Zuma’s wife habit
Jacob Zuma’s wedding to Thobeka Mabhija coincides with his R65-million splurge on his Inkandla homestead. Many warned that he would lead a life similar to that of the Congo’s Mobuto Sese Seko, who lived on taxpayers’ money.
To maintain such a huge family Zuma needs far above his current income. Are those on pilgrimage to Inkandla paying his lobola?
Last year the media reported that Mpumalanga’s David Mabuza donated R400 000 to Zuma’s traditional wedding to MaNtuli — and Mabuza was appointed premier. Two members of the Jacob Zuma Trust Committee, Don Mkhwanazi and Sandile Zungu, are now strategically deployed in the Black Economic Advisory Council.
Zuma’s polygamous lifestyle is different to the monogamy of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. No past ANC presidents were polygamists.
Before Polokwane, Zuma was ordained a pastor amid objections from religious communities. Does Pastor Vusi Dube of Ethekwini Community Church, the mastermind of Zuma’s ordination, support polygamy?
Two mayors in KwaZulu-Natal’s Ilembe district have taken second wives to emulate Pastor Zuma. With such harsh economic realities and the spread of HIV/Aids, is such a practice viable? Is polygamy not inviting corruption where wives of our leaders must create front companies to maintain their families from state coffers?
How does polygamous culture retard the struggle for an equitable, non-sexist society? Will our Women’s League take a principled stand against patriarchy and monarchism if its president is a polygamist? Why do our movement and leaders regard polygamy as the thing to do and polygamists as celebrities and people of style?
Should we Africans accept that because Zuma is a Zulu he can take as many wives as he likes, irrespective of financial and HIV/Aids implications and the struggle that we must wage against gender oppression and exploitation?
Are South Africans and we in the ANC creating a second Zulu monarch dependent on state funds and public donations? — Babusisiwe Vilakazi, Empangeni
Again, Zuma’s private issues are dividing the nation and the ANC. Traditionalists and the illiterate rural masses will view his polygamy as evidence of his manhood, while the urban masses, professionals, Christians and modernists will scorn his multiple relationships.
The ANC is a modern political party that advocates 50-50 gender parity in deployment. Women are an important sector who should speak out against polygamy, but because of patronage they dare not criticise ubaba, as Zuma is known by ANC women.
Zuma’s views at his rape trial exposed him as a true traditionalist. Today he is more conservative than Mangosuthu Buthelezi or King Goodwill Zwelithini.
Harry Gwala used to say: ‘Zuma perceives himself as a representative of Zulu culture in the ANC.” He sees himself as more Zulu than John Dube, Josiah Gumede, Albert Luthuli, Gwala, Moses Mabhida, Johnny Makhathini, Curnick Ndlovu and Archie Gumede — all of these were monogamists.
Zuma will soon be getting married again, this time to Bongi Ngema. What implications does this have for the taxpayer and the role of feminists in challenging the oppression and exploitation of women in society?
One eagerly awaits the reactions of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Gertrude Shope, Angie Motshekga, Frene Ginwala, Mavivi Mnyakanyaka-Manzini, Pregs Govender and Bertha Gxowa as Zuma rolls back the achievements of the ANC Women’s League and women in general.
Zuma has disappointed the ANC and women and is sending the wrong message to the youth in the era of HIV/Aids. He should be aware that he is a role model and that his behaviour can be emulated.
Polygamy is one of many behaviours that transmits Aids. The rape case and his 18 children have also exposed him as someone who does not use condoms.
Is this the leader that we need in shaping the sexual behaviour of our youth? — Molly Chetty, Chatsworth
What are the Mail & Guardian editor’s views on the serial polygamy of South African President Jacob Zuma? Is this traditional culture ‘sustainable” in overpopulated South Africa?
The president is a role model for the country’s youth in much the same way as President ‘Yes we can” inspires the youth of the world.
Please shed your PC scruples and tell your readers what you really think. — Norman Clemo
Christianity fastest-growing religion
The M&G continues its dishonourable Christmas tradition of publishing a knocking article on the Christian faith. Cameron Duodu’s article (December 23 to January 7), lifted from the UK Guardian, was, frankly, nonsensical.
The article says more about Duodu’s hostility to Christianity than anything else. His key paragraph says: ‘The many ‘prophets’ who have set up ‘charismatic’ churches all across Africa, and which already prey financially on the poor and the rich alike, will redouble their psychological assault on the people. Already, they use the ‘tithe’ of their poor church members to buy themselves jet planes and build huge mansions.”
The ‘argument” seems to be that in the face of the continental challenges of climate change, war and poverty, hordes of poor African folk will flock to be exploited by prosperity-gospelling preachers.
And just in case we’re too simple-minded to get the message, Duodo gives us ‘scare quotes” around standard Christian terms so that we know that they’re boo-words to help us identify the bad guys.
Undoubtedly there are preachers, charismatic or otherwise, who exploit their congregations, just as there have always been charlatans of all faiths and none. But to generalise this into an overall analysis of charismatic Christianity in Africa is laughably simplistic and, more importantly, is not supported by the facts.
Evangelical and charismatic Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the world at 47% a year, faster than Islam at 2,2% a year. As Christianity overall is growing at 1,5% annually worldwide, Christianity is rapidly becoming more evangelical and charismatic.
Secular humanist UK Guardian readers and commentators are right that Christianity is in decline in Europe, which is now increasingly a post-Christian society.
We can see the fruit in escalating suicide rates, increasing divorce rates, declining community cohesion, greed, consumerism and the failure of corporate trust and accountability in the banking system. — Philip Cole
Interpret matric results with care
It is important to differentiate the current matric results, and interpret them in the correct context.
The Independent Examinations Board (IEB) results come from the most elite schools in South Africa, and should be expected as well as welcomed. If the 99% IEB pass rate and 79% exemption rate is compared with the overall state pass rate, we might be tempted to adopt a wrong explanation: private good, state bad.
But the top state schools, with lower fees, fewer resources and larger and more diverse classes, produce pass rates of 100% and exemption rates of 95% to 99%.
The state sector is not undifferentiated. There are extreme variations in the system; averaging these extreme outliers masks both the very good and the very bad.
The independent sector is not undifferentiated either and reaches commendably far down into tiny, low-fee schools in informal settlements. The range of schools is reflected in a range of results not included in the IEB results. The majority of low-fee independent schools, and some of the high-fee ones as well, write state exams.
The independent schools writing IEB exams are an important feeder for universities but they provide only 8 000 learners. It is the state schools that provide the bulk of more than 100 000 learners with university exemptions. More than half of these learners are black.
If we look at black African exemption rates as a percentage of black African learners writing matric, we are filled with despair. But if we look at the raw figures, at how many black Africans achieve university exemption and what proportion of the university entrance this provides, we are able to discern progress.
Likewise with the all-important maths paper three, which plugs the gap in maths knowledge and insight between the pure maths papers and requirements for success in university courses such as engineering.
This paper is not compulsory to pass maths, and the percentage of IEB learners writing it is much higher than the percentage in state schools. But the actual number of learners in state schools writing this important paper is 10 times higher than the number in IEB schools.
The private-state dichotomy in education is a false one. It is particularly dangerous when we try to apply it causally, to explain success or failure. Success must be perceived, celebrated and replicated school by school across the wide diversity of our too often barren educational landscape. — Gillian Godsell, Johannesburg
Real solutions for a real issue needed
Your end of year and past decade summation was great as always. One thing I must disagree with, though, is Sukasha Singh’s summary of the issues facing the motor industry (‘Gas-guzzlers bite the rust”).
Carbon dioxide emissions by cars are a significant problem and will become even more of a problem if developing countries such as South Africa and India continue to focus on increasing access to cars at the expense of public transport.
I also disagree with Singh’s view that hydrogen is a better solution to pure electric. Even if an electric car draws its battery charge from coal power stations, the efficiency of an electric motor and drive train is so high compared with an internal combustion engine that you come out ahead.
Once you have an all-electric fleet of vehicles, you can focus on cleaning up power generation.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, is not the clean green fuel Singh thinks it is. The cheapest technology for making hydrogen uses coal and produces significant carbon dioxide emissions. Although you can eliminate this problem by using electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, you are back to using electricity, with lower efficiencies than charging a battery for an electric motor with the same electricity.
The real issue, though, is to put the climate change denial argument into its proper perspective, so we can focus on real solutions. If you understand the mainstream science, the lack of seriousness in events like Copenhagen is cause for concern. — Philip Machanick, Taringa, Australia
Cynical, not cyclical, view
Thank you for the coverage of the climate change discussions in Copenhagen (‘Heat’s on in Copenhagen”, December 11). Yet the statement by Valli Moosa that the general public is ‘more to blame than government for not getting heated about global warming” is cynical.
The press has been consistent in giving good cover to climate change concerns. There also appears to be fairly good public awareness but individuals require much more guidance. Government has not promoted sustainable development or climate change mitigation generally.
Private enterprise is ready to launch a massive development of renewable energy technologies, but find Eskom and government, if not actively blocking such development, failing to facilitate it. Hermann Oelsner’s wind farm outside Darling is still struggling despite 10 years of effort to overcome one hurdle after the next, while Eskom continues building and dreaming of coal-fired, oil and nuclear-energy generation models.
The excellent environmental impact assessment (EIA) regime we developed continues to be eroded to allow more unsustainable development.
Government has an excellent team advising it in the climate-change discussions, but this has failed to date to influence government policy. That is why we have such a mismatch between the surprise announcement by government of carbon-reduction targets when this has never before been raised and certainly is not reflected in government policies and actions. —Louis de Villiers
In brief
I would like to thank you for the courage you showed in publishing reports on the recent Miss World pageant and not backing down in the face of legal intimidation by the Miss World organisers. Your reports were responsible communication that served the interests of South Africans, as well as Indonesians, whose own mainstream media had failed to inform them of Miss Indonesia’s cult connections. Thanks also to your excellent reporter, Niren Tolsi. — Perry Bulwer
I am sure that Schabir Shaik would have no reason to lie about suffering from retina damage and being half blind. But then, what the fuck is he doing driving? — Ed Couzens, Durban
As the father of Jan Hendrik Gerber, who was deported from Botswana recently, I read the article by Sello Motsetsa with particular interest. It has been an extremely trying time for his family, especially for his wife and children, who lived under severe stress while the events dragged on. Jan always had great respect for Ian Khama and spoke with high praise for him and his qualities as president. — HI Gerber, Great Brak River