Edward Zuma is way out of line

Pravin Gordhan has certainly earned the right to speak out on what is happening in South Africa. He was one of the people who risked life, limb and personal freedom to stand up against apartheid.

So, we should take notice when he says about state capture: “If we keep quiet, we will slump into disaster.”

The stealing, as Gordhan accurately described it in a debate at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) this week, “impacts on every citizen”.

“They are depriving the youth of this country of the jobs they deserve.”

Yet for President Jacob Zuma’s son, Edward, a well-known apologist for both his father’s kleptocratic inner circle and the Gupta family, Gordhan is a “sell-out” who is opposed to “majoritarian” rule.

In a venomous attack on Gordhan, his former deputy Mcebisi Jonas and former tourism minister Derek Hanekom, Edward Zuma used the most vile, racist epithets.

He said Gordhan “wants natives to be perennially marginalised and always eat the leftovers dished by Indians and the white minority and its capital network”.

He also claimed Gordhan was in the pay of the legendary “white monopoly capital”.

It seemed to escape Zuma junior’s attention that, in the UJ debate, Gordhan made no bones about the fact that South Africa still has to be radically economically transformed … saying more or less the same thing as the ANC itself.

It is plain that the vicious attack by Zuma Junior on Gordhan is motivated by nothing less than a defence of his father and of the continuing abuse of the entire system of government in order to benefit himself and his cronies.

Gordhan and other brave people fought against a regime that had truly captured the state and its apparatus for the benefit of a minority.

Edward Zuma was never a part of that struggle and, therefore, should hold his tongue.