Why are so many people eager to fall on their spears for Jacob Zuma?

Dear DM168 readers,

There are a few stories in the newspaper this week that are grating my carrot. Let’s start with our brilliant lead story by Daily Maverick associate editor Marianne Thamm. It’s about Jacob Zuma’s fallen: the many sycophants who sacrificed their careers, reputations and lives for the former president who is said to have enabled, encouraged and benefited from an era of State Capture from which our country will take a long time to recover.

Thamm’s story is essential reading. It examines the many enablers who did whatever they could – and often broke the law – to help Zuma, whose recently launched uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party is creating new legions of loyalists who are now threatening violence and anarchy if the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) doesn’t allow Zuma to contest the elections.

I understand the support for Zuma from the dodgy businesspeople who benefited from corruption during his tenure. What I find puzzling is how such a tainted political figure attracts so much support from the very people who suffered because of that corruption during his tenure.

I understand the anger of the millions of poor South Africans whose lives have only worsened since the dawn of our democracy, but I don’t understand their support for the man who has been placed at the centre of the kleptocracy that has robbed this country and its people of billions of rands that would have benefited the poor.

How do Zuma’s supporters not understand the consequences of corruption? How do they not see that they’re the ones who will continue to suffer if we don’t elect honest leaders who prioritise the upliftment of disadvantaged people?

I’m not suggesting that poverty in South Africa is Zuma’s fault or that he’s to blame for everything that has gone wrong in the past 30 years. I know it’s going to take a long time to undo apartheid’s legacy.

I also know that the private sector could have done much more since 1994 to invest in building local expertise and manufacturing instead of following the American way of sourcing cheap goods and labour in exploitative Asian markets, and making a killing (in so many ways) with their massive mark-ups.

There is a lot that has gone wrong in the past 30 years that has contributed to the continued repression of millions of South Africans. But it is an undeniable fact that corruption has played a significantly destructive role in the lack of service delivery and social development, both of which are crucial in a developing country, particularly one that is recovering from hundreds of years of systematic discrimination.

That hundreds of thousands of people want to vote for Zuma is mind-boggling and mildly terrifying as MK supporters issue threats such as this one being shared on X: “There will be riots like you’ve never seen in this country. There will be no elections.”

The other story that made me livid this week is about a girl in Nelson Mandela Bay who was gang-raped in a toilet at her school when she was 11 years old; it wasn’t the first time she had been raped. Two cousins had raped her on two separate occasions when she was eight and nine, and her family chose not to press charges both times.

Since the rape at school, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and panic disorder. Despite being a bright student before the gang rape, she failed Grade 10 and Grade 11. She is now 19 and the Eastern Cape Department of Education has finally admitted negligence and agreed to pay her R5-million.

In my opinion, the rape and gender-based violence in general are the corollary of corruption. Maybe, if hundreds of billions of rands hadn’t been lost to State Capture, a national grassroots campaign could have been funded to focus on teaching boys and men to be kinder to girls and women – and themselves.

The stories in this week’s DM168 provide much food for thought on a range of topics, from the daily struggles of black commuters (page 10) to why alpha male politics is bad for your health (page 21) and how Chinese chemists changing the formula for fibreglass has resulted in South Africa’s platinum group metals industry experiencing massive losses (page 31).

There’s much more in your favourite weekly newspaper, which is now also available across the Eastern Cape in major retail stores.

DM168 Editor Heather Robertson is back next week, so please send your thoughts to her at [email protected]

Yours in defence of truth,

Sukasha

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.