Righteous public wrath can be a laudable thing, particularly when it is harnessed to compel political accountability by government. A pity, then, that it is being squandered to force President Jacob Zuma to stop screwing around, rather than to force him to stop screwing up.
The past fortnight has seen a tsunami of outrage and scorn directed at Zuma, following reports that he had made pregnant the daughter of an old friend. Coming on top of the fact that this was his 20th acknowledged offspring, that he had just married his umpteenth wife and was freshly engaged to yet another lass, it proved to be the final straw for many.
The scale of public anger has taken aback the African National Congress. Its initial response — that this was not only an unjustifiable media intrusion into the privacy of the president, but also a trampling of the child’s rights — was predictable from an incumbent party grown arrogant on successive two-third electoral majorities. When it however became apparent that the outrage was not confined to opposition-voting whities lacking in cultural sensitivity, there was a scramble to salvage the situation.
Zuma cancelled a planned township walkabout and issued a hasty apology. In one of those cynical routines typical of modern politics — which assumes that the public is dumb — he was earnestly applauded for doing so by an ANC which just days earlier had insisted that he had nothing to apologise for, nothing to explain.
They were right first time around. Zuma has nothing to apologise for.
Everyone has known that he has a cavalier attitude to safe sex and young women. The ANC endorsed him for president full knowing that Uncle Jacob enthusiastically beds the daughters of his erstwhile struggle comrades. The electorate last year turned out in droves for Zuma while fully aware that he sired numerous children outside the polygamous marriage structure that he professes to be committed to.
It is spurious to argue, as Business Day did, that Zuma’s lack of respect for the social boundaries of marriage should make us tremble over his attitude to the checks and balances of the Constitution. Zuma has amply proved his disdain for the Constitution, indeed doesn’t seem to understand its function.
Former president Thabo Mbeki once graphically described whites as having racist stereotypes of blacks as “rampant sexual beasts, unable to control our urges, unable to keep our legs crossed, unable to keep it in our pants”. It might be unfortunate that Zuma, with his suggestive “bring me my machine gun” lyrics and unconventional lifestyle feeds every such racist cliché, but that is nevertheless entirely his own business.
The widespread disapproval of Zuma’s latest escapade is a reminder that SA, despite the pragmatic accommodation it has come to with polygamy, traditional marriage, and new-fangled same-sex civil unions, is a socially conservative society. It should not surprise us that a country in which most disapprove of abortion and homosexuality, might just eventually articulate repugnance towards unabashed philandering.
While understandable, their ire is misplaced. Zuma’s sexual proclivities are the business only of him and his wives and girlfriends, with the proviso that he takes financial responsibility for his numerous offspring, which he seemingly does.
While it is true that he fails as a moral beacon — despite at once stage, bizarrely, being appointed by Mbeki to head the country’s moral regeneration movement — that is not his primary task as president. His first and most important duty is to govern effectively. Unfortunately, Zuma’s weak presidency has allowed his lieutenants to sow division and fan a corrosive populism.
Skewer Zuma by all means, but for his lack of political balls rather than for his overactive testicles.
Absolutely. Anyway, so what if he feeds racist stereotypes? They are, after all, racist. It’s just dumb to care what they think.
I must say on rather more important matters like um, EDUCATION, Zuma’s administration appear to be getting it right. They seem to have a more practical, less idealogical approach. God knows, this is not an area in which we can afford the intellectual wankery of the last decade. Ditto crime prevention, we are not Western Europe or Canada. We don’t have the same resources, culture or history. So how the hell can our approach be the same? Time to grow up.
I agree 100% – it remains puzzling to me that so much hue and cry has been generated by President Zuma’s private life, and so little by his reluctance to take a strong stand and provide thought leadership on key national issues. I couldn’t care less who or what he sleeps with – it’s really nobody else’s business.
@ William : “Skewer Zuma by all means, but for his lack of political balls rather than for his overactive testicles.”
Spot on. My sentiments exactly.
Zuma’s sex life is of no significance. His behaviour is just that, his. It is not necessary for a head of government to be a moral paragon in his private life. It IS necessary for a head of government to live by, and to see to it that the government honours, the Constitution in ALL respects.
No politician should ever be seen as ‘role model’. What a childish concept! Politicians are not elected to be examples of private virtue; they are elected to protect the civic rights of all citizens and advance the national agenda in terms of public security, jobs, education, health, equality before the law, protection of the rights and well-being of children, handicapped people, and the infirm and unemployed. Mr. Zuma has failed to make any improvements in any of those areas. That is where the public wrath should be directed. The rest is trivial by comparison.
In effect you are saying that Zuma is an all round crap president. Why dont you go a little further and join the growing chorus to request that he resign.
Sir – your prejudice is showing. He has failed as a leader and his conduct is the beacon to this failure. Yes he should be hammered for non-delivery, as should everyone in his government and party. However his hypocracy in the area of morals is no less worthy of criticism
In principle yes, I agree with you. However, I disagree that he supports all his children. We know from the Shaik trial that he was unable to manage his own household. Now that he is The Pres, we, the taxpayers, get to carry that burden. It also, once again, highlights the fact that the ANC only pays lip-service to the rights of women, since it is the mothers of these many off-spring who are, literally and figuratively, left holding the babies. His continued support by the ANCWL is no surprise.
The ANC, as embodied by Jacob Zuma is a morally bankrupt organisation.
It is strange how one writer after another (not just here) continues to make the same argument – Judith is the only commentator to make the obvious point.
In a ‘democracy’, voters are free to judge that a politician has fallen short of their hopes and expectations by any standards they choose to apply. Some will judge that Zuma is failing politically; more will judge that he is failing morally; most, no doubt, will continue to think he is doing fine in both respects, or to support him whatever he does. What is wrong with any of these views, except that the writer is trying to impose a different standard of his own?
The root cause is we cannot move on from seeing politicians as ‘our leaders’, sealed off and expected to be flawless in some political bubble, instead of as our elected representatives, obliged to match their conduct in every respect to what is acceptable to us as the people who gave them the jobs.
Under monocratic rule by a party still seen by the majority as a ‘liberation party’ that is inevitable, but no less undesirable for that.
It is wrong for a head of state to engage in a lifetime of sexual orgies, hitting up every attractive female who crosses his path, the result of which some 20 plus children were born and more coming. These wives and concubines and their children and relatives will most certainly drain government resources, in the form of money, government posts extra extra. The mind is the organ which control all parts of the body. Therefore one can not separate his balls, and other parts his body and to pinpoint his problem in one area like a physician. It’s all in the mind. Zuma is not a strong leader, he is weak. Can you imagine Zuma spending 27 years in prison like Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately these kind of vices don’t go hand in hand with good governance.
Sorry – I don’t agree with you William.
One of the big roles Zuma plays is as Head of State – advertising South Africa.
What is clear, is that he cannot be trusted privately: by fathering a child with a woman whilst marrying another, he has shown he cares for no-one but himself.
Wrong attitude for a Head of State – or for any man or woman.
He should go – and the sooner the better.
South Africa is not a democracy!! It is an idiocracy!!
It’s not about Zuma’s example, rather where such sexual freedom is taking us. Zuma may be able to support all his kids, but can the average working person do so. Contracting Aids is the result of such behaviour. We can’t all afford showers…..
Maybe it’s safer, and easier, to talk about sex than about things like service delivery and administrative structures, which require some basic knowledge of the facts?
Or maybe most of the journalists and politicians criticising Zuma for his immorality actually rather like immorality when it’s applied to politics?
What happened to trustworthiness in a leader? What purpose a state of the nation address if we have to take everything this man and his party utters with a pinch of salt and some painkillers. The children and the sex is not the big problem, the fact that the ANC and Zuma tried to cover up the matter is. The fact that they did shows they knew it wasn’t quite the done thing. Not just because of the amount of moral bag cases that abound in SA as you seem to want to imply. Bluntly: South Africans in general are tired of the scamming, scheming, lies and yes, children, we who can’t afford any, have to support. Of course he can look after his tribe of children, we are paying for them! We need a president that can govern, preferably without the wheeling, dealing, scandals and lies. Realistically compare his percentage of the tax boodle to that of any other president to see why we take his children as insult added to injury.
So you are fed up hearing about sex and illegitimate children. So am I. Give us a president who’s policies we can concentrate on and who do not make South Africa into laughing stock by the way he lives. Davos was spent explaining his wives to the world instead of the very important matters that should have been discussed. THAT is why we are mad. Soon, we’ll become the cultural zoo of the world.
I only agree with you insofar as the South African voters knew what they were getting when they voted for him. It is a bit hypocritical to now judge him for the same indiscretions.
He is however losing the respect of his voters, colleagues etc. Everyone thinks he is a clown, and that severely inhibits his ability to govern effectively.
Political leadership is also about trust, about leading the nation into untested waters, about asking them to trust his/her judgement.
All of the things JZ does, undermines his ability to do exactly that, and that will make him an ineffective leader.
I agree with Lynne.
Frankly, whether JZ uses a condom or becomes HIV is neither here nor there, to me, but…
…What I wouldn’t give for a president who seems to understand the finer issues of the problems this country is facing; many caused by ANC rule. As said elsewhere, it’s clear that even his speech writers don’t get it! Why on earth would he?
When Mbeki described whites as having racist stereotypes of blacks as “rampant sexual beasts…”, I suspect you know who exactly which whites he was referring to.
Further condemning President Zuma’s morals according to your standards is the height of hypocrisy! Remember it was that same moral beacon of the whites which steered an entire nation into the dark days of apartheid for which we are still suffering. Do you really think blacks are dumb enough to embrace YOUR Victorian sexual mores influenced by your ancestors – puritanical, repressive and moralistic? Gimme a break!
@Dave harris: “Do you really think blacks are dumb enough to embrace YOUR Victorian sexual mores influenced by your ancestors – puritanical, repressive and moralistic? Gimme a break!”
That was a mouthful! Pity that most Africans seem to have adopted the Christian faith which is the basis for this Victorian stuff.
And if not the Christian faith, they have adopted the Muslim faith. Any names for their sexual rules?
Other than that, I could call JZ a racist as -to what we know – he only seems to sleep with black women.
That is not fair to many women in the other groupings who might long for a night out with the President.
@Dave Harris – “When Mbeki described whites as having racist stereotypes of blacks as “rampant sexual beasts…””
… he made a generalised assumption he never proved about people who don’t exist. All the people I know/have ever known fall into all the shades between light beige and dark purple brown. The colour also vary with the ambient temperature. The closest I have ever come to seeing a “black” would be my one buddy from Kenia, and the only time I have ever seen anything approaching “white” was in a morgue (Finnish woman, I think). Do you suffer from the condition where you just see two colours and ignore the rest? Don’t worry, many others across the world share your suffering. The condition is called r-a-c-i-s-m and can be cured, afterwards you’ll come to appreciate the rich variety of real shades to be found out there.
Dave Harris says: “…of the whites which steered an entire nation into the dark days of apartheid for which we are still suffering.”
I dont see the ANC fatcat politicians suffering all that much.
guys south africa’s constitution says every one has the right to culture. and that every one is equal before the law. how come other cultures result to abuse and manupulation of women but not being prosecuted. only the rich can afford polygamy, and once they are broke they stop it. i know polygamy prevents sisters and brothers from marring each other. but the mothers of these children don’t get along especialy if it comes to money and what it buys. i am talking from experience because i’m from one such polygamy family.
most importantly:
If all Zuma’s wives are happy for him except his money……. How come he divorced Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma….and lost a wife through suicide…
I just wonder what would happen if one of Zuma’s wives can caught him in a bed with another women…. would she react badly or fine….. or how will Zuma react if himself can caught his wife with someone in a bad.
Women are in love with him for his money, he does not have limit because he can support them all… but the poor can’t……
This shows a sign of sexual active, no permission from wives as they are left out… it also shows Unfaithfulness, untrustworth, a risk of loosing reputation and contracting diseases as well as breaking down the objectives of the contry in many ways………
I am just giving my best view and not Judging my president, because that’s is his concerned rights.