I like Zapiro. I like that his cartoons are irreverent, provocative, incisive, humorous and hyperbolic; that no matter how ostensibly offensive, they are almost always perfectly on point. And I like that they piss powerful people off.
But not this week. A first for me, I find Friday’s M&G cartoon disappointing, its message inaccurate and its ethics compromised.
The cartoon (see below) depicts South African heads of state within the archetypal evolutionary trope. At the pinnacle of democratic “civilisation” is, of course, Mandela; his predecessors and successors diminishing into more primitive forms the further from him they appear on the timeline in a kind of cartoon bell curve.
It is, as is characteristic of all Zapiro’s work, brilliant artistically and timely in pointing to current concerns about democratic retrogression. My objection is the degree of democratic stature accorded to the leaders: with FW de Klerk depicted as more evolved democratically than Mbeki, who is of the equivalent stature to PW Botha, while Zuma is less civilised than Vorster, instead drawn in the same primitive form as Verwoerd. I find these comparisons outrageous.
Zuma could indeed be criticised for the regressive legislation his administration is seeking to adopt that would severely compromise our constitutional freedoms, as well as increased militarism under his leadership, unresolved corruption scandals, and a seemingly haphazard leadership of the ANC. But to parallel him with Verwoerd, the “architect of apartheid”, is — quite frankly — disgusting. In his aim to remove all blacks from the country and resettle them in Bantustans, Verwoerd consigned more than 80% of our nation to overcrowded and inhumane homelands on just 13% of the country’s (mostly infertile) land, with many dying of malnutrition and families split apart by influx control in one of the largest experiments of state-led social engineering the world has seen.
Zuma is also depicted as just less evolved than Vorster. Though Vorster granted a few minor concessions to blacks, let’s be serious — the man was involved in the Ossewabrandwag (a right-wing Afrikaner nationalist group sympathetic to Hitler’s Nazi party) in his early career. His leadership saw conscription introduced, the banning of multiracial political parties, an average of 700 books banned per year, and thousands of people detained and tortured in 90-day and then 180-day detention, some of whom died as a result, including Steve Biko.
Depicted next in our evolutionary democratic development is PW Botha, the apartheid securocrat who famously warned of a “total onslaught” that required a “total strategy”. He introduced some significant reforms, but these ultimately proved little more than cosmetic surgery to make apartheid appear more attractive and to increase its longevity. Despite the widely anticipated “Crossing the Rubicon” speech in 1985, he defied expectations and refused to give in to mounting pressure.
Botha began a secret nuclear weapons programme in collaboration with Israel. Under his leadership key anti-apartheid activists were murdered by police hit squads, experiments in chemical and biological warfare were conducted, thousands were detained and tortured, and neighbouring countries were destabilised by counter-insurgency units. And yet this is the man with whom Zapiro has chosen to equate Mbeki in form and stature. Though Mbeki may have shared Botha’s desire for a highly centralised executive presidency and consolidated personal power at the expense of democratic procedure in key spheres (at times compromising the independence of the judiciary and the public broadcaster, for example), the comparison surely ends there. To suggest that Mbeki is of the same stature democratically as a man who was found guilty of gross violations of human rights by the TRC and who remained defiant in his defence of apartheid seems indefensible.
So I’m left wondering why Zapiro chose to do so. Zapiro convincingly argues the idea of the cartoon as “the terrain of hyperbole”. In an interview with the Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy he said, “In order to say something about what is happening, you exaggerate something, you take it to the nth degree, in order to reflect how things could go — it’s the hypothetical and the hyperbole — that’s what we do.”
While I agree with this role of the satirist as caricaturing people and events, I do not find it convincing as a valid defence in this particular instance. The cartoon depicts things that have already taken place (Mbeki’s administration, for example) and the exaggeration (equating it to that of PW Botha) therefore cannot be defended as reflecting “how it could go”. But far more fundamentally, apartheid has been accorded the status of a crime against humanity in international jurisprudence — a term (like that of genocide) with a precise definition. Comparing our (compromised) democratic leaders with those responsible for gross violations of human rights and for a crime against humanity should not be done flippantly, but only with the utmost caution; inappropriately equating eras (as I believe Zapiro has) diminishes both the atrocities committed under apartheid and the fundamental rights that we now enjoy in our (flawed) democracy.
While a critique of deeply concerning erosions of democracy is crucial and timely, insinuating that we are currently no better off in terms of democratic leadership than we were in the very worst years of apartheid, I believe, undermines this important condemnation of current compromises to our constitutional values.
It is also poorly timed, given ongoing (inaccurate and sensationalist) claims by the ANC that the media is inaccurate and sensationalist — which, on balance, it is not. This cartoon seems something of an own-goal in the current media/ANC confrontation.
But, however inaccurate or offensive I find the cartoon, I would nonetheless fight for Zapiro’s right to outrage me. Rather than win our way by silencing potentially offensive opinions through punitive sanctioning (as the ANC is attempting with the proposed Media Appeals Tribunal and the Privacy of Information Act), democracy urges us to win our way by argument instead: by offering an alternative position that proves more accurate, robust and convincing, even in the face of its fiercest critics.
While comparisons (and I would argue accusations) like those in Zapiro’s cartoon may not be legitimate in reason, they must remain legitimate in law. The only limit to freedom of speech (including the freedom to offend) should be hate speech that incites people to imminent violence against a group — a caveat that itself ought to be defined as narrowly as possible.
And so, what of Malema’s outrageous assertion during Zuma’s rape trial that “when a woman didn’t enjoy it, she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast, and ask for taxi money”? This statement was judged as hate speech by the equality court, as a result of the dangerous attitude it exhibits towards women, in general, and rape, in particular. Yet Matt Yglesias, a prominent US political blogger, disagrees with the finding and warns South Africa of eroding the importance of free speech by being too quick to prohibit offensive utterances.
He argues that though Malema’s statement is clearly unacceptable, “the practical consequences of criminalising political speech are very real and not likely to be beneficial in the long run”. He warns that it is “very easy to imagine expansive powers to restrict speech being turned against marginal groups, radicals, or anyone who’s politically inconvenient. Especially in a relatively new democracy like South Africa, it’s important to stick to liberal principles”.
Instinctively, one tends to support the court’s finding, given the extreme levels of rape in our country. Indeed, one response to Yglesias’s blog argued that victims of such discrimination “do not share the luxury of having the nuanced worries about overstepping of legislation that come with privileged white American male status”. Another asserted that “in countries where women, or other disadvantaged groups, face great challenges and the exploiting group is resistant to change, it can take overreaching legislation to substitute for societal attitudes that are way out of place”. But can we justify undemocratic means, however noble the intended end? An instrumental and shifting view of democracy seems a dangerous direction to pursue.
Free speech (unfortunately) protects misogynists and minorities alike. We can’t demand free speech for people whose views we share, while asserting that the speech of the “other side” is dangerous and thus unacceptable. Even offensive speech should be allowed and — unless it propagates war or advocates hatred that incites imminent violence (the only constitutional limitations to free speech) — the government and the courts should not determine what ideas are acceptable.
I strongly disagree with both Zapiro’s counter-evolutionary cartoon and Malema’s counter-revolutionary rhetoric, but I even more strongly defend their right to share these opinions, however bigoted, prejudiced or offensive I may find them. Unless an expression genuinely endangers people by inciting imminent violence, we should fiercely protect our otherwise unhindered right to free speech. Rather than consider the “benefits” of censuring speech through heavy-handed and unconstitutional legislation, we should focus on developing the far more difficult skills of debating, arguing, tolerating and defending diverse views. Accepting offensive views is one of the many inconveniences of democracy. But we cannot do democracy without it.
Janice – I think you misunderstood the cartoon. You confuse length with progress, which could be seen as a vile kind of racism. Height is just a detail of the whole picture; evolution is all about developing the capability to use attributes and length becomes increasingly irrelevant. So where you see Mbeki’s short stature as being lower than FWdK, he’s actually well ahead of him as he has mastered the technique of laying political smokescreens with his pipe (given time perhaps the power to smoke HIV out of existence). And Zuma can’t be seen as ‘parallel’ to Verwoerd in any way as he has conquered nature and is in full control of water sources, more important than oil these days. PWB’s glasses are clearly a genetic anomaly in this story. He may have evolved these reading appliances, but he has nothing to read, and we see that only at Mandela’s stage of development do we have anything in print worth reading.
I don’t think you were supposed to measure each character with a ruler. I think the meaning is symbolic, but point taken.
A well written piece – clearly the work of a scholar, thank you.
I do offer a different take, however: Given the new (well, latest at least) regime’s arrogance on the nobility of its own cause, should they not be measured by a higher standard?
One could also argue that Mbeki’s absurd stance on aids and both his and Zuma’s failure to use their influence on the Zimbabwe (and other African atrocities) is killing far more people than Apartheid’s apparatchiks.
What is the term and precise definition for Robert Mugabe’s destruction of Zimbabwe; – for it is this regression that Zapiro is depicting. Hundreds of thousands died under Mbeki’s regressive attitude on HIV AIDS. It is very possible that the near future will hold worse repression of the citizens of this country than that experienced by the majority under apartheid. What shall we call it when it happens, and will this also be judged as a crime against humanity.
The author is analyzing too deeply by matching the depiction of various presidents past and present. All that the cartoon shows me is that the regression is much quicker than the evolutionary change for the better leading up to Mandela.
Perhaps Zapiro just did not think through and anticipate the issues before doing this cartoon. Yes, he is usually spot on; yes, he is only human and perhaps he slipped up this time. Perhaps he had a tight deadline to meet; who knows what the background and circumstances were. I’ll be interested in hearing his comment on this critique.
Yup. Nothing to add, Janice. You’ve said it all – very eloquently.
I think you totally underestimate Zuma’s contribution to the side into anarchy. With regard to your indignation following the relative size of Zuma vis a vis Vorster, remember this:
Perhaps he hasn’t formalised any rascist policies, but it was he who famously cast people like me off by saying that Afrikaners are the only true Africans. Comments like that are portentous and dangerous given the weight his comments have on his followers. Secondly, the number of poor whites has reportedly grown by 90% since he has been in office. The anti-white discrimination has not yet reached the levels perpetrated by the NATS on blacks but it’s early days yet. Watch this space.
Wow!
Janice is seeing far too much into size! size isn’t everything in evolution! Well done Zapiro….let us face the facts that the whole bunch of South African leaders, with Mandela excepted perhaps??, are a bunch of neanderthals.
Janice …..your article is lengthy, far too lengthy and full of waffle and meaningless yum yummings but I respect your right to write such an article!
Derek James
I think the cartoon’s central idea is spot on. To try and quantify the degree of regression after Mandela and compare that to his predecessors is pointless since there is no scale with which to accurately measure it. You have not taken into account the fact that apartheid was a system formulated in the early part of last century when such things were not as taboo as they are now. You have not factored in the massive dissapointment that comes along with seeing an organisation like the ANC make claims of equality and liberal free thinking and then regress into a state of thought similar to that we lived in under apartheid. Such thinking in 2010 is more worrying to me than such thinking in 1945.
I would suggest that the word outrage is used too freely here. I would also suggest that your inclination to want Zapiro to tread carefully under the current media clamping attempt is quite contrary to what we should be doing in response. The media has to counter the government. As such it needs to be a force equal and opposite. When the government gets way out of hand, the media needs to lift its game too. Any public figure has recourse in court if the media gets it wrong.
“Rather than consider the “benefits” of censuring speech through heavy-handed and unconstitutional legislation”
Firstly, the new laws do not curtail or censure Zapiro’s mediocre work.
Secondly, the new legislation is NOT unconstitutional.
Thirdly, remember it was the ANC that gave us our free speech rights for the FIRST time in our history. Do we trust our media, a relic of the apartheid era or the ANC to protect our free speech rights? I know who my money is on
It’s a cartoon, for goodness sakes! You may find the comparisons outrageous, but many other South Africans don’t. Look at our government since 1994. The man has a point.
I might add that your comparison of Botha with Mbeki seems to blindly ignore Mbeki’s AIDs denialist agenda which cost over 300 000 people their lives and dignity under his direct watch according to a Harvard study. In addition, he is thought to be central to the corruption that stripped the nation of billions in the arm’s deal and gave Mugabe the lattitude to deny millions in Zimbabwe the very human rights you are outraged that Botha denied. How different are these two men really?
Wow! I wouldn’t have dreamed of reading so much into that cartoon. I have to wonder if everything you’ve read into it is really there at all.
Is it not possible, most likely even, that Zapiro had no intention of conveying quite the same detailed meaning that you have inferred but rather nothing more than just the overall trend? It seems a bit over the top to be measuring the precise dimensions of each caricature and then comparing them under a microscope looking for a hidden message.
@Janice Excellent piece, well argued and one of the most comprehensive defenses of freedom of speech/press in this debate.
That being said, I did not find the Zapiro cartoon as offensive as you did and had to ask myself why not. I think the key for me was the paper held in Mandela’s hand with one word printed on it: Democracy. That seemed to me to delimit the comment implied in the cartoon and confined the comparison to a relative understanding (amongst the individuals portrayed) of what Democracy means in both theory and practice. I took the meaning of the cartoon as a comment on the personalities of these men in relation to the basic principle of democracy: equality of all before the law.
The struggle credentials of the leaders of the ANC often blind us to the contradictions between the ANC principle of non-racial equality and the
blatant cronyism that makes a mockery of Democratic Governance. Mandela’s “lionisation” has made him more of an icon than a human being but his greatest failing seems to be his willingness to submit to “the collective” even when it is patently un-wise to do so. His loyalty seems to be to the ANC’s philosophy rather than to an in-group of cronies as was the case with Mbeki and more so with Zuma. In that restricted sense, I think Zapiro’s cartoon is spot on. Cartoons leave lots of room for interpretation. That’s mine.
I agree with the comments that you are reading to much into the cartoon.
However, your argument in defence of free speech is one of the better ones coming out of this debate.
“Accepting offensive views is one of the many inconveniences of democracy. But we cannot do democracy without it”.
I felt exactly the same. The core goal of the white right has always been to demonstrate that apartheid was no worse than what the ANC did. As such, Shapiro is serving a racist agenda.
Of course, he carefully places Mandela on a pinnacle; by doing this, he can pretend that his stance is not racist. However, the obvious point is that by carefully depicting Mbeki and Zuma as massively inferior to the magnificent white people, he is appealing to white racism. Had he drawn Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma as three conspicuously superior figures to the architects of apartheid, but on a devolving slope away from Mandela as perfection, there would have been little to get annoyed about even if you disagreed, but it would not have appealed to racists, so he chose not to do this.
And, of course, what Ms. Winter fails to note is the bizarre representation of F W De Klerk as magnificent, vastly superior to Mbeki or Zuma. In short, Shapiro is endorsing apartheid as it existed between 1988 and 1994 as superior to anything the ANC did after 1996. This is not excusable in Shapiro; his politics have dipped into the disgusting.
@ Dave Harris: sir, the ANC did not ‘give’ us ‘free speech rights’. Good grief! I am so tired of this take on the ‘struggle’. Who did the bulk of the struggling? The people of this country – the ones who chose or had no choice but to stay. The UDF. The Black Sash. The civics. The people who were HERE when there was no freedom of speech. The returned exiles have demonstrated again and again that they don’t have the same understanding as us who were here through it all. How to the inziles feel about this? If they’re like me, they’re appalled at the heavy-handedness and the ‘trust in me, just in me’ calls of the government.
I think the column reads way too much into the cartoon, which is simply saying, hey, we’ve been here before, let’s not go back PLEASE.
Jislaaik, talk about over-analysing – both from the author and in response.
Its a freaking cartoon!
The message is that we have de-volved since Mandela. That’s it. Its not comparing Mbeki to PW and Zima to verwoerd – he is saying we reached a pinnacle in mandela, and everything after him (except maybe for the brief period of SA’s forgotten president) are falline well short of the Mandela ideal.
However, I do not agree with that – Mandela was hardly an ideal… the Icon is far greater than the man.
Janice-be thankful for the absence of a lady in this “slump”…Imagine life without Zapiro…
To compare De Klerk, Mbeki and Zuma in the light of the title on that piece of paper in Mandela’s hand, “Democracy”, we also need to take into account that it was under De Klerk’s leadership that Mandela was released from prison and the referendum was held which led to universal franchise and the introduction of democracy in South Africa. By contrast, under Mbeki and Zuma, the trend is toward abuses of power and oppression of the poor while “leaders” gorge themselves at the trough.
While comparing the relative sizes of the figures in the cartoon might be taking analysis to extremes, there is a prima facie case to be made for De Klerk to tower above both Mbeki and Zuma: he brought us to the threshold of democracy, they are leading us away from it; he surrendered power in the national interest, the ANC is using “national interest” as a cover to consolidate power in their hands.
Janice as a so-called Journalist and Scholar misses the point of this cartoon completely.
Size of characters is not important. The cartoon merely illustrates the evolutionary progress of successive leaders to the pinnacle of Mandela and thereafter the progressive regression of the leaders following Madiba. It further implies that further regression will take place in the future. It also conveys to me that whether under Nationalist or ANC rule, apart from Tata, we South Africans have been cursed with Great Apes as our leaders.
Thanks for the comments, guys…good to get debate going. I can understand criticisms that my measuring-tape approach may be a bit of an overkill, but it’s not simply their height I’m referring to – the bodies of those I’ve compared have been drawn absolutely identically in terms of how primitive or evolved they are. I do think there’s a message in that (one I personally disagree with), even if it seems I’ve taken it too far!
I think counter revolution, if it exists, lies in the way we continue skirting issues about the past. My nine-year-old asked why Mandela receives more accolades than FW de Klerk if the former was released by the latter from prison. I realised that I had no answer other than the other untruth that Mandela “fought” for de Klerk to release him.
I had to painstakingly justify why more “Blacks” were killed than “Whites” by his organisation during our struggle for “freedom”.Yet it was the latter that were the oppressors. It felt so stupid just to think that I nearly lost my life in such a hopeless exercise. I think the smoke and mirrors time has run out, if we are to be true to our children and honest to the future of our country.
Are we supposed to lie in our graves with clear conscience without correcting what we thought were convenient to us? Can the country and society survive such untruths and selfishness?
Somehow, I doubt Zapiro gets as much time to conceptualise and produce the cartoon as you have to analyse it. I also doubt many spend as much time as you do, looking at it. Get real! The value is in the concept!
Don’t ask me to spend the same amount of time nit-picking over your work. My time can be better spent.
There are seven men in the frieze but only two of them can lay claim to having acted in the best interests of ALL South Africans. Mandela, and to a marginally lesser extent De Klerk, and for me that is the real issue. The other 5 were / are all staunch (even rabid) nationalists with very little concern for anyone outside their particular ideological support base. For me, Zapiro captures this reality to perfection and the issue of degree in so far as it relates to the other 5 men is quite irrelevant. Apart from De Klerk nobody comes close to Mandela and to pretend otherwise is the real outrage.
I think that perhaps Zapiro has overstated the stature of Mandela. This was the man under whose watch the arms deal was initiated, Sarafina II happened, blood diamonds were exchanged by his suspect party guests and the first person to want to clamp down on the media.
Perhaps the symmetry could be achieved by puting him on par with de Klerk!
You are right. On reflection Mbeki should have been the same height as Verwoerd, for the same reasons that you despise Verwoerd. It was Mbeki who re- introduced the racist legislation that is poisoning the country’s prospects as certainly as did Verwoerd’s.
HIs rationale, and that of its apologists, is as equally intellectually suspect as that of the unlamented Verwoerd, and has led to the exiling of about one and a half million citizens; including at least one high profile refugee embarrassment, which may only be the tip of the iceberg. Like the 1950′s this is discrimination no one want to name, but which many of our competitor country’s are availing themselves of, to attract high quality migrants.
[let us not also forget that his denialist attitude to AIDS led to enough unnecessary death that there have been calls [rightly or wrongly] for him to be indicted on genocide charges.}
As for Mr Zuma… the jury is still out although i would put him at the same level as Vorster. Both favour ‘strong man’ politics and both are stuck between a pair of warring factions.
Oddly therefore my own version of Zapiro’s cartoon would show that we are on the way up again after plumbing a new low with the man who was recalled by his party because they couldn’t stand him anymore.
I agree with you about the freedom of speech, it shoule never be curtailed. It was wrong in Malema’s case as well, agreed. He was simply stating his honest (albeit very low) opinion of women. I do not agree about Zapiro, he is absolutely spot-on as usual. Whilst not directly responsible for the torture or indignity that many suffer at present, they are indirectly responsible, for not only the torture and indignity that many suffer because of not only the obvious lack of judgement in the form of monopolising the “free” market, Zim and AIDS, but also because of the increase in crime through reduced policing and justice, reduction of education through a dumming down of the system and reduced health care, all because of their seeming drive to become equal to the Grand Evils of the past, instead of correcting the mistakes they made. Two wrongs will never make a right. That is how I read Zapiro, the sizes of the wrongs just vary the level of pain the masses feel. How can anyone call our voting system democratic now when I know of many incidences of “encouragement” to vote for the right party during the last election?
Wow! Father forgive them for they know not and know no better
@The Creator and Harris – this is not about racism but comparing leaders on an equal footing, irrespective of race, colour or creed, just how they fared in promoting democracy. The racism accusation is starting to become tiresome especially when it comes from those I suspect to be closet racists.
The fault with the cartoon is that these types are walking in a line….. they should be walking a neverending circle. History does’nt progress and evolve but repeats itself.
Anton,
Now that is analysis that demonstrates understanding not nit-picking the detail and ignoring the picture that is presented. Good thought.
It would have completely defeated the impact of the cartoon to have drawn Mbeki and Zuma mid-height or just shorter than Mandela.. The visual impact is the the dramatic gradient at which the quality of leadership has fallen – it would have been completely blunted by increasing the height of the latter two simply to allow comparison with the former four. I cannot see most people’s first impression being a direct comparison of “level” of evolution as your analysis has made – it certainly wasn’t mine.. There could have easily been two people on either side of Mandela – The visual impression is the *gradual* evolution from Vervoerd to Mandela, and the dramatic *rapid* regression thereafter.. Direct comparison with a tape-measure is surely a secondary issue, if at all that.. The cartoon is spot-on, like most of Zapiro’s other work.. and I’m sure that no matter how much time the artist had to ponder the cartoon, the outcome would have been the same.. any other way and the most obvious message would have been lost..
Viva Ngwenya! It was indeed not Big Dada who magnanimously gave “the people” rights, but “the people” who seized rights for themselves. Big Dada parachuted in after secret talks with the Nats over whiskey in the Alps. It’s time that “the people” let Big Dada know at whose behest it is ruling.
@tottie: Siestog. Two things. (1) De Klerk spent many years as politician serving the apartheid state before he became president. The historical juncture left him and the apartheid establishment with two options: a violent clampdown on political protest and final descent into a police state, or negotiating while supporting counter-revolutionary action against pro-democracy proponents. They went for the latter. Clearly Mandela is therefore of a higher moral standing than De Klerk, measured against those times. Where Mandela stands now that he is being used as mascot by a resurgently autocratic ANC faction is a different matter.
(2) Said counter-revolutionaries were manufactured by the then regime to pose as legitimate opposition to the pro-democracy activists, so they and their targets were mostly black. Which explains why more blacks were killed during the last sputters of apartheid. Maybe you shouldn’t see everything in strictly racial terms, like we have been and are being taught. Sometimes reactionaries are black. And sometimes democrats are white.
Janice you may appear to have carried this to extremes of sensitivity as a “white” african but I thought your column excellent and agreed with The Creator and strangely also with Darwinna.
Perhaps as Africans we have to stop sweating the race issue and the nationalist issue and the struggle issue because it is leading us back to 1949 when apartheid for one thing came into being. Personally I belong to the human race and words like black and white and counter-revolutionary are mere adjectives which certain people use to stir up the gullible public. At the ned of the day each of us can only choose to change our own life and to do unto others as would have done to us. We are all mortal and should try and live for the day and if we can’t help our fellow man today then let us at least not hurt him any further. Respect how he feels and perhaps we will receive respect, communication is key to this and so I am totally against stifling the media and yes even Malema. Do not laugh or throw stones at a man until you have walked a mile away from in his shoes, that way you will not be in target range and will have his shoes should he not like your response to his way of walking.
@ Ngwenya, Dave Harries is right, the ANC did give us the freedom we are enjoying today. The ANC worked underground in this country, UDF, COSATU and many (human right alligned) NGO’s in this country (worked with the ANC and)received their instructions from the ANC in exile. Do not embarass yourself by saying thing you meagrely know about.
@ Mtimande……some points.
The freedom you are enjoying today was in fact initiated by De Klerk albeit that he was under enormous pressure to do so. He did the right thing after his party had spent many years doing the wrong thing. If he had not made this move we would probably all still be living the awful apartheid state.
The ANC that you refer to is most certainly not the ANC of Nelson Mandela and all the fine men that preceded him. The ANC has abandoned the political and moral high ground achieved in 1994 and has dived headlong into the swamp of nationalist politics and incompetent governance. Not all of us are happy to wallow down there with them.
@ Dave Harris. “I know who my money is on.” Indeed, translates into commie-speak: “I know in which trough I need to park my snout.”
@ mtimande: my friend, I was there and I was involved – I was 18 in 1976. I wonder if you were there? I may well know more about it than you, so make no assumptions about people you know nothing of.
The UDF was not ‘the ANC’ internally, it was much, much more. The ANC has arrogated to itself all struggle, as if! I mean, it tries to act as though Sharpeville was an ANC thing, when it was PAC – who remembers how much the PAC did today, huh? Remember Poqo? I am sick of this attitude that the ANC all by itself did the struggle – nonsense!
Aaaah dear Janice. Surely a question of attitude and interpretation of available information? How much do we really know of Mbeki and Zuma. Could they not arguably be worse than their apartheid counterparts, despicable creatures tho’ they were, evil “men” who made no bones of their beliefs and declared them unashamedly. But … They promised their “electorate” and DELIVERED. Ours have made promises to their constituency that could never have been realistically delivered in the short term… even if they did have the will to govern, as opposed to protecting and selling their own persona and that of the ‘party’. Mbeki was party to a couple of wars in Africa being brought to halt (brilliant). But his obstinacy, arrogance and pathetic stance on HIV/AIDS unleashed a war between a virus and his own people. We will never be able to measure the damage to our society … or count the bodies as a result of this war….a war won by a damned virus unleashed upon his own during his tenure. That is his legacy. Why should he be LARGER than De Klerk (sick in his own right but man enough to make a realistic decision.) As for Zuma the less said the better. Zap..this is socio-political comment at its best, imaginative, brave and effective …prompting healthy discussion. I may have depicted… perhaps even more strongly in my assessment than yours. The term “Your excellency” ..a misnomer surely.. used so freely, so easily..
Get an education Janice.
White person mouthing off on the state of the country? Obviously, Janice is racist.
But seriously, I think the main point of Janice’s post is not who’s the best president (I would put them in completely the opposite way, with the more evolved ones further back).
The main point is that forcing you and I to believe who was the best president or who is the best party from Luthuli House is not a good idea. If you disagree with Janice and mouthed off on this thread, then you’ve proved Janice right.