Maybe there was a time when rhetoric, song and dance could fuel and sustain a revolution. Not anymore, writes Tinyiko Maluleke.
Helen Zille tells the story of how, during a banquet at the end of one national cabinet lekgotla, President Jacob Zuma asked her for a dance.
Not very confident in her dance moves, Zille was rightfully anxious. “He placed my left hand on his right shoulder, held my right hand aloft with his left, and we were off,” she writes in her memoir.
The nimble-footed Zuma led faultlessly and Zille followed nervously. She recalls vividly how, several times during the unlikely tango, she almost tripped up the president of the republic. And cabinet members present whipped their mobile phones out to record the Zuma-Zille dance.
#ZumaMustFall activists should beware. If there is a place where Zuma is least likely to fall, it is on the dance floor.
Even if Zille had succeeded in inadvertently tripping him, even if the two had fallen flat together, Zuma would have been back on his dancing feet in a flash. At the end of their salsa, Zille stood in awe, determined to enrol at the nearest dance school.
On that occasion, she must have learnt the importance of dance in South African politics. By her own admission, Zille learnt other lessons about Zuma’s approach to leadership. Any wonder that, like him, she is in some serious trouble right now?
The problem is that despite its apparent significance, dancing, like singing, is not included among the list of leadership qualities identified in the party booklets about strategies and tactics. Nor is it included among the key stratagems in the battle for ideas.
Should Cyril Ramaphosa or Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma be acquiring some dance skills then? Some crash course in dancing could do them no harm. Neither of them looks particularly nimble on the dance floor.
But it will take much more than dancing skills to become president of the ANC.
While the Madiba dance has become stuff of legend and much mimicry, it is his determination to forge a new nation out of the disparate and the divided that has rightfully become his enduring legacy.
Who remembers Thabo Mbeki’s famous mkhukhu dance in which he was captured suspended in mid-air alongside singer Solly Moholo in 2003? But what we are likely never to forget is his HIV/Aids denialism and “I am an African” speech.
This week, it was the turn of Brian Molefe to show off, what Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo might have called, the diamonds on the soles of his shoes.
He triumphantly toyi-toyied his way back into Eskom to the sounds of a well-known Struggle song.
In its original version, the song is about the looming arrival of uMkhonto we Sizwe.
However, in the Brian Molefe khumbul’ekhaya or homecoming ritual performed this week, the same song was tweaked to proclaim his triumphal return.
The song and placards on display also bestowed upon Molefe the Yizo Yizo inspired name “Papa Action”.
To perform the full and proper toyi-toyi, Molefe should be encouraged to raise his knees much higher than he did on the day. But he is clearly not a bad dancer. When it comes to his hand-and-foot co-ordination, he could give Zuma a run for his money. And yet Molefe is not likely to be remembered for his dancing skills. I can think of half-a-dozen other things he is more likely to be remembered for.
Last year, during an interview, journalist Nkepile Mabuse asked Molefe if the Guptas had undue influence over him.
He answered, “Maybe not”. When she pressed and asked, “Maybe not? Not definitely not?”, he took a very long pause before answering hesitantly in the negative. Now that is memorable.
Spare a thought for poor Molefe. Consider his trials and tribulations since the release of the public protector’s State of Capture report last November.
“In the interest of good governance” he decided to leave his employ at Eskom/ take early retirement/ undergo retrenchment/ take a six-months sabbatical – take your pick.
For three months, he was detained in Parliament.
During this time, rumours about him becoming the next minister of finance intensified.
Then Minister Lynne Brown blocked his earmarked R30million pension/ retrenchment package/ golden handshake – take your pick. Six months later, we experience Molefe’s second coming, as he returns to Eskom singing and dancing, but empty-handed. Was the song and dance a smokescreen to disguise defeat? Clearly, the populist leader who excels in dancing and singing is no longer sufficient for South Africans.
The messiah-like ceremonial leader who leads from above, but lacks the knowledge required to pay attention to detail, has no place anymore. More importantly, South Africans are beginning to detest corrupt leaders.
There is a sense in which the #ZumaMustFall movement is not merely about the individual called Jacob Zuma, or even the office of the president which he occupies.
This movement illustrates, at a deeper level, a dialogue about the kind of leader and the type of leadership South Africa needs at this point in our history.
The recent Constitutional Court hearing over whether Parliament should use a secret ballot or not on the occasion of a vote of no-confidence against a president is about more than parliamentary rules and constitutional provisions.
Similarly, the recent high court ruling requiring the president to furnish records used to decide his recent cabinet shuffle is ultimately part of the same national conversation about the calibre of representatives we want in Parliament, and the calibre of leaders we want in the executive, and the type of ethical orientation we require of our president.
We are discovering that, as a nation, we have invested too much trust in the moral agency of our parliamentarians, in the ability of political parties to put the interest of the country first, and in the nobility of the character of the president of the republic.
There may have been a time when our leaders fed us poetry, promises, political philosophy and good intentions and it was okay. A time when so-called Struggle credentials were the be-all and end-all. Some time ago, liberation movements and their leaders held the moral high ground, automatically and evidently. Not any more.
There may have been a time when people tolerated suffering and violence, especially violence against women and children. Not any more. At some point in our history, when faced with corrupt leaders, people were afraid, bit their tongue and looked the other way.
Not anymore. Maybe there was a time when rhetoric, song and dance could feed the masses as well as fuel and sustain a revolution. That time is past. If you do not believe me, ask President Zuma.
* Maluleke is a professor at the University of Pretoria and an extraordinary professor at the University of South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity. Twitter handle – @ProfTinyiko.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.