David Beresford
Another Country
A noticeable aspect about last week’s contretemps between the Irish newspaper tycoon, Sir Anthony O’Reilly, and the South African presidency was that Essop Pahad failed to inform us about the progress of investigations into the great conspiracy to prove the president potty.
Essop, or Aesop as Sir Anthony would have us know him Thabo Mbeki’s champion in the confrontation between press and presidency at Cape Town’s Castle fulminated at some length about the foul treatment of his boss at the hands of the media. Pahad suggested to guests that newspapers had indulged in “rank hostility” and had engaged in “reckless reporting”, not to mention “flinging around ill-considered and vicious comments” with regard to the present head of state. But for some reason he failed to raise the potty issue.
It was in September last year, if memory serves, that Mbeki disclosed to a hushed parliamentary caucus of the African National Congress, meeting behind closed doors, that investigations had been launched into a wicked plot to portray him as deranged. Since then, one would assume, secret agents have been excitedly rounding up the usual suspects and closely questioning them on their views on the pottiness, or otherwise, of the president. Those who confessed they thought him barking mad would then have been interrogated further about the origins of their opinions and in that way the mastermind behind this foul conspiracy would be isolated and forced to surrender.
It is reasonable to assume that sufficient time has elapsed for such investigations on the subject to be completed. It is difficult to envisage a more appropriate setting for the public identification and denunciation of those who would undermine executive authority than The Castle, with its history and its dank dungeons so readily to hand. And one cannot conceive of a more receptive audience than distinguished guests, hangers-on and officials of the Independent group. It is, after all, a conglomerate that has demonstrated its loyalty to the executive by making free with corporate funds to peddle Mbeki’s views on the errors of medical science with regard to HIV/Aids. It would seem, therefore, that the silence of Pahad on the subject points to the collapse of the investigation, possibly on the grounds that nobody would be so potty as to identify themselves with a plot to present the presi- dent as potty. Alternatively the president was proved to be potty and the investigators wisely decided to maintain a discreet silence on the subject.
I would like to make it clear at this stage that I do not regard the president as potty. Certainly when I last set eyes on him he seemed his old, amiable self. The occasional eccentricity of view since then, maybe. But don’t we all give vent to them from time to time? If he were to seek my advice I might suggest that he abandon his reported habit of cyber-surfing into the little hours of the morning which does leads to a certain confusion of realities in favour of a glass of warm milk at a proper bedtime.
But even if someone of greater expertise and authority should offer a contrary diagnosis throwing meaningful looks at members of the NWC, say, and discreetly making circular motions with a finger in close proximity to his right earhole I would hurry to reassure the president that many a great reputation obscured a degree of pottiness. Even Napoleon thought he was Napoleon.
It is time, anyway, to face up to the fact that the democratic model we chose in 1994 proportional representation by the party list system has failed us in our dream of representative government. It is not our fault, really.
One of the great shortcomings of contemporary democracy is the fallacy it promotes of representative government. Self-evidently the leadership it spawns is anything but representative of the populations it claims to represent. Since his ploy in going without socks failed to strike a chord with the proleteriat, Mbeki seems to have abandoned any pretence that he has much in common with them. As for Tony Leon …
But it is not just South Africa. Look at the billionaire pinhead now said to represent the Ameri-can people. One of my deepest concerns about cloning is that British scientists perfected it. Imagine if they were to get it into their heads to populate the fair islands of the north Atlantic with copies of Tony Blair on the grounds he is representative of the British people! Let’s face facts; to be a successful politician one has to have qualities overwhelming ambition, overweening arrogance, an extrovert personality, slickness, a stick-on smile and gleaming dentures which make them not only unlike ordinary people, but insufferable to them, at least until their more obvious deformities have been covered up by spin doctors.
Which is why I have long propagated my plan for the reform of democracy. Put simply for those who may have missed it, it is this: to replace elections with a national lottery in which Parliament is chosen at random in imitation of the jury system. After all, in the major democracies the people are prepared to entrust their lives to “12 good (wo)men and true”, then why not their country to the common-sense rule of 400 good citizens chosen randomly to represent a cross-section of society?
The odd convicted criminal, or long-term lunatic might pop up as president from time to time, but at least we would be alert to such an eventuality. Far better to have a latter-day Napoleon ruling us from the proverbial padded cell where citizens can weigh his orders against his circumstances than from a presidential mansion where only dazzled “yes-men” are privy to the reincarnation. In other words, if it is not with us already, isn’t it time society began preparing for the potty?