By
Takura Zhangazha*
South African President Jacob Zuma is generally a man
who harbours little fear of the negative consequences of his words or actions.
Or if he does, he exhibits a certain confidence that he will overcome any such
problematic effects of what he says or does. His reported utterances at a
meeting organized by his party the African National Congress (ANC) about what
was essentially a domestic matter, however went on to betray his unfortunate
attitude toward Africa.
As reported in the City
Press newspaper, he jokingly
advised the meeting that on the matter of ‘etolls’ in his country, South
Africans must not “ think like Africans in Africa generally, we’re in
Johannesburg.” He is reported to have further added that the Gauteng highways
are ‘not some national road in Malawi’ to further buttress his distasteful
humour.
If these statements were being attributed to an
ordinary citizen of any African country, they probably would not have made any
headlines. But coming as they are from South Africa’s President, they cannot be
swept under the carpet.
Being a Zimbabwean, I am acutely aware that
humour has a general role in politics, particularly where it is used for
comparative assessment of progress between countries. Or even domestically as
it relates to freedom of expression. I however do not agree with humour being
used to connote false stereotypes of others let alone being used in such an
abrasive and far reaching manner by a sitting head of state and government.
Moreso, by an African one, at a time when the continent remains on an
international back-foot due in part, to the perpetuation of
uninformed stereotyping of some countries as being more 'equal than
others'.
Mr. Zuma’s regrettable comments have the specific
import of implying two issues. Firstly that he believes that his country is
‘exceptional’ and therefore cannot be viewed from the prism of being a
sister African country. He may be correct in the eyes of his supporters but the
premise of this argumentation is however politically misplaced. South
Africa is indeed an exceptional country but not by way of narrow, self serving
comparison to the status of the development of other African countries. It is
exceptional in the sense that it owes its liberation not only to the current
ruling party but the contribution of many African countries and peoples that
its current president finds fit to deride.
Furthermore, assumptions of any economic/development
superiority of South Africa must also be premised on the knowledge that due to
the colonial development of forced (political and economic) circular migration
in Southern Africa, contributions to its current status are also historically
grounded in the peoples of the sub-region. This is why one of the most tragic
colonial institutions were the Native Labour Associations, inclusive of the
notorious but heavily utilized Witwatersrand
Native Labour Association (commonly
referred to as WENELA by us, the African locals.)
In singularly claiming a specific un-African
uniqueness to his country, President Zuma is being dishonest to himself and the
legacy of African liberation struggles that his own party, the ANC, proudly
lays claim to. His utterances are borderline disheartening
confirmation of the unfortunate myth that the more an African country was
colonized the better it turned out in development/modernisation. If that were
to be true, we might as well thank the settler colonials for getting us to
where we are, a development that would be a treasonous betrayal of the
liberation struggles whose challenges and objectives we are still trying to
overcome and achieve in contemporary time.
A second and final effect of the statement attributed
to Mr. Zuma is its import on xenophobia in his own backyard. The consistent and
violent “othering” of fellow Africans by poorer South Africans cannot have
found better endorsement than in the utterances of its head of
government. Because there is a misconception that citizens from other
African countries come to take local jobs, any insinuation, particularly at the
highest leadership level, that South Africa is rich beyond the imagination of
the rest of the continent does not serve to promote peaceful co-existence in
volatile communities. Instead it gives wrong nationalistic premise to poorer
and disadvantaged South Africans to want to falsely but violently gatekeep
wealth that they do not control anyway.
Indeed South Africa is exceptional (as is any
other country) and its roads are not like those of Malawi. It however is an
African country on the African continent and with its historical umbilical cord
in Africa. While we can forgive the ignorance of musicians and other
artistic celebrities, President Zuma’s unfortunate attempt at humour is not
funny.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal
capacity. If you decide to use this blog, please attribute it to
takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com.
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