The Promise of South Africa
What a long way South Africa has come from the end of Apartheid and the presidency of Nelson Mandela - under the added moral guidance of Bishop Desmond Tutu. Did South Africans prematurely place too much hope in the turn-about of their country? After the anguish of reconciliation, the blemish of Soweto and Winnie Mandela, and the Truth and Reconciliation hearings? The stated commitment of their newly-empowered African National Congress legislators to build a fair and a proud country and to empower everyone, bring prosperity to all?Of course, who could predict the dreadful toll that AIDS would take on the country, desperately trying to emerge as a credit to itself and to the continent? And how was it that law and order have remained so desperately elusive, to make of that country one whose crime statistics remain shockingly high? And why is it that the health concerns of its population - AIDS aside - to combat malaria, for example, and the ongoing high infant mortality rate still seems to have been overlooked as a critical imperative?
Corruption is endemic, as it is elsewhere, in so many other parts of the world; a difficult culture of attained entitlement to defeat anywhere, particularly when it has been so long ingrained and tolerated; it becomes a tradition in and of itself, business as usual. What a choice in governance, since the retirement of Mr. Mandela; a highly-respected ANC activist and politician, an elder statesman who shocked the world at his aberrant ignorance of AIDS.
His refusal to even admit it was a problem in the country, appearing more willing to believe it was an invention of the West, on the hidden agenda of still-aspirational imperialists eager to resume raping Africa's resources through weakening its population by stealthily spreading AIDS. When his own medical adviser on AIDS sought to implement a working strategy to combat it, he sided with his ignorant Health Minister in firing her.
Thabo Mbeki threw his support over to Robert Mugabe, willing himself to believe that his brutal dictatorship was a figment of the West's deliberate intent to overthrow a legitimate African state, despite Zimbabwe's death throes. His paranoia leading him to the belief that such a conspiracy would then extend to South Africa. The older this man gets, the more intellectually, scientifically, medically dim he becomes; settling into an elder age of ignorance, paranoia and self-acclaim.
He has succumbed to the usual fall-backs of petty despots clothed in democracy's mantle by criticizing those who find fault with his regime, attempting to silence his detractors, including the media, issuing threats of looming arrests. He is anxious to assume another term as ANC leader, determined to continue to guide his country into the future. His single most determined challenger for the ANC leadership is yet another sterling character, Jacob Zuma.
The former deputy president, Mr. Zuma has been given a substantial lead in the latest polls. Now here's a choice for South Africa; between a forgetful, ill-informed, eccentric-beyond-charm, utterly witless leader incapable of discriminating between merit and ignorant charlatanism, and one who has been accused of truly egregious corruption beyond what even the country has been accustomed to. A rapist, moreover.
Jacob Zuma raped an ill woman, a friend he had known since she was a child and who trusted him as one would a father. He claimed later, when she brought public charges against him - on which he was later acquitted - that the sex was consensual. As to the fact he had known she was HIV-positive, he assured his questioners he had been careful to take all precautionary measures, by showering afterward.
Despite which, his supporters within the large Zulu community - most shamefully women - are vociferous in his support.
Labels: Political Realities, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, December 16, 2007
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