Dinner at the club with the Zulu Mr Everyman

Alec Russell

25 April 2009

As Jacob Zuma readies himself for the challenge of governing South Africa, Alec Russell recalls his encounters with the ANC leader: a politician who plays the part of the revivalist preacher and speaks the language of reconciliation but remains an unsettling enigma

On a blustery southern winter’s night last year, Jacob Zuma hosted a small dinner in the Rand Club for a dozen sceptical guests. Founded by Cecil Rhodes, the dark-panelled club in the centre of Johannesburg was in the old days the preserve of the white English-speaking business establishment. In the early years of majority rule, senior officials of the African National Congress were wary of admitting to membership, fearing headlines insinuating they had become the new ‘Randlords’, the old nickname for Rhodes and his peers. But 15 years into the new era the new guard are feeling rather surer of themselves. None other than the Rhodes Room, a private dining-room dominated by a life-size portrait of the old colonialist in shooting clothes, was selected as the venue for the coming man to set out his stall.

He had arrived early and was chatting to one of his bodyguards at the top of the club’s sweeping wooden staircase. Outside, the city centre was at a standstill as a gun battle raged between rival police units — striking city policemen were trading shots with national police officers brought in to restore order. As we waited for the late arrivals delayed by the drama, he regaled us with a series of anecdotes from his extraordinary life. South Africa’s next president has, as he likes to say, ‘lived a lot’.

The 67-year-old former herd-boy, turned political prisoner, turned exiled spy chief, turned scandal-wracked populist who is the most powerful man in sub-Saharan Africa following this week’s South African elections, has the build of a prize-fighter. This is a tough man, schooled in township scraps in the 1960s and then in the treacherous world of exile politics when he made his share of ruthless decisions. But in small groups he is more of a pastor than a pugilist. He did not seek to dominate, still less impose his views. Rather he sought to disarm, and he listened. It was the very same mellow routine that has served him so well throughout his improbable ascent to the top.

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charlie

April 24th, 2009 1:13pm Report this comment

Thabo Mbeki was disastrous for South Africa. He was an autocratic racist president, who espoused the African renaissance. An admirable goal, which I support - but you can't have a renaissance without the proper skills, and without the understanding that institutions are more important than leaders (the two fault lines on which Africa falls).

Under Mbeki skin colour yet again became more important than ability, and his excluding white South Africans from the debate and his denial of the impact of crime caused up to three million whites to leave South Africa, a tragedy. Even worse, he changed the structure of government to one of centralised patronage. Local authorities ceased to be accountable to their constituents and only looked to Luthuli House. Corruption and incompetence soared.

We shall just have to see how Mr Zuma pans out. At the moment, anyone is better than Mbeki. But the most important thing of all, is for ordinary South Africans to learn that democracy works by removing votes from bad government: something that Africans still don't get.

Quackers

April 24th, 2009 2:18pm Report this comment

Mister "Lethu Mshini Wami" Zuma remains ( for the simplistic, 'take everything at face-value' members ) something of an enigma.

For the more realistic and African worldly-wise, he is a growing and dangerous threat to the stability of the entire continent.

Mister Zuma believes in only one thing - himself. Anyone in his immediate vicinity had better understand this PDQ or start making arrangements for the hereafter.

To postulate he could be another Reagan does Ronald a grave injustice. Reagan had not a single mailicious bone in his body.

I hope and pray that my misgivings prove wrong - for the sake of a great country.

"Almost" anything is better than the great 'intellectual' ditherings of Mbeki, but Zuma ??

Andreas

April 28th, 2009 5:59pm Report this comment

Is there any reason to think Zuma won't be another Wabenzi leading South Africa down the path their neighbours slightly to the north already have walked?

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