Voter beware. As in South Africa, you may get the leader you vote for.
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In 2007 I returned to my native South Africa for the first time in nearly 40 years to do research for my apartheid-era novel Bloodlines. While there, I visited the amazing Nkandla rainforest and drove through the small town of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal.
From there we traveled along unpaved roads to an enormous water tower being built atop a hill, and looked down at a massive estate belonging to Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s current President. From 1999 to 2005, he was Deputy President of South Africa and was already a figure to be reckoned with.
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The View from the Nkandla Water Tower
When Nelson Mandela was elected and the South African constitution written, the right to clean water was enshrined in the law of the land. The deadly drought now pervasive in parts of the country proves that the right to clean water was more a wish and a goal than a realizable outcome.
But in 2007, I watched as Zuma made it a reality for his own estate and his closest neighbors. At the time, I was barely familiar with his name, but the water engineer in charge of the tower told me to watch out for him. A powerful, canny politician, he said, who might well be the next President—hungry for more power, and more interested in his own fortunes than in those of the country.
This week, watching the South African parliament’s rejection of the motion to impeach Zuma, I am unsurprised but saddened by the spectacle of yet another corrupt African leader whose incompetence and double-dealing has helped to throw his country and his people to the wolves. How unfortunate that his party is determined to support him despite his betrayal of their interests and the nation’s.
Zuma projected an image of strong leadership, promising great things. A member of the Communist party for almost 30 years, he dropped that affiliation in 1990 when it became politically expedient. His business ethics and moral judgments should have given his followers cause for doubt long before he was charged with rape, racketeering, and corruption. Even before his election in 2009, he made outrageous comments about women, sex, rape and the transmission of AIDS. In 2014 he was reelected, and even now his followers stand behind him.
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Meanwhile, in America …
In South Africa, continued support for Zuma has to do with complex issues of identity and politics. In the United States, such a man might win the support of a population that feels politically disenfranchised and left behind economically, yearning for strong leadership, and ready to believe that an outrageous presentation is a sign of intellectual freedom and original thought, rather than simply the power of a persuasive personality.
- Fourteen-foot walls between the U.S. and Mexico?
- Doing away with NATO?
- Giving nuclear weapons to nations that were our sworn enemies just over a half-century ago?
- Abolishing the IRS and environmental regulation?
- Rewriting trade agreements without the expectation of any retaliation?
Voter beware. As in South Africa, you may get the leader you vote for.
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Photo: Getty Images