Jacob Zuma is on trial for one of the most heinous crimes imaginable in our criminal code. Observing the histrionics in the environs of the Johannesburg High Court, one wouldn’t have thought so. Zuma the accused sweeps into court in expensive state-issue motor vehicles accompanied by besuited armed security — provided by the state. There is no evidence of shame here from this erstwhile champion of moral regeneration! The complainant/victim/survivor gets sneaked in under the protection of a few police escorts — the heavies. She is anonymous and faceless — ostensibly for her own protection. A few protesters against the abuse of women are drowned out by the noisy Zuma crowd, who seem to view the events that occasioned the trial with glee. She walks the gauntlet of these abusive Zuma supporters — the ultimate is that they even publicly burn her picture — an unimaginable threat to the judicial process, let alone to the victim, lest we forget. They are surely misguided. This trial has nothing to do with the politics of the accused. The subject of the trial is the criminal sexual abuse of a woman.
Inside the courtroom, the theatrics could not have been more unimaginable in the new democratic South Africa, where the rule of law abides and where equality before the law is entrenched in our Constitution. The judge president announces that he concedes to the application to recuse himself having regard, among other factors, to the status of the accused. One would have thought that that is precisely the reason he should have presided. The less said about the reasons for the other senior and experienced judges declining the brief, the better. They certainly have not enhanced the image, reputation, stature and credibility of our judiciary, let alone what that says about the independence of the judiciary and oath of office they swore: ”I will … administer justice to all persons without fear, favour or prejudice, in accordance with the Constitution and the law.”
Granted, Zuma is no ordinary man. He remains a senior and influential politician in the ruling party. He has, however, resigned from all political offices, and was removed from the second highest office in the land for a different offence to the one for which he is coming to trial. More significantly, he remains chancellor of the University of Zululand.
Not for the first time during these events, he was recently honoured by the Durban Institute of Technology with an honorary degree. The Mangosuthu Technikon had done the same thing not so long ago. I wonder why other recipients of these esteemed institutions’ honours do not surrender their honorary degrees for the blatant manner in which the institutions associate themselves with someone who is on trial for such a heinous offence. I shudder to think about all those many young graduates of the University of Zululand who continue to be capped by chancellor Zuma. My heart goes out especially to the young women who live with the fear of rape at our university campuses. What message does it send to a young man like Tso Vilakazi, a soccer star on trial for rape in another court nearby? That it’s okay to force yourself on a woman without her explicit consent; your fame, your social and political standing will stand you in good stead? What message does that send to the parents who can no longer entrust their girl children to close male relatives? The Zuma saga spells, for me, the very abyss of moral degeneration in our society. Watching the spectacle outside the Johannesburg High Court, one would not have thought so.
Zuma should resign as chancellor of the University of Zululand. That will be consistent with his resignation from various political offices when he was formally charged with fraud and corruption. He must do so, not because he is guilty — that is yet to be determined by the court — but out of respect for the high offices he holds. To resign would be to show evidence of moral capacity and to give a veritable signal to his misguided supporters, including African National Congress Youth League president Fikile Mbalula and Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, and through them, to millions of young and eager South Africans, that there is something of a shame associated with rape and with corruption and that he is prepared to take moral responsibility, as opposed to legal culpability, for the offences for which he must stand trial. Moral revulsion is not something the courts can impose on him. It is that which he must take upon himself if he is to be the moral exemplar he once aspired to be.
Honorary academic offices, including those of chancellor, chairperson of council and recipients of honorary degrees, are held or honours are received by reason of the honour and prestige they bring to the institution. It is in recognition of their social standing or of their achievements in public life that they get honoured in the first place.
To honour someone is to recognise not just their social standing but also their moral integrity. That honour and esteem remains as long as the recipients or holders of office continue to behave in an impeccable manner as role models and exemplars in society. In many other jurisdictions, once someone gets associated with conduct unbecoming of any such honour or office, such honour is usually withdrawn by the institution and the person resigns any academic offices they hold. Not so in South Africa. Here we flaunt such misdeeds; we celebrate them and we use the institution as a shield against public scrutiny. As we mature as a democracy, we must learn lessons. We must treat our academic institutions with honour and respect. Let the Zuma story serve as an object lesson, especially to academic institutions in our country.
The author writes in his personal capacity