Our political atmosphere, which has been remarkably stable given our less-than-propitious antecedents, has recently been convulsed by the succession crisis in the African National Congress, with cries of plots and conspiracies and all the fallout that has resulted in considerable turbulence. I thought it might not be entirely inappropriate to talk about leadership — true, real leadership.
The led, the so-called masses, in a way can be gullible for they almost always cannot believe that their leaders are not people of integrity upholding high moral values, and so they are always hit for a six by the high-flyers who use their positions for corrupt self-aggrandisement and self-enrichment.
I must confess that I have been quite naive. During the days of our struggle our people were magnificently altruistic. We had a noble cause and almost everyone involved was inspired by high and noble ideals. When you told even young people that they might be tear-gassed, hit with quirts, or have vicious dogs set on them, that they might be detained and tortured and even killed, there was a spirit almost of bravado as they said, ”So what? I don’t care what happens to me as long as it advances our cause.”
My naiveté was that I believed these noble attitudes and exalted ideals would, come liberation, be automatically transferred to hold sway in the new dispensation. What a comprehensive let-down — no sooner had we begun to walk the corridors of power than we seemed to want to make up for lost time. We succumbed to the same temptations as those others we had thought to be lesser mortals.
How utterly despicable and how thoroughly disillusioning that there have been officials called civil servants who have proved to be neither civil nor certainly servants, who have actually robbed the most needy through pocketing their social welfare grants. How salutary that the minister responsible has acted decisively and with almost brutal efficiency to bring the shameless culprits to book. Then there have been Travelgate and all the innuendos and allegations about the possible shady aspects in connection with the arms deal, some relating to our former deputy president, but not just he. We do hope that there really will be a thorough investigation.
Last week (Max du Preez) said he thought it was wrong to rule Jacob Zuma out of the succession race simply because he had been involved in a rape case, had on his own admission committed adultery, and possibly because he had no university education. I agree that the lack of a university degree should not be a bar to his being president. But I disagree about the sexual misdemeanour as not posing such an obstacle.
I certainly do not think the misdemeanour as such should necessarily disqualify a candidate. After all, God did not baulk at using an adulterer, King David, to be the ancestor par excellence of the Messiah. The crucial difference is that there was contrition and an asking for forgiveness in the case of David. I am not aware that Zuma apologised for engaging in what he claims to have been consensual sex, a version accepted by the court that acquitted him. He engaged in casual sex with someone young enough to be his daughter at a time when he was heading up the moral regeneration movement. He apologised for his extraordinary claim about the efficacy of a shower to ward off HIV/Aids.
But all of these pale in the face of the behaviour of his supporters outside the court. That conduct was abominable and quite disgraceful. So far as I can tell, at no time does he seem to have been nonplussed or embarrassed by it. I like Zuma as a warm, very approachable person, but he did nothing to stop his supporters. I for one would not be able to hold my head high if a person with such supporters were to become my president, someone who did not think it necessary to apologise for engaging in casual sex without taking proper precautions in a country that is being devastated by this horrendous HIV/Aids pandemic. What sort of example would he be setting?
I pray that someone will be able to counsel him that the most dignified, most selfless thing, the best thing he could do for a land he loves deeply is to declare his decision not to take further part in the succession race of his party. I appeal to his undoubted patriotism as demonstrated by his distinguished role in the struggle. The litmus test as I said at the beginning, is the well-being, the good of the people and not self-aggrandisement by the leader.
Almost paradoxically, we are attracted to a head of state who is humble and approachable, not arrogant and aloof. I told President Thabo Mbeki that long after people have forgotten most things about his presidency, I will remain indelibly impressed. He was due to visit a township home and preparations were made including a special chair for the president. Unfortunately an old man arrived before the president and plonked himself down in the chair. When Mbeki arrived, officials wanted to shoo the old man off, when they were bowled over by the president’s insistence that the old man keep his seat and proceeded to plonk himself on the floor. I told him that people would say, ”Hau, he has a heart!”
People want their leader to have charisma, to be regal and exalted, dignified, almost godlike as expressing the best about their idealised corporate consciousness and identity. But they also want them to be people of flesh and blood, not remote, but down to earth and in touch with them, aware of their aspirations, anguish, needs and know where the shoe pinches.
This tall order is more likely to be accomplished when the system is transparent and accountable. Our present way of electing our president and Parliamentary and provincial and local representatives has served us well in our transitional period.
We need to make those elected more accountable to the electorate than to the party bosses who control the party lists. It is high time that our president was elected directly by the people. It is high time that the constituencies came into their own so that representatives knew they owe their primary loyalty and accountability to the constituents rather than to the party bosses. Ours would become an even more vibrant, more engaged democracy, because it is still the case that he who pays the piper still calls the tune. There would be a more rigorous putting through its paces of the executive branch by its legislative counterpart than is now the case. The party lists tend to foster acquiescence and a supine kowtowing.
The price of freedom we have been told times without number is eternal vigilance. Power is insidious. It can subvert the best of us and we need help to keep its corrupting attributes from corrupting even the best of us.
Most politicians seem to have a massive allergy to admitting they might have been wrong. I suspect most of us find humble pie unappetising.
President Mbeki has performed splendidly in most areas of governance. We have enjoyed a remarkable level of stability during his watch as well as an admirable economic growth rate, despite high levels of unemployment and crime. He is making a name for himself with his involvement in peace making on the African continent and in his interaction with the leaders of the G7 countries.
When I referred the Time magazine nomination to the president and went on to say that the magazine’s praise would have been fulsome but for two matters on his policies, he retorted without hesitation and before I could mention them, ”Aids and Zimbabwe”. He would rate an A if his Aids policies particularly were more orthodox.
At the least we should forego the luxury of sterile academic debates in the pejorative sense about what does or does not cause Aids and have a coherent campaign to combat a devastating pandemic. It is galling that we should be fiddling while our Rome is burning and it is distressing that we can be pilloried and lambasted as we were in the recent Toronto Aids conference. Our country does not deserve it, and we owe it to our people, especially those infected and affected by HIV/Aids.
We have it in us to become a vibrant, prosperous and compassionate nation. And let us draw into the fray many who were involved in different ways in our struggle against apartheid who today feel disgruntled, unrecognised and sidelined. We need their passion, their commitment, their skill.
Let us become what we are — the rainbow people of God, proud of our diversity, celebrating our differences that make not for separation and alienation but for a gloriously rich unity.
These are edited excerpts of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture, delivered in Cape Town on August 23