SABC television last week offered up what must rank as one of the most pitiful, the most crudely embarrassing images of South African “liberation” politics: the sight of senior members of the African National Congress affectionately welcoming Marthinus van Schalkwyk, plus one or two of his horrible minions, into their ranks.
As Groucho once said: “Some things give hypocrisy a very bad name.” You look at senior ANC mandarins, sitting and smiling on the same side of the same table with Van Schalkwyk, “groot baas” of the New
National Party, and your mind starts to wander down cynical lanes. Where now the struggle? Where now the sacrifices of exile? Where now those long years on Robben Island? Where now the gunned-down children of the townships? Where now the forced removals and the dompas? Where now the police raids, the slaughterings of apartheid’s death squads? Where now all the other dark bounty of those years under Van Schalkwyk’s political uncles and second cousins. Where now the seventh-rate “Bantu” education, the forced indignity of working as labourers and domestic workers and gardeners?
Where now, indeed? Did all that count for nothing? Is it all now sold out in return for gaining a few extra municipal seats? Is this what Amandla really meant?
I mean, it’s hard to look at Van Schalkwyk without experiencing a sort of visceral shock, that instinctive shrinking back you get when you realise you’re about to tread in something unpleasant on the pavement. It’s a quite natural reaction to that whingy little voice, that prissy smile bestowed on new parliamentary buddies, that poncey little strut, that tiny mouth uttering those smug political alibis, those smarmy compliments reserved for those Marthinus so desperately wants to like him. He’s a benchmark for political sycophancy. In his time he’s even sucked up to Tony Leon.
I know I speak for quite a few when I describe Van Schalkwyk as ranking among the top three or four most singularly off-putting South African politicians of the past 50 years. When it comes to industrial strength political white trash, Van Schalkwyk’s up there with his party’s finest: Piet Koornhof, PW Botha, Magnus Malan, Jimmy Kruger, Adriaan Vlok … that scrupulous gallery.
But still, Kortbroek must have been doing something right because last week it all came through for him. If a little overdue, he at last received his payola for the months and months of diligent parliamentary loitering, the screechy denigrations of the DA to whom he had publicly sworn eternal fidelity, the sugary pledges of eternal loyalty to his new masters.
For the ANC, taking the New National Party into its ranks must have been like going to the SPCA in search of a dog and choosing him from among those pathetic cringers on the canine death row, the sorry mutts no one else will pick because once you show pity and take them home, you find that when they’re not yawling and scratching and shitting on the lounge carpet, they’re trying to impregnate your leg. Very classy stuff, these new comrades.
To see and hear no less than the deputy president of South Africa warmly welcoming members of the New National Party into the ranks of both the ANC and the government was to be left with quite a few questions well and truly answered. If you ever had doubts about the sheer scope of Mr Thabo Mbeki’s grand vision for South Africa, then the sight of Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota extending the hand of political kinship to Van Schalkwyk and his mates must put them all to rest.
As a clearly overwhelmed Mr Jacob Zuma was to say: “I think the New National Party is an important political party. It’s very important they are part of this and that we work together. But besides anything, it indicates how much we are taking further the work of reconciliation and cooperation in the country.”
He’s absolutely right of course. SPCA reject or not, Rover van Schalkwyk comes with an impressive pedigree. Just think of what he and his dispensary parolees will be able to contribute to the work of reconciliation and cooperation identified by Mr Zuma. Marthinus and his mates have to refer back only one generation to draw on the experience and wisdom of an impeccable legislative bloodline: the explicit racist codifications of the Mixed Marriages Act, the Group Areas Act, the Immorality Act, the Bantu Education Act, the Separate Amenities Act, the terminal psychosis of the Verwoerdian master-race dream; for Marthinus, all close to paw. Can the ANC afford to miss the opportunity to absorb all this?
Responding to Zuma’s tender welcome, Marthinus sucked in his purty little lips and squeaked: “What we are illustrating here is even if parties differ on some issues they are willing to work together for the sake of the country and all its peoples.”
By Jove, those sound like exactly the same words Marthinus used when he was busily attaching himself to the Democratic Alliance.
Oh well, once a stoepkakker.
Archive: Previous columns by Robert Kirby