MAKHUDU SEFARA | We are as much to blame as Zuma for the mess SA is in

It was bound to end in tears. It’s a terrible episode in our nascent democracy. Over our dead bodies, the villagers and townspeople proclaimed. He will never walk alone, others cried aloud. But when the moment came, former president Jacob Zuma stood alone behind bars.

On Thursday and Friday, he had his prison breakfast alone.

Publicly, the bravado and chest-thumping exercises were, in the period leading to his imprisonment, in overdrive. Privately, the tears flowed for a 79-year-old pensioner found by judges of the highest court in our land to have nothing but contempt for our laws. Even his spokesperson, Jimmy Manyi, had to take a break on Thursday to let the pain, the reality, sink in.

Yet we must ask — what profits a man from refusing to answer a few questions before deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo? Is it worse than sitting out winter behind bars? Is it not telling that when the ConCourt irritably asked Zuma several times to appear before it, he would have none of it? Yet when the hour approached for him to be jailed, he fell over himself trying to get its attention.

When all is said and done, this is not a moment to celebrate the triumph of the rule of law, however important. It is a moment to shed a tear, and not because of the incarceration of a rogue former leader. 

We must shed a tear that it had to come to this. A man who so loved freedom that he risked his life for it has, in 79 years, come full circle: incarcerated for fighting apartheid, exiled in pursuit of freedom, celebrated as a hero, honoured as a president, denounced as a fraud who traded our sovereignty to haughty brothers from India for 30 pieces of silver.

What law-abiding South Africans desire are answers. Nothing complex. Why did Zuma mortgage our country to the infamous Guptas? Was it, in hindsight, worth it? Is it worth the orange suit? Or, like many, did Zuma simply not think midnight on July 7 would arrive and the crowds outside his house, including comical Edward, his beloved and special son, would mean nothing when faced with deciding whether or not to defy the highest court and start a lonely, 15-month journey?

It is indeed not a week to beat the drum of triumphalism, but a time to reflect on how we got here. Why we are here and, importantly, what role we played, collectively, in bringing our country close to its knees. 

We should have thought then about how low we had set the bar for the high office. We should have thought then about what this man, with obvious limited ability to read and manage complexity, would do when handed control of a nation with the types of resources it has. We did not. And we are here now. 

When Zuma became deputy president, his ability to read and manage complexity were immediately apparent. His early brushes with the law should have raised alarm bells. That he was not found guilty of rape is beside the point. How he came across when he defended himself then, the views he expressed about women then, and his fraud and corruption charges for his alleged involvement in arms deal corruption should have helped us make the right decisions about him much earlier. We didn’t. 

Instead, some bright sparks in the ANC voted him in as the party’s president. We often don’t think deeply about what this did and what it means for our country. We glibly think of it as Zuma’s victory over Thabo Mbeki in Polokwane in December 2007. We talk about a tsunami that ushered him in as if it was a great thing for our country. What we should have done was think deeply about the calibre of leaders we were choosing for ourselves and the important institutions of state we were entrusting to them. We should have thought then about what the constitution enjoined them to do and if they were up to that task. We did not. We either celebrated or sulked. 

Whatever was happening in the ANC was characterised as internal factions fighting for such nebulous things as the “soul” of the ANC. 

We should have thought then about how low we had set the bar for the high office. We should have thought then about what this man, with obvious limited ability to read and manage complexity, would do when handed control of a nation with the types of resources it has. We did not. And we are here now. 

Those who today feel the need to celebrate Zuma’s demise, good luck to them. The truth is that the war is far from over. There are many Zumas in the ANC. These Zumas exist too in all political parties, as they do in corporate SA. As a ruling party, the ANC is a magnet for these rogues. Many, for a while, have joined the ANC not because of its revolutionary call to duty to create a better life for all, but because it is, in the sea of our poverty, an obvious vehicle for self-enrichment. These many Zumas in the ANC scream the loudest in meetings. They proclaim their undying love for corrupt and populist figures. They are constantly searching for their own Schabir Shaiks, Guptas and other potential sponsors so they too can taste what is now popularly referred to as “a soft life”.

By not paying attention to the quality of the leaders we vote for, we invite chaos and the type of drama we witnessed this week. We invite the pain and terrible condemnation of pensioners like Zuma. 

Put differently, all of us who voted for Zuma, knowing his limitations as a leader, are as much part of the problem as he is. In a way, we must share in the blame for gifting SA such a poor leader who is now facing the music on his own.

But if you’re the ANC, this is not just a moment to express sadness for this historic and necessary jailing of a former president. It is a moment to think deeply about how it has bequeathed us this sordid history and what can be done to ensure it’s not repeated. Otherwise it will end in tears for the party, as it has for its former leader.