Loose cannon
Robert Kirby
On a recent flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town I was honoured to share the same aircraft with what could only have been a cabinet member. You know you’re about to enjoy this exalted measure of travelling companion when, as a fare-paying pleb, you see that long sleek car parked at the bottom of the gangplank. Once all the riff- raff is safely seated and out of the way, the sublime political personage makes an entrance, shepherded by flunkies to the three reserved seats required by sublime political personages.
Shortly after being seated, this particular cabinet minister proceeded to get busy on the cellphone. Not loud or flashy about the thing, merely illegal. There seems to be some doubt about whether cellphones should be switched off once their users are out of the terminal buildings, but using them on the aircraft is definitely not allowed. In this case, the cabin staff paid no attention. I hoped it was because they’re too busy.
The reason that the use of cellphones is banned on flights is that the high- frequency radio signals they transmit can interfere with the electronics of the aircraft, particularly in navigation and communication. In the very latest airliners, which rely for flight-management on computer systems, cellphone signals are even more hazardous.
Not so, apparently, for the cellphones of South African cabinet ministers. Their need to communicate with their offices and friends clearly supersedes such trivialities as an airliner’s safety. At least so it was in this case, because the cabinet minister in question went on using the cellphone for about twenty minutes into the flight. After breakfast, out came the cellphone again. And the cabin staff were meticulously efficient in looking the other way. “Can’t get rude to a cabinet minister, you know.”
Why is it, I wonder, that politicians have become so hallowed? Not only here in South Africa, everywhere you look. Is it the power they wield? Is it narcissism, forever admiring their own reflections in the media? What is certain is that those most convinced of the celestial magnificence of politicians are the politicians themselves. And they’ll do just about anything to keep this particular status firmly quo.
Is this why the humble-voiced Mr Mbeki casually spends R5-million on upgrading his newest grand residence? Or simply because he only spent R3-million on upgrading the last one? Or because Mbeki has a kindred sense of flamboyant self-worth to that which drives Zimbabwe’s Mr Mugabe to spend R30-million on a new residence? Or Namibia’s Sam Nujoma to set aside a picayune R24-million in building himself a new palace?
And then there are the luxury motor-cars now being foisted onto our cabinet ministers. Two each. Another R20-million down the vanity chute. R47-million for an inauguration to the pantheon of the sacred.
It is one of the 20th century’s most fascinating anomalies, this glorification of the politician. In a recent BBC documentary it was explained how Goebbels shrewdly cultivated the image of Hitler as a super-being, gifted with fabulous intellect and insight. “The Fhrer loves and understands artists,” shrieked Goebbels, “because the Fuhrer is, himself, an artist.”
I detect little difference between the Berlin 1941 brand of abject servility and the kind which is regularly showered on today’s politicians by the Goebbelses de nos jours – especially those around these parts. No need to make direct comparisons. The examples are there for all to see, the moist celebrities of a thousand groveling editorials, ten thousand obsequious interviews.
I use the example of the cabinet minister and the cellphone only to exhibit how grimly obvious is the effect of all this sloppy adoration. Politicians take it all not only for granted, but quite seriously, too. They really do believe that they hover above the ordinary slush. If they were any humbler, they wouldn’t be politicians.
If I have one wish for the new millennium, it is that the politician be downgraded, pruned back to what he truly should be: a manager of practical business. Strip the office of all its humanist pretensions, all its poetic dreamstates, all its acquired power. You might stop a war or two starting, but there has to be some price.
In fact, privatise the whole thing. Let politicians tender for the jobs and be personally responsible for their mistakes. Sarafina II should have had Madam Z’s furniture confiscated, just like they’re doing with others who plunder the public estate.
And if they must have them, let them buy their own mansions.