Letters to the best man Chez Uhuru 228 Musgrave Road iThekwini
To:Dr Essop Pahad The Presidency
Union Buildings
Tshwane
Dear Dr Pahad, Let me declare immediately that I share your deep concern about the mounting attacks on our leader. Rarely in the field of human endeavour has one man been so sadly misunderstood. We need look no further than his handling of what some misrepresent as the Aids catastrophe. Our enemies have been making headway by dwelling on the increasing pool of unemployed, suggesting that the government should be taking the lead in job-creation programmes. These are critics who simply fail to understand that almost one half of our adult population is of no commercial value. We must, obviously, assert publicly that we are concerned about the swelling ranks of the jobless, but whoever said that combating unemployment necessarily involves job creation? It is a tribute to our leader that, notwithstanding the accusations of those who would cast him in the guise of an eccentric fool, he has not flinched from heeding the economic imperatives of harnessing the opportunities of Aids to dispose of those who are surplus to the needs of our markets. I trust that, should our leader become distracted by sentimental anecdotes of dying children, you will share with him Stalin’s immortal words: “One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic.” You have obviously done your sums. If, as projected, Aids-related deaths will reach 250 000 by next year and double that by 2008, unemployment will be wiped out by 2015. It has taken special qualities on the part of our leader to adopt the posture of ditherer as a foil to this ingenious programme of social engineering. With each new death, the tactics of delay are proving decisive. The establishment of the advisory panel to examine whether there is a causal link between HIV and Aids was a master stroke. Action to reduce transmission rates has been staved off for 10 whole months and our leader will take heart from the fact that the dissidents on the panel did not capitu-late. I see that there will now be an investigation into the side-effects of anti-retroviral drugs, buying even more time and facilitating thousands more mother-to-child infections. We are going to need to devise further ploys to keep Aids drugs out of the public health system. Given our leader’s record in the implementation of policies that have ensured unprecedented impoverishment, one has to take one’s hat off to his chutzpah in claiming that what is needed is a programme for the reduction of poverty. Why don’t we assemble a panel to define poverty itself and to consider whether it is such a bad thing after all. I suggest that our leader chairs it and that it has both local and international experts. What about getting Imelda Marcos, Sol Kerzner and somebody from the Mobutu family on board? Our leader has expanded our discourse with his inspired reference to Martian visitors. We must build on this. Can it be said, with any degree of confidence, that the incidence of Aids is not the work of some extra-terrestrial force as a prelude to invasion and conquest? We need a panel to investigate this threat and to present proposals for defence of the Earth.
Let me say too that the litigation against the drug companies is a wonderful decoy, but what if we win? Have you and our leader thought through what to do when there is no longer any pretext not to use less expensive generics. We surely can’t allow funds to be diverted from priorities like arms deals and consultancy contracts for the loyal. I am sure you won’t disappoint me. Now for something less positive. When I first wrote to you, I indicated that we needed to take steps to ensure that our leader’s reign is not confined to two terms. We must not lose sight of the fact that agents provocateur are set upon ensuring that our leader does not even make it to a second term. I am sure you were as shocked as I was to discover that Jacob Zuma entertains thoughts of challenging our leader. I urge you not to be fooled by Zuma’s published assurances that our leader “is the man” and that “it is out of African National Congress culture to suddenly compete for the presidency …?” Suddenly? The implication is clear! The challenge is a matter of time and we must eliminate it. I do not mean to provide a lecture here, but, if the reason for giving Zuma the deputy presidency was to cover the Zulu base, surely it would have been a better bet to have put Mangosuthu Buthelezi there as a token presence without any support and scope for mobilisation within the alliance. What we now have is a threat from inside the corridors of the presidency itself! My recommendation is that we get Zuma to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to our leader and an undertaking that he will never make himself available to stand for the presidency of either the ANC or the republic. He must add substance to this by pledging support in effecting changes to the Constitution so as to allow for life-long rule by our leader. Perhaps, if cooperation is not forthcoming, we can threaten to implicate him in arms-deal dirt. Never underestimate the treachery of those who lurk in the shadow of power. This evil has its traces in both classical antiquity and our own proud heritage. I trust that our leader is acquainted with the unsheathed knife of Brutus plunging into the back of Julius Caesar. Likewise, we cannot rule out the prospect that our deputy president may regard the thrust of Dingaan’s blade into the sleeping King Shaka as a traditional precedent worth emulating. We must act to ensure that the renaissance proceeds on our terms, not his. Yours, trusting no one, Craig Tanner Craig Tanner