Politics is about power, plus five talking points from ‘Vrye Weekblad’

Legend has it that Jan van Hunks was a retired Dutch pirate who, for no good reason at all, was chilling on the slopes of Table Mountain with his pipe and a few crates of Red Heart rum when a stranger was blown in by the raging south easter. The stranger initially asked for a fill of tobacco. 

After mutual ruminations on the ups and downs of life in the Cape and the delays of the mail coach, Van Hunks and the stranger, the latter with a head covering pulled down tightly over his ears, returned to more important matters. The shy character couldn’t stop talking about Jan’s exquisite tobacco. Jan was outrageously flattered and was strangely attracted to the stranger’s unpolished metaphors.

Maybe it was the moment that overwhelmed the stranger - or maybe it was the rum and the zol – and he collapsed. Van Hunks brought him another sip or two of the VOC’s finest imported rum. The stranger turned out to be the devil. A lightning bolt from the depths of hell reduced both rascals to a plume of smoke that covers Table Mountain to this day.

I was reminded of the legend when I read that Gayton McKenzie, activist leader and father figure of the Patriotic Alliance (PA), said there was nothing preventing him from forming an alliance with even the Afrikanerweerstandsbeweging (AWB), writes Piet Croucamp in this week's edition of Vrye Weekblad.

In his honesty, he confirms that politics is about power and without power he can’t change the lives of the people who voted for him. I think he is right. I’ll give McKenzie the benefit of the doubt and cast him in the role of the stranger in the Van Hunks legend. Eugene Terre’blanche enters the theatre as Jan.

There is, however, very little difference between McKenzie and Terre’blanche - two convicted criminals making political capital from identity politics. McKenzie’s only condition is that the AWB should treat him as an equal. Ironically, Terre’blanche would never have negotiated with McKenzie without a loaded Sanna. 

Democracy gave McKenzie a strong mandate to negotiate with “a Terre’blanche”. The PA is one of the 10 biggest political parties in South Africa, and the party seemingly has unlimited growth potential. He describes his party as “colourful” rather than “coloured”. Referring to the senselessness of rainbow nation symbolism, Terre’blanche apparently said the colour black is not represented in a rainbow.

The last word, via Netwerk24’s Jana Marx, belongs to McKenzie: “If you get to the toilet  at a filling station and it costs R1 to enter; your stomach is working and you simply have to get inside, and if you have 99c and I have 1c, then I am important to you.”

The ANC finds the PA a very useful coalition partner, and every cent of McKenzie’s soul is worth its weight in gold. 

Read the full column, and more news, analysis and interviews in this Friday's edition of Vrye Weekblad. 

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Must-read articles in this week’s Vrye Weekblad

>> Browse the full 19 November edition

LET DIE STEM GO | It is time to drop the lines from Die Stem from the national anthem, writes Max du Preez. Die Stem is a symbol of apartheid, and apartheid was not culture. We need an anthem that everybody in this country can sing with pride. 

VAX AID | Rock stars have traditionally not been seen as proper role models who spread the good word, but there are some who really are trying to make the world a better place.

WHIP IT | Whip making is as old as the Bible itself, but this fine art is dying out and only a handful of South Africans still know how to do it. We spoke to one of them. 

BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS | We read a complex feminist novel, two very special autobiographies, and a self-help guide. 

FREE TO READ – SUNDAY BLUES | About a lucky break, the Aussies and Kiwis and the T20 final, Panados and pizza, and the correct spelling of f*** off.