The unbearable lightness of being Bakkies Botha

“No, we haven’t seen any lions yet.”

The lady from the BBC radio station sat across from me in our lounge, fidgeting with her recording equipment. Her face was serious; perhaps she had not realised I was only joking?

They had driven from Cape Town to Somerset West that morning, she and her lady friend, two very fair-skinned middle-aged dames lost in a city which is the murder capital of the world, in a country ruled by corrupt politicians and vuvuzela-toting soccer maniacs, in a continent where no-one drinks tea with their supper.

They appeared frightened, out of their depth, not really acclimatised to our suffocating summer heat after a season of flooding in Britain.

I still don’t know whether they really expected to see any African wildlife on the drive from central Cape Town to my suburban house nestled between wine and golf estates in this up-market area where I am the proud owner of a bad copy of a two-storied fake Tuscan hacienda which I’m still hanging on to for dear life even though I can’t really afford it in the present economic climate. I don’t really understand why the BBC wanted to interview me about the up-and-coming soccer tournament. I don’t know anything about soccer! I know even less about soccer than I know about 7de Laan.

So, instead of talking about soccer, I started talking about Jacob Zuma.

Bad mistake.

I imagine that that interview I gave to the two British ladies must be broadcast round about now. I cannot think of a worse time for my idiotic views to be broadcast, for all to hear, in a well-informed and civilised country such as England.

I did that interview about a month ago, and in the mean time, everything had changed. Zuma had fallen from grace after a disastrous visit to Britain, and Afrikaans hip-hop became the new craze in world music.

At the time of the interview, I was already a fan of Jack Parow, but I was still under the mistaken impression that somehow Vernon Koekemoer was the main thrust of Afrikaans culture. And — horror of horrors! — I was a fan of Jacob Zuma.

I am still a fan of Jacob Zuma — with the possible exception of Julius Malema, Rian Malan and all of Zuma’s wives who haven’t divorced him yet, I am probably the last Jacob Zuma fan left on the planet! — but these days I no longer defend him as vigorously as in days of old. When Angus Buchan and Helen Zille started praying for the guy, I mumbled along in strained sympathy. I feel let down by my president. I still like his charm, his boyish grin, and his tight-fitting suits, and the fact that he was at last prepared to expose his assets, but I am a worried man.

When the second-last bout of Zuma-bashing in the media reached its frenzied pinnacle — that was the time before people criticised him for his London PR disaster, when they were still worried about his sex life, remember? — I kept my mouth shut. I sat alone in front of my computer in my quiet study, contemplating my next Rapport column and marvelling at the schizophrenia of white South Africans. Yes! Believe it or not, the very same people who loudly applauded a vulgar stage act like Die Antwoord, the same nation who spawned, and admired, such dubious heroes as Joost van der Westhuizen and Steve Hofmeyr, were perfectly ready to crucify Jacob Zuma for openly marrying five women in a row!

Then came the revelation of his lovechild, and I felt a vague stirring of unease. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a lovechild — I have at least one myself — but that, on top of the five wives, on top of the fact that Zuma never used condoms in a time when the entire nation was ravaged by Aids, on top of the fact that porn on TV might soon be far too easily accessible in a country where women were humiliated and targeted daily, all that sordid stuff made me feel as if the bottom of my world was slowly falling out. If we could not trust Zuma, who could we trust? I mean, especially if Malema might be next in line for the kleptocratic throne!

That was when I began entertaining secret fantasies about Bakkies Botha entering politics.

God knows, we need more people like Bakkies Botha. In politics, in public life, everywhere. Even if he is suffering from a shoulder injury.

Why? Well, Bakkies Botha is a man of few words. He has never written a book. He never makes speeches. He is the kind of guy who never seeks the limelight, he just donners into the scrum — or the loose maul, or whatever you call the tangle of bodies that periodically piles up on any rugby field — and does his job. Unseen, unheard, he dives into that grizzly pile of swearing and sweat, where he throws his punches, where he scratches and claws and works his silent way towards Springbok victory.

He never towers high in the line-outs like Victor Matfield. He hardly ever joins the back-line to pretend to be a centre like Juan Smith. He never graces the front page of magazines like Percy Montgomery or Francois Steyn. He isn’t pretty, or charming, or suave, or sexy, or cool. He is simply Bakkies Botha. He has absolutely no other baggage to carry in life besides being himself. He has the common touch.

There was a time when I believed Zuma had the common touch, too. I mean, anyone who can survive an evening of braaing with Dan Roodt and Leon Schuster must be remarkably resilient, a real man’s man, superhumanly brave almost to the point of idiocy.

And, may I remind you, braaing with Dan Roodt and Leon Schuster was the one thing Thabo Mbeki would never have done. Not even if he was allowed to fly there in his private jet and wear his Gucci suit to the occasion. He was far too “sophisticated” to stoop to such mundane levels.

After we’d all gotten so mighty tired of Thabo Mbeki’s long-winded speeches, his quotes from Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, the millions of conferences he organised, trips he went on, all the useless hot air he generated, Jacob Zuma seemed set to become the ordinary folks’ president. To be quite honest, there was a time, until not so long ago, that I believed Zuma’s political style to be the black equivalent of Bakkies Botha’s style of rugby.

He spoke in plain English. In spite of the clouds of suspicion hanging over home — the arms deal, Shaik, the accusations of rape — he was down to earth and accessible. He simply shook off all those bad things like a dog ridding himself of water. The one moment he was the worst villain of South African politics, the next moment he was Mr Squeaky Clean. He installed a corruption hotline right to his office. He seemed eager to get the job done. He promised swift action against lazy cabinet ministers. He spent literally all his time rolling up his sleeves, metaphorically speaking.

Now, the chickens are coming home to roost, and it appears that all that rolling up of sleeves was just trick photography. Nothing had actually been done. Of what use is the hotline to his office if Mr Zuma is never in his office, but always on honeymoon? The fishermen of the West Coast are still looking for Zuma to look into their quota problem. Service delivery is not improving. Even public relations — Zuma’s strong point up till now — is floundering on a sea of contradictions and recriminations.

It appears that Zuma is like Mbeki, but with more wives, less hair and without the quotes from A Tale of Two Cities.

How I wish I had known all this a few weeks ago when I was doing that radio interview for the BBC.

How I wish I had told them about Bakkies Botha.

The people of Britain have the right to know that we still have guys like Bakkies Botha in this country; men and women who are simply doing their job, day after day, without releasing any new Afrikaans CDs, without sitting back and waiting for regstellende aksie, without suing anybody, or raping anybody, or bumping folk over with their cars, or receiving kickbacks for doing nothing, or organising rock festivals with names ending in “-Stok”, or publishing autobiographies (yes, yes, I know), or ignoring red traffic lights in blue-light cavalcades, or changing the names of towns without any rhyme or reason, or ordering Moët champagne at room service with taxpayers’ money, or denying personal culpability, or evading personal responsibility, or appearing in smutty home videos, or throwing cups of tea at nice ladies, or do any of the ghastly things South African politicians and other people figures seem to be spending absolutely all their time on.

This is what I should have told the ladies from the BBC. I have should have told them that we still have people like Bakkies Botha.

Millions of them.

Ordinary people. People without massive ideological chips on their shoulders. People who just want to get on with their jobs, their families, and looking after their dogs. All they are asking for is clean water, safe streets, working toilets and a minimum income. These are the people so disrespectfully called “the masses” by guys like Julius Malema, as if they are not people at all but mere blobs of protoplasm ready to ooze out of their shacks at a moment’s notice and go marching just to satisfy the whims of the new fat cats, for whatever ridiculous reason, whether it be to protest against Nedbank, or to nationalise Medi-Clinic, or persuade Helen Zille to give up Satanism, or whatever.

I’ve got news for people like Malema. The so-called “masses” are marching already. And this time round, they’re not marching for any political party or ideology. This time round, they’re not carrying placards. They’re carrying nothing but their own empty stomachs, and they’re marching not out of obedience to any leader but simply because they want South Africa back in working order.

And these millions of Bakkies Botha, irrespective of race, colour or creed, will not go on voting for the ANC indefinitely.

First we’ll take Manhattan, then Berlin, and finally, via Bellville and Ermelo and Ravensmead and Phillipi, we might even take Soweto.

Never mind how lazy and careless our present government may have become, never mind how top-heavy and inept our command structures and new elite, I simply refuse to stop believing in the courage and resourcefulness and sheer tenacity of ordinary South Africans.

Viva, Bakkies! Laduma, men and women of the rainbow nation!

Who needs lions when you’ve got all these great people?