generalspeaking

Delusionary Potentates

Delusionary potentates, the rulers of Africa.  And to think that the sainted Nelson Mandela's new South Africa has evolved from a black-dominated democracy pledged to uphold freedom and the values of human rights and justice and societal responsibilities, to a tribal, royalty-besotted kingdom where the vast numbers of poor remain so, and the reigning monarch expands his fortunes.


"This fits with Zuma's habit of stumbling from victory to disaster.  If this is just him buffing up his house, then he is going to get in trouble with voters", suggested President Zuma's biographer, Jeremy Gordin, and that these claims of monarchical emoluments might possibly harm Mr. Zuma's re-election chances.

His rapacious greed may scupper his re-election opportunities, but his gross ignorance of HIV-AIDS prevention, assuring the nation that he had showered in the knowledge that this would protect him against HIV-AIDS after he had forced himself upon - as in violent rape - an HIV-positive young woman who viewed him as a family friend, did not harm his election as president. 

Of course his gross ignorance on that score was no worse than that of his immediate predecessor.

This latest episode of greed and entitlement follows hard on the episode of South African platinum miners striking for better pay having been shot down fatally by police during a protest.  In a background of foreign-owned gold and platinum mines doing business with powerful unions who keep workers' pay low, and spin off proceeds between foreign mine owners and government interests.

There is vast poverty and endemic unemployment in South Africa, insufficient housing for people desperate for a decent place to live, but President Jacob Zuma is preparing to spend about $20-million in taxpayer subsidized dollars to upgrade his private residence.  There will be a new children's playground, a medical clinic and a helipad. The renovation includes underground living quarters, houses for security staff, for air force and police units, underground parking, and a visitors' centre.

This, aside from the tax-paid state residences in the capital Pretoria and Cape Town, where sits the nation's parliament.  The 70-year-old president is prepared to personally assume 5% of the associated costs in upgrading his private home to his satisfaction.  Those upgrades are to include African huts for each of his five wives with traditional hatch roofs, fitted with modern conveniences, and incidentally 32-millimetre-thick armoured window glass.

"How can a leader ask the country to make sacrifices and tighten belts in hard times when he leads such publicly funded extravagance?  President Zuma's behaviour upends the very concept of social justice which is written into our constitution", asserted Lindiwe Mazibuko, leader of the Democratic Alliance.  Considering the intense poverty right around his own homestead, the president should be ashamed of such "lavish personal enrichment".

But this is the KwaZulu way of things.  This is tribal South Africa.  Snug and central within the African National Congress.  What is Bishop Tutu saying about all of this?  Oh, right, he's busy chastising the State of Israel for the state of Gazan Palestinians.

Labels: Africa, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Human Fallibility, Political Realities

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 03, 2012