54 WORDS IN ACTION http://www.abrbuzz.co.za
of his ANC successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, who is now enjoying a
small window of unfettered might, and appears to be loving the
shit out of it.There is one signifi cant diff erence between the fall of Thatcher and
the fall of Zuma: Thatcher was not a former intelligence operative
with a smallanyana dossier on at least half the leadership in her
party. The old man still has a few tricks up his wizard’s sleeve:
the State Capture judicial commission that he belatedly initiated- mandated by the former public protector, affi rmed by the courts
- is entirely unnecessary given the mass of evidence compiled
against the bad guys, all of it easily accessible to the prosecution
authorities. And yet the ANC is going along with the charade, with
some calling for the remit to be extended back to the time of the
Great Zimbabwe, and others saying it must include the injustices
of the Paleolithic era.
But this sort of legal fragging, while dilatory, will not stand in the
Ramaphosa era, at least not at the outset. The deputy president
made that clear during his maiden speech as ANC president in
East London two weekends ago. The
address was boilerplate old-school ANC –
light on specifi cs, heavy on equivocations,
drenched with vague but somehow
glorious promises. And he delivered it
beautifully, cutting seamlessly between
fi ve offi cial languages (Zuma could
manage none), acting both presidential in
the political sense and presidential in the
boardroom sense – the latter of far more
importance to his real constituency.“Our vision is an economy that encourages
and welcomes investment, off ers policy
certainty and addresses barriers that
inhibit growth and social inclusion,”
he said. “Our commitment is to build
strong partnerships in which effi cient
and accountable government agencies,
responsible citizens and businesses,
eff ective trade unions and civil society
work together for the common good.”That reads like the logline for a neoliberal
porn movie. But if the aforementioned
paragraph was the speech’s thesis, itsT
here is an astonishing passage in Lord Timothy Bell’s
autobiography—yup, the Bell Pottinger chairman who
helped wheedle black and white South Africans into
another of their Twitter cage matches – in which the arch
spin doctor details the Tory leadership switcheroo in November,- “I once saw – in the most visual of demonstrations – how
power shifts,” he writes. “I saw it physically cross a room. It was
the day when John Major took over the role of Prime Minister. We
were all gathered around Margaret [Thatcher], with most of the
cabinet and some other MPs. Major hadn’t yet arrived. Everyone
was chattering away, telling her what a good job she’d done, and
how it had been the greatest leadership ever. Then, suddenly,
Major walked in. And like a huge swarm of bees, the entire group
moved, as one, in a single instantaneous surge, across the fl oor
to surround him.”
This phenomenon has now occurred to Jacob Gedleyihlekisa
Zuma, peasant of Nkandla, moonlighting president of the Republic
of South Africa. Zuma already seems like an anachronism, like a
fossil uncovered during the digging of pit latrines in some forlorn
Karoo settlement. Political power has abandoned him in favour
During the year-end shutdown, I managed to catch up with my reading. Well, if the truth be told, I managed to make a
sizeable dent in the backlog. One of the books that I read was “The President’s Keepers” by Jacques Pauw, and every few
pages I let out a cry of desperation, which greatly disturbed my wife and my neighbours. I could only read one chapter at a
time, as my suicide threshold was reached pretty quickly with the revelations. To add to my woes, the delay in something
being done to bring the many traitors in our midst to book is unbelievable. And as I write this, on 24 January 2018, it seems
to be business as usual, despite more and more revelations in print and on radio. I give you two print examples, one by
Richard Poplak, who must be South Africa’s best satirical writer. Poplak says that it’s crumbling, brick by cheap-ass brick.
But what comes next? The second article is by Paul O’Sullivan, a remarkable knight in shining armour, who has uncovered
copious amounts of traitorous actions. O’Sullivan writes an open letter via the Daily Insider, to Cyril Ramaphosa, and all I
can say is “Come on, Cyril, the nation is waiting, impatiently!ONE: TRAINSPOTTER: The House that
Zuma built - by Richard Poplak
WILDER & WILDERER THINGS
by Fingal Wilde