ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma has apologised ”unreservedly” for attacking gays in a speech in rural KwaZulu-Natal at the weekend — but the incident has reinforced his image as a cultural conservative.
Zuma’s lifestyle and public statements show a consistent pattern of traditionalist attitudes on matters of sex and gender.
On Thursday, he released a statement through the ANC apologising for the pain and anger his remarks might have caused, saying they ”had been made in the context of the traditional way of raising children. I said the communal upbringing of children in the past was able to assist parents to notice children with a different social orientation.”
He did not intend this to be interpreted as a condemnation of gays and lesbians. He also conceded that the Constitution set its face against discrimination on grounds including sexual orientation, adding: ”I uphold and abide by the Constitution of our land … I respect [gays’ and lesbians’] rights, in my capacity as an individual citizen and as a member and one of the leaders of the ANC.”
Zuma also said he ”respect[ed], acknowledge and applaud the sterling contribution of many gay and lesbian compatriots in the struggle that brought about our freedom, and the role they continue to play in the building of a successful non-racial, non-discriminatory South Africa.”
The ANC deputy president reportedly told hundreds of people attending Heritage Day celebrations in KwaDukuza ”in his personal capacity” and ”as a man” that same-sex marriages should not be tolerated in a normal society.
”When I was growing up, ungqingili (a gay man) would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him out,” he said, to the approval of assembled amabutho (warriors). ”Same-sex marriage is a disgrace to the nation and to God.”
His remarks drew the ire of gay and lesbian and civil society groupings, which pointed to the Bill of Rights’s enshrinement of freedom of sexual orientation and the Constitutional Court directive to Parliament to recognise and legalise gay marriage.
However, reports of Zuma’s speech are consistent with past evidence of his conservatism on sex and women:
l Once married to Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Zuma is a polygamist with three wives, the latest being a Swazi woman.
l At his rape trial this year he told the court his accuser had let him know she wanted sex by wearing a short skirt and sitting with her knees apart.
He referred to the rape accuser’s vagina as ”isibaya senkomo zikababa wakhe” (her father’s cattle kraal), conceding he had entered it without a condom.
Zuma also said Zulu culture obliged him to have sex with an aroused woman. ”I know as we grew up in the Zulu culture, you don’t leave a woman in that situation, because if you do then she will even have you arrested and say you are a rapist,” he told the court.
l He has championed the traditional practice of testing young girls’ virginity, justifying it as a means of avoiding teenage pregnancy and Aids.
Two years ago he told a virginity-testing ceremony in Umtata that traditionally, girls knew their ”virginity was their family’s treasure. They would only have sex when permitted to do so by their families after marriage.”
The speech also prompted the disapproval of his strong backers in the ANC Youth League. Distancing the league, president Fikile Mbalula said Zuma was not articulating ANC policy. The league stood by the ”ANC position — non-sexism, non-discrimination and equality”.