Of pigs and hyenas

Financial Mail editor Barney Mthombothi’s latest column

Jacob Zuma has, it seems, changed in a matter of a few months from a tsunami that sweeps everything before it to a hyena that’s turned the state into a feeding trough (or is it a carcass?) for its immediate family while the poor struggle to survive.

People who idolised him not so long ago — and indeed propelled him to the highest office in the land — have now become his harshest critics. Nobody was more passionate about Zuma than Cosatu’s Zwelinzima Vavi.

But last week Vavi was warning of a coming predator state headed by “powerful, corrupt and demagogic political hyenas” using the state to enrich themselves and their families. Comparing a person to a hyena is the crudest form of insult.

Hyenas are ugly, devious, cowardly things which often feed on other animals’ prey. They are scavengers. Many cultures have a negative view of the hyena, often associating it with gluttony, uncleanliness and cowardice.

In African folklore, witches and sorcerers are believed to ride hyenas at night. Clement of Alexandria noted in Paedagogus that the hyena was “quite obsessed with sexual intercourse” and some Europeans used to associate the hyena with sexual deformity, prostitution and deviant sexual behaviour.

The word hyena is apparently derived from the Greek hyaina which means “pig”, and has an association with treachery and greed.

I’m not sure if Vavi’s choice of a hyena to make his point was deliberate or off the cuff. Nobody seems to have a kind word for Zuma these days . Thabo Mbeki must be chuckling.

But events under Zuma’s non-leadership are no laughing matter. The country is reaping what the likes of Vavi have sown . Nobody championed Zuma’s cause with more vigour than Vavi. He raised him from the dead, figuratively speaking. Now the tsunami has turned out to be a murky pond whose stillness merely reflects the paucity of ideas and lack of vision.

Zuma’s ascent to power was supposed to have led to the ultimate comradely nirvana, with the communists and the unions having sole proprietorship of his nose and his ear. It hasn’t turned out that way, as Vavi has attested. Hell, it seems, hath no fury like a trade unionist scorned. But if even Zuma, that likable malleable, cannot be the glue that holds the alliance together, who can?

The constitution allows the president to serve two terms. If Zuma is denied a second term, it would mean none of the presidents since 1994 would have finished two terms in office. Nelson Mandela stood down voluntarily; Mbeki was forcibly removed by the very people now baying for Zuma’s blood.

That suggests there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way we elect our leaders. In fact they are elected by a small coterie, on whose mood swings the country’s fate thus depends. It cannot be right, for instance, that politicians, perhaps against their better judg ment , sheepishly kowtow to the moronic exigencies of the ANC Youth League simply because it can make or break their careers. It is as humiliating to them as it is dangerous for the country.

The crucial issue is lack of democracy within the ANC, and a system that forbids the public from directly electing its leaders. The ANC’s deployment policy and its so-called anti-careerism stance mean that people with leadership ambitions are either coy about, or discouraged from, throwing their hat into the ring. It’s left to a few individuals to act as kingmakers. Which is why a flawed candidate such as Zuma was able to triumph.

The ANC should ditch its Stalinist mentality and embrace democracy. Leaders with impeccable credentials will then emerge.

And the case for ordinary citizens to directly elect their leaders, including their president, in a democracy is incontrovertible. It needs no argument.