A few weeks ago a tele-vision reviewer for one of the national dailies filed his opinions on the hit drama, The Sopranos. He was appalled to learn that the show was nothing but an orgy of violence, betrayal and sexual infidelity.
Of course it is. What is surprising is that he was surprised.
For those not in the know, The Sopranos is the story of a New Jersey Mafia organisation, headed by one Tony Soprano. Other than being involved in the normal Mafia business — murder, racket-eering, arranging that things are stolen from trucks and muscling his way into local government contracts — Tony is, as he once told his psychologist, ”basically a good guy” concerned about his (biological) family’s welfare.
The mafia genre, as depicted by countless movies and TV dramas since The Godfather, is about people killing others while saving their own skins, if possible. The F-word is hardly uncommon in this genre.
Reviews of the Tokyo Sexwale show at the Wits University Great Hall reminded me of this take on The Sopranos. There Tokyo sketched out his views of a South Africa under his presidency, basically saying he would espouse neoliberal macroeconomic policies.
For those already sold on the free market, Tokyo was a breath of fresh air. To those inclined towards collectivist ideology, nobody had ever said anything more ridiculous.
One academic, known for his work within the SACP, said the mining mogul and industrialist would not, on the basis of what he had just heard, even make it to the presidency of his university’s student representative council.
Similarly, the anti-Zuma brigade has written off the son of Nkandla. Political commentators openly snub Jacob Zuma, saying that they are not interested in what he has to say. They know all they need to about him. And they don’t like it.
All of which makes me wonder: why do these two even bother campaigning? People have made up their minds already and are determined not to hear what the ”wrong” candidate has to say.
This not being the United States, it does not matter how the two manage to win public opinion to their side. The decisions will be made in Polokwane and the rest of us will simply have to endorse the ANC’s choice.
And, as Robert Mugabe reportedly said once, even if Zanu-PF proposed a donkey as its candidate, the Zimbabwean people would vote for the donkey. That is how much they love old Bob’s party, he reckoned.
By all accounts, the ANC is much more popular with its electorate than Zanu is. It stands to reason that the ANC donkey would, therefore, stand a greater chance than its Zimbabwean counterpart of being voted into public office.
Just as God TV or any of the religious channels are unlikely to make anyone see the path of righteousness, precisely because their core audiences (like that of The Sopranos) have already converted, Sexwale and Zuma’s campaign efforts are unlikely to win them any new recruits.
If either one seriously thinks he stands a good chance of being president, now would be a good time for him to spend quality time with the loved ones and doing the things he really enjoys, because the demands of public office would make the future president a virtual stranger to his family — to say nothing of his country, sometimes.
Both candidates hold the view that the ANC is a collective and its decisions are thus collective decisions. We might know what Tokyo stands for, and should Zuma eventually choose to share his views with us, we might know what he thinks too. Yet what they think might be totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, when the ANC decides what’s best for it and for the country.
The markets — excited about a Sexwale presidency — and the labour movement — looking forward to an mshini’wam presidency — might just find that they wasted their time listening to the pronouncements of these men and and analysing their anticipated styles of governance.
And should the candidates feel moved by revolutionary zeal to speak their minds, regardless of the consequences, then perhaps an effort to change things within their party — making it legal to campaign if they see fit — would help.
Until then, all the excitement about what Tokyo thinks or does not think might be as relevant to us as an episode of The Sopranos — simple escapist fun signifying nothing.