JACOB ZUMA’S SENTENCE: A CAUSE FOR JOY? By Asithandile Gxumisa

A curious rumour is doing the rounds in my village that the democratic Republic of South Africa has overnight become an oasis of joys. The things that seem to enkindle the delight of my countrymen of late – from the paternalistic care that Cyril Ramaphosa has so convincingly affected for their general wellness to suffering their country to be run like the personal laboratory of Abdool-Carrim – are something of a phenomenon. Of these things the most recent is the condign misfortune of a Jacob Zuma who has been convicted by our highest court of an “egregious” and “aggravated” contempt of court and condemned to an imprisonment term of just over a year. An African proverb – which may not be translated into the English tongue without robbing it of the essence of its meaning – wisely cautions against the discourteous indiscretion of laughing at another man’s wound.

Indeed, I say it is nothing short of astonishing that Jacob Zuma’s conviction and imprisonment should send the generality of my neighbours into paroxysms of delight. Eusebius McKaiser – a columnist of some prolific talent – declared himself as an extremely happy citizen, although I suspect he might regret hastily expressing the idea that the Constitutional Court judgment dealt our former President a ‘mortal political blow’ after the outpouring of support for him at his Nkandla homestead. In his triumphalism and elation Eusebius McKaiser is by no means alone as I have observed on television screens numberless political pundits competing with one another in the articulation of their exultation, all unanimously announcing that the twenty-ninth of June marked the total victory of constitutionalism over demagoguery and the absolute triumph of the rule of law over lawlessness. As I watch some parts of my country being overwhelmed by licentious and riotous mobs, I am troubled by a niggling feeling that our commentators may have spoken too soon.

Now, permit me to play the undesirable role of the spoilsport: the momentous ruling of the Constitutional Court yesterday was as much a condemnation of the pattern of politics countenanced by the majority of the citizenry as it was an admonition of the kind of constitutional delinquency represented by mountebanks like Jacob Zuma. Far from being regarded as a cause of celebration, it ought to be welcomed as an hour at which we may all reflect upon the bitter truth that once upon a time Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma enjoyed the support of an overwhelming number of South Africans – and still does in his homeland where men and women have unleashed a tempest of pandemonium and conflagration in a vulgar attempt to bail him out of his ‘wretchedness’ at the Escourt Correctional Centre which, incidentally, has the look of a three-star lodging-house.

Truly, nothing should make us more anxious about the future state of the Union than that in our recent past the patriarch of Nkandla was elected to the highest political office in the land by our apex legislative body and that, worse than this woeful mischance, a man such as he may one day still be similarly elected deprived as we are of any constitutional or political means by which such an unfortunate occurrence may be forestalled. Admittedly, attacks upon the legitimacy of the South African constitutional order by demagogues are a natural, albeit a terrible, consequence of living in a democracy which places a high premium upon freedom of speech. Moreover, we should note with great concern the fact that any antidote we decide to apply to the body politic in order to neutralize its demagogic toxins may further corrode the already declining faith of the masses in the credibility of the constitutional experiment.

However, putting aside for the moment the inevitability of reckless rhetoric in democracies and our justified concerns for the survival of our constitutional system as we go about looking for ways to shore it up against demagogic onslaughts, it is a very real prospect worth seriously mulling over that our young constitutional democracy may not survive another populist rabblerouser who takes after the elder of Nkandla. A great deal of South Africans already have major doubts about the integrity of our justices and magistrates – whose profession, if I may borrow the extravagant expression of a philosopher, is the ‘backbone’ of our society. Thoughtless and incautious attacks upon members of the Judiciary by popular politicians are singularly perilous on two accounts, to wit: they are exceedingly wicked because they are largely baseless, and they have the potential to provoke a general disregard for law and order as so vividly illustrated by the commotion in the provinces of KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng.

I invite you to scan the skyline of the political landscape, look carefully now, and you will notice that a throng of agitators already begin to heave into sight – and all are persuaded that our Constitution is no more than a bastion of imperialism rebranded, that our civil liberties mean nothing so long as we do not simultaneously enjoy the economic privileges of the white man, and that all our laws are the products of a capitalist ploy aimed at concealing the deprivation of the African man and safeguarding the nefarious interests of the powerful. The ears of my peers who have distinguished themselves, by their conduct and by their causes, as particularly impatient are peculiarly receptive to such soft-soaping homilies. And a great many of the passing generation have shown every indication that the kind of political antics exhibited by Jacob Zuma and suchlike frauds are all welcome in democratic South Africa. The Constitutional Court rightly reprimanded Jacob Zuma, and by so doing it censured a good deal of our people for embracing a political culture in which a man like him may ascend to the most powerful seat of government on the back of popular will. We should mourn, and not celebrate, his conviction and condemnation, and we should weep for the future of a country whose posterity will be exposed to such a constitutionally injurious example.