On Monday morning, it was celebration time in South Africa as Tsotsi won an Oscar for best foreign film. It was a national high-water mark.
At the same time, real political tsotsis — called “comrade tsotsis” in the old days — were running amok outside the Johannesburg High Court, threatening the rape complainant in Jacob Zuma’s trial, burning photographs of her and calling her a whore. Political life in our democracy seemed to have reached its lowest ebb.
South African policy and practice on rape, one of the most heinous risks facing South African women, are miles apart. We have excellent laws and plans for dealing with this scourge, but in reality these are hobbled by an ineffective police force and bureaucracy and, more importantly, by our attitudes towards sexual violence.
We are not arguing that the thuggish “com-tsotsis” outside the court reflect the mass of South Africans — but they are at the arse-end of a continuum of prejudice and ignorance.
What is the subtext of burning her image: that she is a witch who must be incinerated; that she should have kept her mouth shut rather than threaten a powerful male politician; that she is a “slut” because she might previously have had sex with a number of men?
For many women who dare to report rape, this is standard treatment. They face pressure not to “bring shame” on their families; many, like the woman who alleges that Zuma raped her, are pressed to accept cash payments as balm. No wonder that only one in nine women is said to report being raped.
Inside the court, the pattern continued in a less violent, but more insidious form: Zuma’s accuser was questioned about wearing “only” a kanga cloth on the night the alleged rape occurred; she was grilled about why she did not say “no” ; her previous sexual history was used against her.
These routine defence tactics shift the burden of proof on to the woman. The subtext is that women invite violence by wearing revealing clothes and by having active sex lives. An equally sad subtext is the myth that men are ruled by their libidos, and that it is up to women not to get in the way of their unstoppable urges.
One consolation was the chorus of criticism of the tsotsis outside the court. In Parliament women MPs across political parties condemned their behaviour as “despicable”, as did the Cabinet and the national working committee of the ANC. (Although there are worrying indications that it was the next generation of ruling party leaders who let the dogs out. It appears many of the pro-Zuma tsotsis were bussed in by the ANC Youth League.)
The country’s intelligentsia is also beginning to make its disgust known — as Barney Pityana does in this edition of the Mail & Guardian.
The trial will continue and justice will prevail: but the key message to the “com-tsotsis” this week must be that they will be isolated, and that their danse macabre is out of step with the nation we want to become.
Tsotsi, the movie, yes. But phansi amacom-tsotsi!
Our very own Enron
The JCI/Randgold debacle is our Enron, involving at the very least R1-billion gone walkabout in probably the largest corporate fraud in South Africa’s history — with the added twist of the murder of the man at the centre of it all: Brett Kebble.
In the best democracies the regulatory and investigative authorities would be all over the case. Public hearings would be conducted; criminal charges investigated; and directors, auditors, regulators and others called to account — not to mention a high-profile police investigation that would make the obvious connection between Kebble’s last-ditch financial finagling and his sudden death.
Instead the authorities are tjoepstil.
The process of cleaning up the Kebble mess is left to the new directors of Kebble’s companies, brought in via a deal Kebble himself brokered and answerable to a rather narrow set of shareholder interests.
Inquiries are conducted in secret, via the provisions of Section 417 of the Companies Act, and although the new directors have fed some information to the public, they control what is released.
The police investigation of the Kebble murder appears at best incompetent, at worst compromised, with an initial attempt to blame a “botched hijacking” for what strikingly suggested a professional hit.
Could the reason for this deafening silence be the toxic embrace Kebble foisted on the top dogs of the ruling African National Congress?
After all, no less a person than the Minister in the Presidency, Essop Pahad, told mourners at Kebble’s funeral to be sure to keep his secrets.
The Kebble saga, as much as the trials facing Jacob Zuma, is a litmus test for South Africa. Do we want our business and political life to be hostage to corporate cowboys and their gangs of petty mafiosi and pocket politicians?
As Kebble’s affairs are untangled, we should insist on maximum transparency from both the private sector and the police.