Watching the giddy excitement around the country on ANC (African National Congress) branch meetings preparing for the coming conference in Polokwane (5-20 December 2007) one is much reminded of the Jewish celebrations of Purim.
Pruim celebrates the bravery of a Jewish woman, Esther, who married King Xerxes, one of the great warrior kings of Persia the Bible named as Ahasuerus. King Xerxes’ Grand Vizier, Haman, plotted to kill all the Jews in Persia—a large flourishing community who were descendents of Jews seized and deported from Judea by king Nebuchadnezzar.
Haman was willing to pay cash to anyone who would come up with a way of killing Jews efficiently; and even casting lots to determine how to destroy all the Jews throughout Xerxes whole kingdom. Letters and stern decrees were sent throughout the provinces on Haman’s orders. The Jews were to be killed and their belongings taken as booty.
Haman’s last straw against the Jews came by the hand of a certain Mordecai, who happen to be Esther’s cousin also. Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman with reverence necessitating Haman to prepare special gallows where he would hang him. Mordecai obtained a copy of the decree against the Jews and sent it to Esther begging her to save her people and herself. To cut the story short, Esther prevailed in convincing the king to reverse the decree, and Haman was hung instead of Mordecai on the special gallows.
Since then the Jews have celebrated the day with much joviality and cussing of Haman’s name. For instance, whenever the name of Haman is read on the Scroll of Esther in Jewish congregation the children make loud noises with rattles and banging so that his name will not be heard above the din and be blotted out memory. Anyone who has been attending the ANC regional conferences lately would have noticed the same tendency when either the name of Mbeki or Zuma was mentioned; childish din to blot out and cuss the name out. The non-partisan, like Buridan’s starving ass, stand perfectly equidistant between two piles of hay, undecided, even sometimes disgusted, which way to turn.
Jewish friends during Pruim send themselves Hamantaschen (Haman’s ears)—delicious sweet-filled pastry with poppy seeds. The custom these days during the celebrations is much drinking, ‘joy and gladness’ to an extent that one no longer knows weather he is blessing Mordecai or cursing Haman (Naturally the rabbis do not approve of this excess). It is the same feeling you get on ANC meetings these days. People are so excited, so elated, you find it difficult whether they are blessing Zuma or cussing Mbeki. Of course things are much more serious than that, since it is—let’s cease these pretensions—no longer just about politics but careerism. If Thabo goes down he goes with a trail of his hanger-ons. That might spell a lot bank repossession of X5 (BMW).
Our kvetch media (political) commentary, not to be outdone, has joined the fray. They are glad to have some excitement to the usual dull straightforward ANC politics engineered backstage. They are having a field day striking and trying to chip the ANC rock, but the harder they struck the more it just emits sparks in no particular consistent direction. Hence with the help of survey after survey—those wonderful invention to answer ancient’s custom of studying bird’s entrails—they sleep with this and wake with that.
Personally I’ve come to the conclusion that it’d take years to understand what is happening within the ANC now. Hence I’m not surprised when conveyed commentary on the presidential race tends to be skewed, confused, and even contradictory. We are on uncharted grounds here with no authority of precedents. These elections are doubling up as another means to explore the concept of our nationhood that operates through the complex tensions of our past, like ethnic, regional, even racial identities.
We all know that both the Mbeki and Zuma camps have no different political identities. Their identities are predicated on the personalities and vested of their leaders, give or take fluid edges there and there. Even the tacit assumptions upon which both these leaders differ tend to be inchoate and vague. I sometimes suspect they themselves do not know. Theirs has now become just another Darwinian struggle. No body has who understand the feeling on the ground has ever doubted the popularity of Priapus, the minor Hellenistic deity with the major schlong who inspired laughter but was himself “not a happy god”. But if it ANC history tells us anything it is that the popularity of a leader is no guarantee of his being elected a president. Otherwise we would have had president Winnie Mandela at some stage of our political life.
The growing consensus within the higher echelons of the ANC is that both Zuma and Mbeki have failed the organization by standing on the coming presidential race. But it seems the voice that is adverse to a Zuma presidency than that against Mbeki’s third term is in the majority; so the game is not over yet. The ANC NEC (National Executive) has tremendous powers and influence. Be that as it may the organisation finds itself without an inclusive collective voice except the usual appeals to the historical structure of the organisation that favours Zuma.
Single-party systems reach their heights when, like in SA, their vision has been universally received. To maintain their popularity they must renew from the centre, or employ totalitarian softer tactics, like state-backed propaganda and, at worst, use coercive force. When a regime moves towards strict authoritarian models it is often a sign that it is loosing grip on society. Which stage the ANC is at seems to depend on one’s political persuasions, but I personally don’t think things are forlorn.
The truth of the matter is that no one can really predict what will happen in Polokwane. The only thing certain is that Zuma’s supporters are louder, and even vulgar sometimes, but that does not mean Zuma has secured the majority vote yet. Another thing is certain, the frumpy, eclectic, broadbandness of the ANC has reached another watershed point this year. Things will never be the same again within the party regardless of who holds the reigns. It’s settled assumptions have been tested and found wanting. It might be possible for the ANC to go back to the unifying effects of its structure, but it has certainly lost the collaborative strength between its members.
All democratic governments are in a learning curve, a perpetual state of maturity, by the virtue that they derive their mandate from the people. In democratic dispensations the voice of the people is the monarch. The ANC’s homogenising effect, better known as comrade effect, abuses the monarchy and encourages anachronism. It is what needs to go to make way for authentic political and economic policy parity or antipathy of its members. That is the only way the ANC will find a way of renew itself for the twenty first century without relying on past conditions all the time. There is no running away from the fact that our identity is conditioned by, and mediated through the past. But there comes a time when the past too must adapt or die.
Then again, as the Yiddish saying cautions: ‘A high temperature is not an illness and Pruim is not a festival!’ Unfortunately some people are not privy to that saying. As we speak people are involved in various forms of fitrah (the cleansing rituals, on top of all the manicurist obsession of cutting nails and armpit hair, trimming moustaches and clean shaving hair that have befallen comrades lately), and numerous visits to amaGqirha (witch-doctors) to cast or ward the spells. Bobby Zimmerman, alias, Bob Dylan, would probably describe this sheer giddiness of things with his song Desolation Row: They’re selling the postcards of the hanging / they’re painting passports brown / the beauty pallor is filled with sailors / the circus is in town . . .
As the din rises I’m reminded of another senile old man, Shakespeare’s Richard III. In Act 4, Scene 4, Richard has drums beaten to drown his mother’s curses: ‘A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums! Let not the hearers hear these tell-tale women Rail on the Lord’s anointed: Strike I say!’ I wonder if president Mbeki has re-read Richard III lately since the days he made the farewell speech, in high spirits, for Mandela?
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