To Shaik or not to Shaik?

The question is not really whether Jacob will jump and when. The real question ­arising out of the Hillary Squires judgement on MK stalwart Schabir Shaik is who, or what, will ultimately have to jump with him.

Or rather, who will be prepared to do so.

The African National Congress, now the seat of power, has long had a shady relationship with the moral imperatives of struggle culture. This has been necessary in the past, ­considering the forces ranged against it, local and international. Normal rules of engagement on the field of an unequal battle have had to give way to expediency and sheer survival. Morality, such as it is, has had to take a back seat when ­necessary.

The examples are legion. Chuck your head back into history. Were Shaka’s brothers right to move against him when his power, on behalf of the whole nascent Zulu nation, became too overbearing? Was Robespierre right in turning his eyes away from the systematic lynching of the populist, but out of control, Danton in the French ­revolution? Did Stalin do the right thing in authorising the elimination of the populist Leon Trotsky in Soviet Russia, after the death of Lenin? Was Mobutu in the Congo doing the right thing when he ­connived with the West in the ­assassination of the popularly elected Lumumba, who was threatening to throw out of kilter the delicate balance of the Cold War by simply speaking out for Africans’ self- determination on their own continent, in their own back yard?

Morality on a grand scale is an unknown quantity. On the smaller scale, such as the personal or the public on your local scene, it is equally fluid and treacherous.

Very awkward, then, that the denouement of the celebrated trial of Schabir Shaik has inevitably focused in on the moral credentials of the deputy president of South Africa. Especially since he has been specifically tasked by his boss, the president, with the post of head of the Moral Regeneration Movement.

The hell with arms deals. Any deal about arms of mass destruction is immoral to begin with. The president himself is in the process of ­schmoozing a new arms deal with Chile as we speak — for what? For whom? Against whom are these ­fantastic examples of nouveau-­ancien South African technology of mass destruction to be applied? Insurgents? Rioters? Indian ­guerrillas in the hills or members of the Shining Path in neighbouring Peru or whatever, formerly allies on the same revolutionary road through the hills that helped Umkhonto weSizwe bring its parent ANC to power?

The questions are ringing out there, have no doubt. In terms of morality, of integrity, of living up to the promises of the past on the local and global field, questions are being raised. Africa and the struggling world are asking what the new, white-collar ANC, the African revolutionary front that it used to know, is really thinking about them, after all these years? What really passes across those grinning tea cups when Mbeki tucks in with George W Bush and Tony “Blah-Blah” Blair in the Oval Office?

And so to bring it all back down to the local level. The law courts of South Africa have established that Schabir Shaik allowed himself to be sucked into immoral private arrangements with a top government official to bail him out with his personal problems —probably arising out of having too many wives to deal with. (The morality of having too many wives at one time was not brought into question — either in the courts, or currently in the national discourse.)

For these services rendered to an ungrateful local warlord, the said Shaik, warrior of the revolution, might well go down for a number of useless years, and lose all his worldly goods and possessions to boot. His children will always bear the stigma of having a jailbird dad. All of which stinks.

The web of betrayal goes a long way back. It always does. Politics, privacy and morality have always been bad bedfellows.

The issue here is, who will ever be prepared to admit that they once, twice or even thrice jumped into bed with the hapless Shaik?

The general impression, generated subliminally by the nouveau black-and-white media, is that he is just another Indian shopkeeper on the make, and that, like Shylock, just as his cause may at one time have been worthy, he deserves what he is going to get at the hands of an impartial court, serving a vicious but professedly impartial society locked into old ways. No one would jump into bed with a guy like that.

Schabir Shaik is going to have to take the jump alone. His minders and mentors have had to step aside and wash their hands of all involvement. He is out there by himself, according to textbook revolutionary discipline. Just like Che Guevara said: “Don’t expect to be coming back.”

Yes, this is part of textbook ­revolutionary culture. If you get caught, you’re on your own. Never betray your comrades. Take ­whatever is coming to you.

Except that we are now living in a new dispensation, with new and pressing demands. Dreams of a revolution deferred are dead. Everything is possible, but nothing is real. We press on into the present.

So who is going to jump with Schabir Shaik into the abyss?

Nobody.