Paradoxically we must celebrate the survival of Pres. Zuma as it liberates us from “obliged politics”.
Obliged politics usually result when liberation movement captures the goodwill of the people with sheer valour and sacrifice against oppression. However, in time as with many other liberation movements across Africa and South America, the “people’s liberators” turn to self-enrichment, imagining that accruing wealth was due to them because of historic sacrifice. The need for individual enrichment often overcomes patriotism, genuine political belief and even subjective consciousness.
The fallout of the ANC conference reflects these ambivalences. The recipients of Pres. Zuma’s patronage chose their enrichment above the welfare of the nation. Recently the President bared his biases towards the ANC above that of democracy and the South African collective national interests.
Those who assumed that the soul of the ANC and the nation could be saved at conference made a critical error by expecting an ethical equilibrium to prevail. What is clear is that our politics, like most global politics can be bought and controlled. Thus the direction of our nation is not always organized by our politicians or the voters but by those who pay the required cash in prospect of greater reward.
Sadly the veneer of our gallant “people’s revolution” lays naked and ruined and the might of our political duplicity is unveiled. Though this may seem very judgemental, it is a vital “crossing of the Rubicon” for our general understanding of “realpolitik’, democracy and we must, in truth be grateful.
Globally politics is owned by the wealthy and this realpolitik has always been part of our history. Even before and during Apartheid there were Gupta’s under a different name but with the same agenda. How else can the wealth of the Oppenheimer’s and the handful of super rich families be explained?
Thus Pres. Zuma and his allies inside the ANC are no different from those before who enriched their friends and family at the expense of the entire nation. While this may seem as an act of betrayal it is also the outcome that liberates us from a historic conscious debt which compels many to vote ANC.
By betraying its celebrated values, the ANC sets us all free to vote for any passionate, skilled, educated and intelligent persons who can manage politics free of corruption and ineptitude. Voters in unkempt and failing municipalities are free to vote for actual service delivery, free of guilt.
With great irony and truth we must collectively say thank you ANC.
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress