It’s not as if we live in a country with nothing happening and are watching the paint dry.
It is a place fraught with deepening levels of poverty and inequality – a gini co-efficient of 0.70 does not tell the whole story of the appalling lack of dignity which pervades the lives of the majority.
This past week and a half SA has shown itself to be the insecure teenager that it is at 18, ostensibly because of a piece of art.
The liberation movement and the years beyond 1990 saw the “cult of personality” develop around Nelson Mandela. The ANC needed it and we, for our part, equally adored Mandela for his leadership in difficult times and his principle for there was nothing “warm and fuzzy” about Madiba when he negotiated with the apartheid regime.
A rather more divisive cult of personality has been enveloping the republic at the cost of all else.
Last week, President Jacob Zuma addressed the National Union of Mineworker’s (NUM) congress where he said, in English and isiZulu: “I am not like people who come today and speak louder, who were not there when things were tough… and we have never judged them… I think we are kind because we have a deeper understanding of the destiny of our people, of this country.”
And so, dangerously, Zuma himself perpetuates this cult of personality. He himself is the “we” of the Struggle. The words reveal the dark underbelly of divisiveness; “them” and “us”.
The sinister rhetoric aside, does “they” mean everyone who opposes his politics and criticises his political performance? What seems clear is that nearly five years on, the crown rests uneasily and insecurely.
Zuma is the constantly aggrieved one whose identity has become blurred with that of the ruling party. Part of it started when Cosatu’s Zwelinzima Vavi declared Zuma an “unstoppable tsunami”. This engendered the sense that no-one else could save SA from Thabo Mbeki. It seemed that only one man with a weak governance track record in KwaZulu-Natal, leaving aside the allegations of fraud and corruption which still swirl, could “save” us.
It also takes one back to the Zuma rape trial and the intolerance on display as supporters held night vigils while the woman accusing him feared for her life.
The cult of personality persisted despite Zuma’s testimony which is public record. It revealed a great deal about his attitude towards gender. Is it therefore any wonder that we have the Traditional Courts Bill proferred?
It also is reminiscent of that first, heady day at the ANC conference in Polokwane in December, 2007.
Change was in the air. Everyone could see it except, quite unbelievably, Mbeki himself. For those of us who were there, the intolerance was evident as the late ANC stalwart, M’am Bertha Gxowa was shouted down.
Despite the crucial freedom of expression issues at stake, the past week and a half has been indicative of what the ANC has become and how the way in which it wrestles with its demons affects us all. Wrestle we all must, however, because many of the questions regarding the inter-play between rights and culture are not self-evident.
It is obvious that an honest discourse must be held about culture and the constitution. It must be one which transcends narrow political opportunism.
It is difficult to have it in an environment of political polarisation and name-calling. Part of what made our transition to democracy remarkable was that we had the leadership to help us deal with difficult issues; our leaders had the wisdom to lead with sensitivity.
They were not perfect. Mistakes were made. But they stripped us of the cacophony and phony politics and were steadfast in their commitment to the vision of a constitutional democracy as a clean break from our past.
SA needs such leadership; not only in the government and the ANC, but in business and civil society too.
Our current malaise is about the heart of the state and the values which infuse it. Will those be the values of the constitution? If Zuma wins a second term, what will the Zuma state (and the ANC) look like by then? We should all care and push back against the erosion of our freedoms. But, we should not lose sight of what matters most and that is ensuring that the majority have the dignity which the constitution envisages.
It is hard to imagine Mandela, Tambo or Sisulu addressing the NUM as cynically as Zuma did. Zuma seems to have forgotten that along with the privilege of holding power comes the right of citizens to robustly observe through art, satire or the cartoonist’s lampoon.
l February is a Reagan-Fascell Spring fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC.