In many patriotic households and peace-loving hearts across SA there is apprehension, even fear, at the violence that broke out in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng at the weekend. Of even more concern will be the utterances of people such as KZN premier Sihle Zikalala, who amid the mayhem opted to call on President Cyril Ramaphosa to pardon former president Jacob Zuma to appease the rioters and looters.
Zikalala and his ilk failed to perform the most basic act expected of someone in his position — stand for the rule of law. They want a special allowance for Zuma, who has repeatedly spat in the face of the constitution that governs us, and to send out the message that there is a law for the poor and powerless and another for the rich and connected. Is that the world the KZN premier wants to raise his children in?
Interestingly, it is these same people who applaud when Zuma says, as he did in February: “I think our laws are not biting enough. They are not dealing with people enough. For example, people who were sentenced to life imprisonment, it is always known they will be out in 20 years.”
The irony of it all is that Zuma was speaking at an ANC virtual session on social cohesion. He had much else to say. In one instance he suggested people accused of a crime should be stripped of their rights to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
He said: “For an example, today, if I commit a crime, if I kill somebody in front of all of you, the laws of this country say you can’t say this person is being arrested or charged because he has killed a person, it says we must say we suspect this man has killed this person. That’s the softness of the law.”
Many of those you saw rioting at the weekend are not Zuma supporters. They saw shops being looted. They joined in. They saw cars being vandalised. They joined in. They are not prepared to die for Zuma. They are prepared to loot when the opportunity presents itself. The same people who are looting today are the same people who will rush out to loot during a xenophobic attack.
We now know Zuma was not talking about the law as it applies to himself. If you are the daughter of a washerwoman, then the law must be hard on you. If you are a powerful politician, such as the former president, the law must treat you with leniency. That is why his supporters are spreading the lie that he has been jailed “without trial”.
It’s a total fabrication. In court last week, adv Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, representing the state capture commission, said Zuma had been invited six times by the Constitutional Court and the commission to make representations. Yes, reader, six times. He refused. I won’t even list the number of times everyone from EFF leader Julius Malema to police minister Bheki Cele have gone to Nkandla to beg him to make representations to the courts. This is not a man who has been stripped of his rights or jailed without trial. This is a man who, as Ngcukaitobi has correctly argued, “defined himself outside of the law and judicial authority”.
SA has treated Zuma with compassion on many occasions. The country wants him to go away and become just a bad dream. He refuses to do so. Even now, when he could try to cooperate with the law, he continues to show the country the finger. At the weekend his children exhorted poor people to cause anarchy and applauded images of mayhem in KwaZulu-Natal.
So to those peace-loving and law-abiding people of this country who are worried about where this is going, the answer is simple. There will be more of these mad bursts of violence; there will be more shouting and screaming and playing to the gallery.
Yet there is nothing that can keep that motley crew together. Many of those you saw rioting at the weekend are not Zuma supporters. They saw shops being looted. They joined in. They saw cars being vandalised. They joined in. They are not prepared to die for Zuma. They are prepared to loot when the opportunity presents itself. The same people who are looting today are the same people who will rush out to loot during a xenophobic attack.
This rioting is unsustainable and will peter out as arrests are made.
The challenge for our country is to sustain the upward momentum Zuma and his gang destroyed. In 2008 this economy was growing steadily; unemployment was consistently but slowly declining and many of our social challenges were being chipped at. Tomorrow was looking more promising than yesterday.
For 10 years they tried to destroy that progress. They have failed. They are now at that desperate stage where they are lashing out and threatening us and our nation. They will fail at this too. So for those patriotic hearts out there, concerned about our country, be still. Zuma and his allies are using poor, desperate people to fight their battles, but the reality is they have run out of gas.
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