Zuma said today that some people say
” ‘Zuma is causing a problem for himself’. I don’t think they understand me,” he said.
It’s true Zuma. Some of us don’t. Then again, the life of a president must put some really intense pressures on a man. You can’t seem to say anything right, in fact, sometimes you don’t say anything new at all but simply circumlocute the essential point that things are essentially as good/bad as they were last year with Thabs in power. You have to worry about being flipped at a stop street and that your nation doesn’t understand you. Shame.
These statements haven’t come from nowhere, our prez is not just feeling bad for himself. In fact Zuma is pushing for a debate on a national moral code. The founding pillar for this push is the belief that
“Using one’s own culture to judge others is unconstitutional.”
It’s very confusing. I mean, the Constitution is difficult and tricky. It’s a mish-mash of Western constitutionalism (written down in various forms) and African traditional law (which is not written down) aiming to create a balance between respecting culture and preventing culture from harming others. It’s tough to understand, tougher to make fit comfortably and even tougher to apply in a court of law.
But, what does he mean “judge”? How is to judge different from critique and debate? Like he says,
“We cannot be expected, all the time, to be respectful to others when others are not respectful to us and others.”
Is respect something that can just be given willy-nilly, or like in cowboy films and family stories is it something that is earned? Is it something that you can grant to others when they have made no effort to grant you the same respect? These may seem like airy-fairy, philosophy-school style discussions, but if we’re going to have a new national code, I’d like to know who’s making it and what the rules are.
Is it like the Da Vinci code, or will it be more like Morse code. Will it be based on pagan, Muslim, Christian, atheist, patriarchal or feminist mores? Will it be moulded and shaped by Xhosa/Zulu/Sepedi/English/Afrikaans/French/Tswana or some other form of heritage? Will it be accepting of homosexuality, transgender people and transsexuals? Where will you pick and choose from? And more importantly, when these moral codes begin to clash, which one will trump?
The scariest part about his statement for me, was what the president wanted from the code. For Zuma the goal of the debate around this new universal morality which will be enforced post discussion like the lovely green Outsurance blanket, or the rainbow nation, is …
“to define an African in this country and a South African” .
But Mr Zuma, that’s exactly what the problem is. As soon as you set up a universal a-historical idea of “African” you block it off from progress and critique. You block off diversity, change and development from within and from outside. To define it as though it had always been that way is to deny the very acts of decision-making and discussion that you wish to engage in. So you are really making it very much more difficult for future changes and evolutions to occur.
It cannot be defined. An African is not simply a picture on a postcard. It is a dynamic identity that you feel in your heart and defend in your actions. It should be open to challenge, feedback and constructive criticism. It should be inclusive, not exclusive.
My fear is that when you create a moral code, you suddenly cast some people as immoral. And when you tell someone that they are suddenly no longer an African, you return to the same type of problematic pencil testing and irrational demarcations that South Africa tried to get away from in 1994.
Agreed.
The more JZ tries to justify his actions the deeper the hole he digs. Why did he just not say (Tiger as well) that he enoys chasing women and be done with it. Half the world would jeer and the other half would applaud and the episode would be over.
Trying to hide his action behind culture when clearly (according to my 2 zulu mates) he is not acting within his culture and now trying to define culture to somehow justify his position just makes him look more lame.
You have precisely articulated the problem: defined morality, according to JZ, must be limited to determining what is ‘African’. That is a huge backward step.
In this 21st century even definitions of what is Human are considered as limited. Some (including myself) believe that we should have graduated to defining our rights, responsibilities and cultural behaviours in terms of all Life.
I would further argue that if we don’t rapidly graduate to recognise that humans are not superior to other forms of life, this century will record another massive die-off of humanity, similar to the near extinction of modern man 30,000 years ago (and the complete extinction of neanderthal man)
We already have a ‘national moral code’ in the form of the Constitution.
As Jennifer rightly observes our Constitution is a compromise between democratic principles and African cultural traditions. They are not easily combined and are often at odds–because there is no single, universal African cultural tradition. There are many, largely tribal, traditions and many incongruities between them. Witness the current clash between the Tsonga (claiming natural superiority) and the Pedi (whom the Tsonga claim are naturally inferior). Obviously, the principle of Equality in a Democracy has not been understood in this tribal context.
The problem is that the government has not met its responsibility to educate the public on the actual provisions of the Constitution as they apply to our daily lives. A ‘moral’ code is implicit in those provisions: the right of each individual to self-determination, to equal treatment under the law, to freedom from discrimination based on race, gender, religion, age, physical or mental ‘handicaps’, etc. in such things as employment, education, health care, freedom of expression, etc. and our responsibility to obey the laws enacted on the basis on the Constitution.
SA needs a national campaign using all media to educate the population– especially the semi- and illiterate–on what each plank of the Constitution means, NOT in THEORY but in practice in our lives.
Democracy is not just for the courts anymore than religion is just for church. We must live democracy in every area of our lives. That is a ‘moral code’.
Many hundreds of years ago Aristotle wrote his Ethics. I read it as a child and then again as an adult. That has been my understanding, woth some criticism, as he was patriarchial, of how you should conduct your life. Regretably, no such document has been deciphered from ancient Minoan.
I subscribe to no religion, having been forced to study religion in order to pass the necessary number of subjects to pass “A” levels and gain entrance (the school couldn’t offer me the ones I wanted). This experience was enlighting.
The basis of morality is this: do to no-one what you would not want done to you.
What part of this is not straight forward and simple? Why do so many politicians, indutrialists and business people not understand this? Why is this simple fact not taught in families, schools and universities? Why are we such idiots immersed in our vanity that we cannot see the truth? It has NOTHING to do with religion, culture or anything else. It has to do with doing the RIGHT thing! So start doing it, all of you out there.
You summed it up beautifully in the last paragraph. Nice job.
Once again Zuma is simply denying responsibility for his actions. Instead of stepping up and engaging with the public on what is causing so much frustration, he creates a diversion.
Again here the diversion is ‘Culture’ and what it means to be ‘African’ – and we get so caught up in these questions that we lose sight of the simple point: Culture can’t exist without society, and if everyone in society acted like the president does, there wouldn’t be much of a society left.
Well articulated argument! This guy has no idea what the organisation he currently leads, the ANC, stands for! It’s really absurd and embarassing actually! The saddest thing of it all though is that he’s surrounded by people who are as ignorant of the progressive nature of the ANC.
How can you have a common moral code while at the same time insisting on the centrality of your own culture in how you treat others? You lead an organisation that stands for non-sexism but at the same time support and practice chauvinistic tendencies in the name of culture?
This country does not need a new moral code, our constitution is sufficient to give guidance on what’s right and what’s wrong.
Excellent! What is this propensity for labelling and then and shoving people into boxes?
Each is an individual and we all react differently to all circumstances; every history and gene works against accurate labelling.
Someone should tell Zuma to get his act together or he’ll end up like Eskom, which mourns a lesser raise than it hoped for, but now wants to change all our meters. I wonder how many of us have worked out that we’ll then have to pay one month’s electricity in arrears and the following one upfront; two in one month. And that’s really going to help people who are struggling to pay their bills, innit?
I should imagine Zuma’s just trying to re-write the ‘book’ to prove he has a place in it.
After all, virtually all he does goes agaist the grain of South African more modern trends: aids awareness, justice, etc.
I can’t wait for the day when the ANC finds the brains to admit that SA under JZ achieved even less than under TM! At least we wern’t the laughing stock of the entire world back then!
Zuma is just starting this initiative to justify his own immorality. Amongst all the obfuscation that arises from this dialogue he will pull the rabbit out of the hat to say that he was right in his actions all along. Just another smoke and mirrors exercise that will achieve nothing.
It is not a co-incidence that this debate that the president says he will lead comes after the revelations of his 20th child. I wrote to him a letter which I posted on http://ingqondo.blogspot.com in which I tried to ‘engage’ him on this matter and the press release that he issued after that.
I cannot claim to be as au fait about culture as the president, but I know that what he did is something that is frowned at by his culture. There are too many people living in squalor conditions for us to be debating this. If the presidents wants this debate lets have it after solving the problems in our country: education, health, unemployment and crime, after that, we can debate until the cows come home, I don’t mind. At this stage, I wish the president can provide leadership on these matters and stop flogging this dead horse
Jeniffer you’re being dishonest with yourself I hope it’s deliberate. There’s a reason why white and indian people are never derided (at least by black people) when they participate in their traditional ceremonies. You’ll find no newspaper article by a black person deriding another race’s traditional activities. The same cannot be said about white people when it comes to black people’s traditions. Be it lobola, wearing nylon leopard prints, polygamy, reed dance, etc.white people always mobilise each other and criticise.
well put Judith. The code you propose is called, I think, the “golden Rule” and according to at least one book I read, pre-dates Christianity.
If everyone did, or at least tried to live by that rule, half our problems would be over. However, to apply it requires a certain degree of insight and introspection and a recognition of one’s own falibility.
Zuma would have had to ask himself – How would I like it if my married best friend came to my house, started an affair with my daughter and then had a child with her. Maybe it would not bother Zuma and he’d carry on, but at least it forces you to ask the question…
The debate about morality should not be about cultures and how they are expressed. Rather, it should be about the means of achieving a national consensus on what the right thing to do is, for all of us, at all times. I do not think for example that morality should be about the displacement of mordenity through a quasi ‘back to roots’ kind of campaign. It should fundamentally be about each and everyone in society implicitly knowing what is right and what is wrong. That, at its core, morality is about self discipline, and not about being religious or pius, or a cultural ‘us’ and ‘them’. The very programme of government is informed by an intrinsic moral code. For example the fight for a crime-free society is not just about the best policing methods we must develop, but about the development of a social disciplinary code that eschews criminality – where society as a whole does not see anything worth emulating from criminality. I will understand President Zuma better if he says let us find a social mechanism through which all of us will know instinctively that murdering an unarmed and innocent person is wrong; that there is no acceptable justification for raping a toddler; that knowingly buying a stolen item is wrong; that we must at all times must strive to be considerate, and accept one another’s differences, quacks and idiosyncrasis; and that we must act as neighbours, brothers and sisters in a bond of solidarity and patriotism.
i don’t know who is worse — zuma or some of his apologists.
on this one listserv i’m on, this [white*] woman says, “well, you know, in their culture, you have to test out their fertility before you marry them.”
i saw that and i was like “are you fucking kidding me?”
[*it's important to note that that this woman was white. it's as if she is trying to be the kind of superliberal that ms. pillay pillories.]
“An African is not simply a picture on a postcard. It is a dynamic identity that you feel in your heart and defend in your actions”… Well said!
@ Fani Dingiswayo
” If the presidents wants this debate lets have it after solving the problems in our country: education, health, unemployment and crime, after that, we can debate until the cows come home ”
Do you not think that many of the problems in the issues you list are problems with morality? Dishonesty, lack of integrity, corruption are all moral problems that affect everything you have listed. Morality is not only about who you have sex with.
Right on Judith. Any moral person knows what is right or wrong, whatever his/her “culture”
@Sipho,
“There’s a reason why white and indian people are never derided (at least by black people) when they participate in their traditional ceremonies”.
Exactly what are the traditional ceremonies of white, English speaking South Africans? Quite frankly I doubt if English speakers would worry one iota about what others said of their “traditional ceremonies”.
re Thought Leader’s editorial policy.
“There is a difference between criticising a political party, a religion, an organisation, a cultural group or a community and unreasonably attacking such bodies.”
What exactly constitutes an “unreasonable attack”?
Some organisations take any criticism as an unreasonable attack. Muslims, in particular are prone to even regard the mildest criticism as an attack, even if you can quote from the Koran to back your aguments they take offence.
Mundundu
One nutty American “liberal” couple told one of the travellors whose books I read that female genital mutilation is “just their culture and we should not judge”????
Next muti murders and raping virgins will be “just our culture”
Sipho, please get off your black horse and walk with your feet. Maybe you will then be able to make contributing arguments.
Jeff Jones & Hendre – The primary reason why Malema is hated by many English speaking people is simply because he speaks his mind.
It is English speakers who write rims and rims of articles in condemnation of Malema. Then you turn around and tell me English speakers don’t mind what others say about them.
South Africans should see the President’s call for a moral code as nothing else but a way to get back at them for the excoriating views they aired regarding his latest misdeamenour. His call is nothing more than a veiled repudiation of his apology to the nation. Do we not see that he is still seething behind the veneer of that apology?
Having sold his credibility for one silly moment of passion, I do not think he has any vestiges of credibility left in him for him to make this call. Frankly it sounds hollow, and even the rationale for the call is flawed and even impractical in its tenor and intent.
I was taught at law school that morality cannot be legislated, and I still hold on to that teaching, particularly in a pluralistic society that obtains in South Africa. Issues of morality are correctly adjudicated upon by the conscience. The president ought to be aware, therefore, that when South Africans reprimanded his conduct, they were driven, not by any written code on morality, but by the dictates of their consciences.
I would thus assert, it will be a waste of time and resources to pursue the president’s call, accordingly it should be jettisoned, and let us all continue to pay heed to the saying “my conscience is my constituency”.
The reason that most people are concerned when Malema speaks his mind is because of what’s in there.
Well said Jennifer.
Sipho – Malema is hated because he speaks his what?
@Sipho,
Read what my post says, not what you want my post to read.
I asked you what “traditional ceremonies” English speaking white South Africans have. If they did, then I doubt they would worry what an idiot like Malema or anyone else has to say about them.
As others have pointed out what people don’t like about Malema shooting his mouth off is that he has nothing positive or sensible to say.
mallencolly, unlike you, I don’t believe that there is a need for a debate on what constitutes dishonesty, lack of integrity and corruption. Our case law has defined these. Unlike you, I don’t think that the Honourable President wants to have this debate because he thinks these have not been clearly defined in law. I think that the Honourable President wants this debate to define who has sex with who. Remember this need comes right after the issue of the 20th known child
@ Fani Dingiswayo
I think you need to reread what I said.
I’ll ask it in a diferent way.
Would an all encompassing moral debate, one that would “define an African in this country and a South African”, be beneficial in eradicating unethical behaviour such as dishonesty, lack of integrity and corruption from the running of government?
Whether he wants to protect his philandering ways does not detract from the need for a moral debate.
Mallencolly
I’m saying dishonesty, lack of integrity and corruption do not require a debate. In my view, these are always debated in our courts and their definitions and what is constituted by them is there in case law. The debate is therefore unnecessary. As a nation we have agreed in the constitution about these things and we continue to make laws and debate these laws and have institutions to enforce the laws.
I’m also saying that it is no coincidence that the the person that wants to start and drive this debate talks of it after an outcry about his philandering ways, which are claims are permitted by his culture. Because of this, I say that what you want to debate, which I believe is not necessary, will not be important to the Honourable President. He wants a debate that will produce a moral code, your debate seeks to look at legal issues of lack of integrity, corruption and dishonesty.
@ Fani Dingiswayo, what does case law say about having a child out of wedlock? What does it say about polygamy? What does it say about wearing nylon leopard skins? What does it say about drinking sorghum beer out of paint tin? What does it say about office bearers and their ethnic traditions?
Aren’t these some of the things that embarasses you amongst your european friends?