Zulu Boy Zuma a child of destiny

Okech Kendo

Post-apartheid South Africa’s next president is certain to be an unlikely occupant of the office. And not just because Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, also known by his clan name Msholozi, lacks the stature or polish of Nelson Mandela, or the intellectual deceit and accomplishments of Thabo Mbeki.

Zuma falls much below their moral and intellectual par, yet he is ahead of many. This is probably because of coincidence or too frequently being underestimated because of his dismal formal education. The Zulu Boy — and Zuma is a child of that flamboyant, masculine and military community — counts Shaka, the empire destroyer, among his ancestors, if only through ethnic affinity. Indeed, a Zulu was always coming to be president of independent South Africa, given their numerical strength in the tribe-and-race-defined country.

But few would imagine the inheritor would be Zuma, in an age when the influence of western education is dominant. Zuma often thinks less of himself, almost in a self-deprecatory way, sometimes to spite others who think they are highbred.

While in South Africa early this month, I entered a bookshop at Oliver Tambo Airport in Johannesburg to buy a book I could not find in Nairobi. Michaela Wrong’s John Githongo-inspired It is Our Turn To Eat was priced at 270 Rand (about Sh2,700), so I picked a copy of Jeremy Gordin’s Zuma: A Biography instead.

A woman at the counter was baffled with my selection and my remark I wanted to read about "the next president of South Africa". It was obvious she and her kind would stop a Zuma presidency if they could.

Even with a history of sexual adventurism, a high profile case of like nature, and other related moral questions about the Zulu Boy, Zuma’s presidential stream is unstoppable. The majority of those who matter in a democracy are with him, so no rich Afrikaan racists can stop him. Not even the wealthy, powerful elite of his mentor Mbeki can stop him.

Minor river

Asked why he was not popular with writers, Zuma told Gordin: "Why should anyone write about me? I’m not an important person. I’m not from a politically famous or royal family. I am not an influential businessman. I’m just an ordinary person."

Mandela is from a royal Xhosa family. Thabo Mbeki, his successor, is from a political family, son of Govan Mbeki, an ANC founder member. One of Zuma’s possible rivals in future is Cyril Ramaphosa, an ANC insider and successful entrepreneur who might have succeeded Mandela. (Ramaphosa, by the way, is the negotiator PNU rejected last year, claiming he could not assist Dr Kofi Annan because he is close to ODM leader Raila Odinga.)

In Khrushchev: The Man, His Era, William Taubman echoes the Zuma narrative, particularly his relationship with Mbeki.

The story goes: "‘Once upon a time,’ (Nikita) Khrushchev said, ‘there were three men in a prison: A social democrat, an anarchist and a humble little Jew — a half-educated fellow named Pinya. They decided to elect a cell leader to watch over the distribution of food, tea and tobacco.

"The anarchist, a big burly fellow, was against electing authority. To show his contempt for law and order, he proposed that the semi-educated Jew be elected.

"Things went well until they decided to escape. They realised that the first man to go through the tunnel would be shot at by the guard. They all turned to the big brave anarchist. But he was afraid to go.

Suddenly, poor little Pinya drew himself up and said: ‘Comrades, you elected me by a democratic process as your leader. Therefore, I will go first’."

The moral: However humble a man’s beginning, he achieves the stature of the office to which he is elected. Pinya could be Zuma, the son of a KwaZulu Natal policeman and a maid. He never had formal education. The brutality of his boyhood saw him take up casual labour in Boer homes. His father died before Zuma, barely a baby, understood the cruelty around him. The brutality shaped his boyhood, and would lead him to detention in Robben Island for ten years.

His wedding with the ANC is the subject of legend. He enlisted at age 17. In 1991, when ANC was looking for someone to lead the party in talks with FW De Clerk’s National Party and Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party, it was a gesture from ANC president Oliver Tambo that did it. Tired and sick then, Tambo was seen to have pointed his stick at Zuma and no one wanted to contradict him.

When Mbeki picked Zuma as deputy president, he underrated his worth. He figured that Zuma would have no ambition for the highest office. How wrong he was: Zulu Boy is in after he ejected Mbeki from ANC!

The writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Quality and Production.

kendo@eastandard.net