Reflecting on the translation of Phumzile ("rest-bringer"), Siya Khumalo ponders the irony of a political moment where not even slogans like "I stand with her" have meaning, since we’re all benched.
Are good dictatorial decisions possible in a democracy? That’s the question of the year 2020, in which we all, like the DA’s Phumzile Van Damme, were told to stay home for the good of our health.
Some of us protested, questioning the economic feasibility of a lockdown; others noted that the state’s capacity to investigate citizens (and perform extrajudicial executions) surpassed that displayed towards corrupt public office-bearers.
The double irony is that just as the ANC - a liberation movement once instrumental in unmasking the apartheid government’s pretense of acting in the nation’s highest good - used the pandemic and lockdown as a cover for corruption the NPA has described as "unbelievable", the DA - an opposition party once instrumental at finding the line between the social and economic demands of the lockdown (proposing "smart lockdowns" that limited the state’s infringement of constitutional freedoms) - is now accused of applying too blunt an instrument to Van Damme’s health status.
It’s also concerning that, just as the DA often accused the ANC of applying too heavy a set of civil restrictions to a failing economy on the basis of scanty science, Van Damme is now accusing Steenhuisen and Natasha Mazzone of misleading the media and the public about who performed Van Damme’s duties while she was on leave.
It is also disheartening that the DA, which once held the promise of being an opposition party that elevated the democratic contestation of ideas above personality cults, may be empowering a personality to weaponise its processes to purge black leaders as rumoured. This is how organisations create monsters for themselves. The principles they were supposedly inculcating into the broader populace - like playing the ball and not the man - they may be turning away from.
Numerous psychologists have said something to the effect of: "The things we dislike most in others are the characteristics we like least in ourselves."
When John Steenhuisen speaks, as leader of the opposition, about the governing party and its leader, be it a Zuma or a Ramaphosa, we must wonder - and if he’s being honest that he wants all decisions scrutinised, including his own, he’ll also want us to wonder - whether he isn’t speaking about himself.
*Technically a sabbatical is paid leave, which isn’t what South Africa got. But why let the facts get in the way of the ironies?