counter this, the ANC often refers to the office of the president as something that demands respect, regardless of who holds that station. It is an impulse that predates Zuma by some considerable time.
Asked in an interview in 2006 why it was he disliked Tony Leon, former president Thabo Mbeki laughed and denied the suggestion. He then went on to identify a ‘banal example’ of what he deemed to be a lack of respect on the part of his counterpart. He pointed out that F.W. de Klerk, as leader of the National Party, after the 1994 election, would occupy the second bench on the opposition side of the house – in other words, the one facing the deputy president, and not Nelson Mandela, the president. Mbeki argued that this system changed with Leon.
When he became the leader of the opposition, Leon adopted the bench opposite the president – something Mbeki took as an affront and a sign of a lack of respect. He argued that this showed that the Democratic Alliance saw Mbeki first and foremost as a political rival and counterpart, and not as a president.
‘You can’t have an opposition party that does not recognise the office of the president,’ said Mbeki. ‘You can hate the president and attack him, and so on, that’s fine, but once you seek to diminish the authority of his office, the whole constitutional system can get into a serious problem.’
‘It is wrong and that is what I am saying that has bothered me about it. I have no problem with Tony Leon, I don’t dislike him whatsoever, but he needs to understand that in our constitutional setting there is such a post as the president of the republic.’
De Klerk, a nationalist himself, understood the game that Mbeki was playing. Although mortal enemies, the National Party and the ANC both spoke the same nationalistic language, and deference before authority has always been central to both. Because it is feigned, that deference must be demonstrable in some way. It must be visible to be believed. Which makes sense, because if it is not authentically felt how else can you reassure yourself that the requirement is being adhered to?
Mbeki might have couched his criticism as the description of something ‘banal’ but that cannot be easily reconciled with his assertion that ‘the whole constitutional system can get into a serious problem’. It cut Mbeki deeply that Leon did not show him what he understood to be the deference shown Mandela. That, as with Zuma’s response to The Spear, is a product of nothing other than low self-esteem.
The truth is that the office of the president is an institution, an abstraction. It is incapable of emotion or hurt. It represents a set of ideals towards which the incumbent should aspire. The incumbent does not, on assuming office, assume with it the values, principles and ideals it symbolises. At best, they can strive to uphold them. Hence the question, is this person fit to be president?
It is unfortunate that, in several fundamental ways, both presidents Mbeki and Zuma have demonstrated quite the opposite. By failing to protect and promote the principles of the office demanded of them, often acting instead deliberately to subvert them, the argument can be made it is they who have disrespected the office.
This conflation of individual and institution lies at the heart of the manner in which so much of the ANC’s formal politics subverts the idea of respect.
But one can dig deeper still. Respect for Jacob Zuma is not tied solely to his formal position. He also harbours a set of private personal cultural convictions, deeply patriarchal in nature, that inform his understanding of the idea.
In December 2013, addressing hundreds of people in Impendle, KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma told of a recent visit he had undertaken to Limpopo: ‘When I was in Venda recently I was so impressed to see how people there express respect for other people. A woman would clap her hands and even lie down to show respect. I was so impressed. If I was not already married to my wives I would go to Venda to look for a woman.’
In essence, there is no difference between Zuma’s sexist attitudes towards women and his attitude to the constitutional position he holds. He demands from women and his political opponents alike demonstrable admiration. And he is in no way responsible for maintaining or earning it. It is entirely detached from his conduct.
This confusion, then, is evident not just in our day-to-day conversations, but also in political exchanges at the heart of our democracy. Zuma, the ultimate patriarch, will often refer to women from the opposition as ntombazana (young woman/girl). It is demeaning and degrading. No doubt it irks Zuma no end that someone of the opposite sex, who should be showing him the kind of respect he saw in Venda, can take to the podium and publicly berate him for his shortcomings. And no one could have embodied that frustration for him more than Lindiwe Mazibuko, former leader of the official opposition and herself a proud Zulu. That dynamic represented the ultimate cultural insult for Zuma. So, when the ANC was not referring to Mazibuko as ntombazana, it would rubbish her dress sense or attempt to insult her weight. From Mazibuko, they expected nothing less than demonstrable and polite submission.
Mazibuko’s own definition of respect is worth noting, as it reflects the standard definition far more closely. She said in June 2013, ‘To earn our respect, he [Zuma] must deliver on the promise of employment for young people’, before elaborating, ‘I will always be polite to President Zuma, that is my job as a human being and as a parliamentarian. I will never reflect on his personal life, but what I will not do is simply respect, bow, keep my mouth shut when there is so much that he is failing to do to for the people of this country.’
Just like Nzimande and the radio caller, these two universes are never going meet halfway.
Former Sunday Times editor-in-chief Mondli Makhanya has described the ANC’s sycophantic caucus as ‘iziwengu’ – blind supporters more akin to praise singers than individuals with minds of their own. It is an apt description because that is the outcome the party pursues. All in the name of respect. And that pursuit has such a tight grip over Parliament that even the speaker has said, ‘the president is nobody’s equal here’. The irony couldn’t be thicker, for the very call for respect from the ANC is so often wrapped in the politically correct language of equality.
There is an ideal universe out there that many South Africans seem to believe can be realised. It is a world where each person is constantly shown respect and never insulted or offended, where each person is perpetually affirmed and insulated from harm in equal measure. It is as disturbing an idea as it is sad. Bradbury speaks to this egalitarian impulse in Fahrenheit 451: ‘Then all are happy,’ he says, ‘for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.’
SACP deputy chairperson Nomarashiya Caluza makes reference to what she terms ‘African values’. One should always be wary of any principle or ideal that has before it a geographic disclaimer. What, for example, is the difference between ‘African democracy’ – another common phrase – and democracy per se? Certainly, the fundamentals cannot differ, or it would no longer be democracy. Unless it is government of the people, by the people and for the people, it represents some other kind of power arrangement and history suggests the alternatives lead to more harm than good.
The same logic applies to values. Two different cultures might well disagree on what the term ‘respect’ actually means, but that doesn’t mean they are mutually exclusive, only different. The problem comes when those different interpretations are not clearly expressed and articulated so that their meaning can be well understood and their implications plain to see.
Blade Nzimande dismissing the dictionary definition of ‘respect’ does not mean that idea ceases to exist. Nor does it mean there is no value to that particular understanding. In rejecting it, however, it is not good enough to do so out of hand. One needs to explain why it is of little help and, in turn, why the counter-interpretation is better suited.
There is a distinct lack of this kind of
