputy to replace the president," I asked, "he is basically being, well, economical with the truth?"

Wynand nodded.

"That's the thing about traditions," he said. "They aren't written down. They can't be. The moment you make a tradition a rule you destroy it, you vandalise it."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Because," said Wynand, making as if to begin leaving, "once it's a rule you can twist it and weaponise it.

"Rules ultimately destroy organisations. It's their traditions that keep them safe."