Ebrahim Moosa – Radio Islam – Opinion | 10 Rajab 1438/07 April 2017

South Africa officially is in an imbroglio, with deep fissures societal emerging about the leadership of President Jacob Zuma and the management of state entities and public resources.

In response to a question on whether he regretted his canvassing for Zuma in tri-partite alliance structures leading up to his election as ANC president in 2007, former COSATU secretary general Zwelenzima Vavi told the media last week that whilst he acknowledges his mistake in championing Zuma, no one could have fathomed the type of wrecking ball the Zuma leadership has turned out to be, ever occurring.

“Not even our worst critics could have anticipated that somebody who was in the leadership of the ANC, deputy president, deputy secretary general would have been capable of what is now happening in South Africa,” Vavi said.

“No one – I bet all of the people who opposed us in 2007 if asked ‘would you have ever thought that Zuma is capable of what he is doing now’ –all of them say, ‘not a chance that an ANC person will be capable of what is happening.’

I beg to differ.

Whilst there could be other questionable actions in Zuma’s past that can be used to dissect his character, for me, the writing was on the wall ever since Zuma was charged with raping a 31-year-old woman at his home in Forest Town in 2005.

It is important to note that he eventually was declared not guilty by a court of law in May 2006. Still, the proceedings showed up ominous trends in the behaviour of Zuma and his die-hard supporters, and his accuser, Fezekile Kuzwayo(Khwezi), remained dissatisfied with the court’s outcome until her demise.

The episode dates back to November 2, 2005 when Khwezi visited Zuma in Johannesburg, and was subsequently invited to stay over for the night.

According to SA History Online, two days later, Ronnie Kasrils phone received a call from Khwezi with a lament.

Kasrils and Zuma had stayed Fezekile’s family home in Swaziland while hiding from Apartheid forces. Kasrils considered her to be their ‘cute little niece’. Kasrils recalled of that day that she said seven words that shattered him, “Uncle Ronnie, Jacob Zuma has raped me.”

Zuma was officially charged on December 6, 2005 and was on May 8, 2006 the case was dismissed. In the period of the trial, Fezekile was lampooned with all sorts of insults by the ANCWL, threatened by the ANCYL and SACP and spat upon by Zuma supporters outside the courthouse. The mob outside the courthouse threw rocks at a woman who they suspected was her and Khwezi’s and her ageing mother’s house was burnt down.

She was devastated by the trial and the outcome and for becoming a pariah for reporting Jacob Zuma for rape. Given the widespread climate of intimidation, with the assistance of family friends, Khwezi and her mother fled to the Netherlands.

The irony was that her family’s first flight from South Africa came as part of a struggle against an inhumane ruthless system of government. This time they fled because former freedom fighter Jacob Zuma wanted to and had his way in having sex with the daughter.

Khwezi looked to Zuma as a family friend, father figure and uncle.

Her father, Judson Khuzwayo, was the Chief Representative of the African National Congress in Zimbabwe. He died on May 1, 1985 when his car overturned while driving to Lusaka. 

She returned to South Africa with her mother from Zambia in 1990 shortly after the release of Nelson Mandela. It was then that Zuma took on a paternal status, for her – a second father, as she told journalist Kees Broere of de Volkskrant in 2007.

Fezeka’s and Zuma’s paths crossed again in 2001 when Zuma was Deputy President and he began “to tell me stories about the kind of man my father had been”, she told Broere, as quoted by Marianne Thamm in the Daily Maverick.

Later, while working for an AIDS NGO, Fezeka had connected with Zuma, who was Chairman of the National Aids Council at the time.

Thamm cites author Mmatshilo Motsei, who, in her 2007 book The Kanga and the Kangaroo Court – Reflections on the Rape Trial of Jacob Zuma, writes that Fezeka’s voice “is almost erased in our hearts as we become like the citizens of Hamelin following the piper from one rendition of Umshini Wam to another.”

“Two years after the book’s publication Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, having escaped rape and corruption charges, became the President of the Republic of South Africa. Motsei opined at the time that the justice system in South Africa “has had no impact on awakening the nation from its moral and spiritual stupor….””

Fezeka herself spilled out her pain at the status quo in a heartfelt poem she called I am Khanga:

Please don’t use me as an excuse to rape

Don’t hide behind me when you choose to abuse

You see

That’s what he said my Malume

The man who called himself my daddy’s best friend

Shared a cell with him on [Robben] Island for ten whole years

He said I wanted it

That my khanga said it

That with it I lured him to my bed

That with it I want you is what I said

But what about the NO I uttered with my mouth

Not once but twice

And the please no I said with my body

What about the tear that ran down my face as I lay stiff with shock

In what sick world is that sex

In what sick world is that consent

The same world where the rapist becomes the victim

The same world where I am forced into exile because I spoke out?

This is NOT my world

I reject that world

My world is a world where fathers protect and don’t rape

My world is a world where a woman can speak out

Without fear for her safety

My world is a world where no one, but no one is above the law

[edited excerpt]

At the time of writing, Zuma has been president of South Africa for almost 8 years, and his tenure has become a cesspit of depravity – associated with everything from corruption, dodgy tenders, nepotism, lies, shadowy friendships, misappropriation of the public purse and heavy-handed tactics.

When considering the tsunami of dissatisfaction with his actions, the rape trial and its aftermath may be considered to constitute just a tiny footnote to this story.

But, I would argue, it should also be one of its most instructive.

“Among the things that people have found from the words of the previous prophets,” said the Messenger of Allah SAW, “was: ‘If you feel no shame, then do as you wish.’”

Jacob Zuma evidently harboured no respect to the bodies of even those who looked up to him as father. In 2010, the cycle was repeated again, when he fathered his 20^th child, out of wedlock, with the daughter of close friend, Irvin Khoza.

Khoza is said to have told family friends that he felt betrayed by Zuma’s relationship with his daughter, as he considered him a friend.

Zuma subsequently made a traditional payment of the inhlawulo penalty to Khoza’s family.

In recent days, there has been tremendous focus on Zuma’s disrespect for struggle veterans such as Ahmed Kathrada, whose impassioned but respectful letter calling for the president’s resignation was allegedly not even graced with a standard acknowledgement. A call by the ANC Integrity Commission, headed by veteran Andrew Mlangeni, for Zuma to resign, was also rejected out of hand in 2016. Subsequent to the leaking of a letter from the Integrity Commission this week, Zuma ally Nomvula Mokonyane brazenly questioned the integrity of the body chaired by the 91 year old Rivonia Trialist and former political prisoner.

Zuma also previously chided the Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu who criticised his leadership saying, “my understanding is that bishops and pastors are there to pray for those who go wrong, not to enter into political lives”.

Explaining the aforementioned Hadith, the scholars say it is a trait of people who lack modesty to simply do as they please. They have no internal limitations or barriers to engaging in whatever they seek.

Modesty is one of the most important factors that keep a person from delving in to transgression. If this is absent, the person is capable of crossing almost every norm and barrier.

Through a series of encounters, Zuma has revealed a trend of gross disrespect and immodesty toward those who looked up to him as a father and elder figure. It should then come as no surprise his disrespect to upright veterans of the struggle and the wider people of South Africa.

The writing was always on the wall.