The choice of Dr Mvume Dandala as the presidential candidate of the Congress of the People (Cope) seems to have sparked a religious war with the ruling party.
Although Jacob Zuma had much earlier embarked on a crass attempt to woo the religious vote in our society, this effort seems to have gone into hyper-drive of late. The various sycophantic ramblings by Nixon Kariithi and Vusi Mona (March 20) notwithstanding, most South Africans should be curious, if not concerned, about what is at stake here.
Mona (like many in the ANC, a man facing charges of corruption himself) is not the least bit perturbed by the idea that Jacob Zuma is simply a ”crafty politician”, out to capture the religious vote. In fact, he seems to relish the idea that somehow Zuma has outwitted Dandala and has ”won the religious vote”.
When Cope chose Dandala as its presidential candidate, it did not do so because he was an ordained priest in the Methodist church. The majority of Cope members saw him as a leader with a strong struggle background; a person of recognised political experience, including in the inter-denominational structures of the faith organisations of South Africa and the African continent and also as someone without the political baggage of having served in the previous ANC governments.
That he was a man of the cloth was coincidental. On being selected, he immediately resigned all his positions in the church and the faith organisations he had served in. He committed himself to defend the secular nature of our democracy. Dandala is a leader of unassailable integrity. Unfortunately for the ANC, the party has who it has chosen.
Clearly, his selection rattled some in the ANC. Their response, to denounce what they read as Cope’s strategy to woo the religious vote, is as misguided as such an attempt would be by Cope were this its actual strategy. But Zuma and his handlangers, Mona et al, can hardly criticise anyone else for such crude political posturing. By their own admission, Zuma was pounding the pulpit all along.
But does his appearance at the Rhema church signal something new? Is it really a move ”beyond politics”, as Kariithi suggests? Was this all about ”forgiveness” and, if so, who was being forgiven and for what? Zuma and his gang of supporters have proved themselves capable of utilising every aspect of South African culture, history and politics to achieve their personal objectives; whether it is to stay out of jail, get elected or re-elected into office and, not least of all, keep taking the money.
Theirs is not the stance of true politicians, who seek to serve the people, neither is it of honest priests, who seek to minister to a congregation. It is one of political prostitutes, who will do whatever they must to satisfy their client. A charitable reading of recent political history would suggest that they have no real alternative.
They cannot resort to force of arms to protect their ill-gotten gains or to secure their undeserved future. So, they are forced to sell whatever principles they might have had to achieve what they so desperately desire.
As Jason Hickel observes on the letters page in the same edition of the M&G from these honey-dripping commentaries, Zuma is a cipher for many readings of the political moment our country faces. Some, claiming to be Marxists, have read this as presenting an opportunity to make a decisive break from capitalism. Others, acting on their narrow nationalist instincts, have read it as a way to consolidate their property claims. It is increasingly obvious that some even read his political ascension to the office of the presidency as being the fulfilment of a narrow Zulu nationalist objective.
I would venture to suggest that Hickel has left out the most important of the forces at play during this conjuncture. These are the various bourgeois, petite-bourgeois and even criminal elements in the liberation movement who have exploited Zuma and his predicament in this political moment to secure themselves from any consequences for the various acts they have undertaken in the pursuit of the accumulation of wealth.
Ironically, having criticised Thabo Mbeki for leading the so-called bourgeois 1996 class project, these forces are nothing more than a contemporary version of that which they conjured up to justify all the political opportunism, factionalism and decadence we have witnessed in recent times. Capitalists are very adept at re-inventing themselves, so no surprise there.
Zuma’s appearance at the Rhema church, or at any other event, is nothing more than a tired attempt to sell the dream of the liberation movement that he and his supporters have prostituted for their own interests.
We all know that he and the rest of the leadership of the ANC do not mean it when he talks about liberation, unless it is in the personal sense of his own condition or that of Schabir Shaik et al. We know they do not mean it when they talk about socialism. Let’s face it, he and others who abandoned the SACP let that, which they treated as a harlot, go a while ago. They also do not mean it when they talk about being anti-corruption; how could Zuma or anyone else in the ANC leadership claim that given the judgment in Shaik’s trial? In truth the national democratic revolution, as led by the Zuma faction, is not what it was meant to be.
Wittingly, or unwittingly, Zuma and those around him are the harbingers of a new, reactionary politics. The populist-authoritarian regime they will impose on us if they win the election will make them South Africa’s ”neo-cons”, with the emphasis on the latter.
They stand to reverse all the gains made in the 15 years since democracy. We know this, because their only bottom line is the ”get out of jail free” card, the protection of their business interests, or the securing of political office — at any cost.
It is said that the three oldest professions are politics, religion and prostitution. Politics and religion should be about promoting virtue in civic life, not vice. Prostitution is about promoting whatever vice the client is prepared to pay for.
When we go to the ballot box on April 22, we should all make sure that we know which of those options we are voting for.
Phillip Dexter is Cope’s head of communication