Hopes and Hyenas: We are the fools

We are the fools, and as Onkgopotse JJ Tabane correctly puts it we are the prisoners of hope. Its not the first time Zuma or the ANC lie to the country. Its not the first time a Court Ruling is reinterpreted to water down its most damning findings. Its not the first time we have been taken for a ride. Take 1994, Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), GEAR, Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Black Economic Empowerment (BEE),Broad Based BEE (BBBEE) and of recent the Black Industrialists Programme. In all these instances we were duped into believing the never materializing “Good Story to tell”. The material conditions of black people in the country remain the same and the material conditions of white people in the country flourish unabated. So we have been duped again and if one wanted we could trace it back to 1955 when we were sold the Freedom Charter which essentially ratified South African land theft by white minorities, transforming it into legitimate private property.

So why on earth did we expect Zuma to resign? when he has consistently indicated that he never requested for upgrades and that he will not comply to the Public Protectors’ “mere” recommendations.Are we that naive to think that the Constitutional Court would cause Zuma to repent? Zuma vowed that he will never pay for things he never asked for and its safe to conclude that even in the face of the damning Judgement by the Constitutional Court, He will not pay. Zuma will not pay a cent, other people may pay for him but as for him he has given us his word. But for some reason once it became apparent that Zuma was to address the nation, we expected him to be honorable and resign quietly. We rushed home to our television sets and radios so that we could hear him give us a glimpse of self-respect and honor possibly still left in him. But that was not the case and frankly speaking it was foreseeable and expecting otherwise was just us merely being fools.

We have been fools before and we probably are still going to be fools another day perhaps not so far, if the Tlokwe judgement does not delay elections. We know we are led by hyenas with lots of “skeletons in their closets” and some of us secretly admire Zuma’s daring attitude and survival instinct. We believed Zuma when he said Thabo Mbeki will not be recalled, and off course Mbeki was not recalled he resigned ‘involuntarily’. We believed Zuma when he said he would serve only 1 term as president of the country, he stayed but it was definitely not his will but that of the ANC. We believed him when he said he was willing to have his day in court for his 700 odd corruption charges but needless to say that the day never came at least not for the charges.When he confirmed that a shower diminished his chances of getting infected by HIV we believed him hence he was not demonized and criticized like Thabo Mbeki on his position on HIV. When he said that Nkandla was financed through a bond we believed even though no bank confirmed the loan. We never took him to task for lying to the parliament and by extension the country. When he claimed that he was unaware of what Public Works did in his homestead we believed. We believed so many lies such that another lie wasn’t going to cause a stir, it was going to be shamelessly said on national television that “I have always been committed to paying for the non-security upgrades in Nkandla once the amount is determined”, even though we have it in the records of parliament and in public that he once said he will not pay because he didn’t ask for upgrades.

But how could we not believe Zuma? We believed lies of his predecessors. We believed Mbeki and his BBBEE schemes, we truly envisaged a country where the economic standing of black people can finally match the economic standing of white people. You don’t have to look far to see it didn’t happen. We believed Mbeki’s lie that BBBEE would make up for BEE’s short comings, it didn’t. The poor remain poor and the richer are getting richer. We believed the myth that Nelson Mandela spend 27 years in Robben Island, We believed the farce called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Two presidents who presided over apartheid were alive during TRC and none of them were found guilty of anything and one blatantly refused to even honor the TRC by appearing in front of it. Hence now we are stuck with De Klerk parading as a champion of human rights, while his hands are still dripping with the blood of innocent black man and women who died in the struggle. On the contrary black freedom fighters were made to eat a humble pie and apologize for fighting apartheid. The unfortunate ones like Kenny Motsamai are still languishing in prison for fighting apartheid.

We have believed in the fraud that the ANC is and we have from time to time pinned our hope on that fraud to turn our fortunes around and represent us all. The ANC has continually made false promises and failed to deliver on them, yet we believe their promises. The Freedom Charter paved way for looters of African land to walk scot free and remain in possession of stolen property, thankfully some like Sobukwe saw through the gimmick, but majority fell for it. Many MK soldiers thought “Mayibuye iAfrika” was referring to land returning to black people only to be told, once ANC was in government, that nationalization was never the policy of the ANC. The ANC has ensured that South Africa remains the private property of White Monopoly Capital and it’s fronts like the “Guptas”. The ANC, its post-1994 leaders and presidents, and Desmond Tutu of the TRC are nothing but liars and we continuously fall for their chronic lies and rhetoric instead of fighting for what is rightfully ours and enforce justice for all the atrocities we suffered under white minority rule. We are fools.

dzumbu