The horror that is Zuma is still no excuse for racism

Yes, we are still reeling in shock from what happened on Thursday. Yes, President Jacob Zuma has thrown the country and its economy to the Gupta wolves and, more deeply, has acted in keeping with his evidently even more important mandate, which is to please his friend Vladimir Putin and somehow get the Russian nuclear deal through before his time in the Presidency ends.

Yes, this is awful. I know.

But there’s something even worse (and forgive me for once again bringing this up after it’s been pointed out a million times already by so many others), and that is the responses of people who look for any and every excuse to revel in their prejudice that “black people cannot run a country”.

Zuma isn’t a bad president because he’s black, just as Nelson Mandela was not a good president for the same reason. The former is just a scoundrel, awash in his own wounded sense of pride and rage at having his ill-deserved power disrespected so openly. The latter was a flawed human being who walked a long road to arrive at a point of humility and service.

He was a man who tried to be good, acknowledged that sometimes he was not, but, still, he tried – and succeeded far more often than not.

In doing that, Mandela won over even some of his bitterest enemies, while Zuma merely racks up more of them year by year. We have never seen top leaders in the ANC and the alliance speak out so openly against a sitting president, not even when they recalled Thabo Mbeki.

Just to drive the point home, consider that the aforementioned Putin is more than likely the most corrupt president in the world, and he’s white. Let’s not even mention Donald Trump, who is little more than a walking joke.

One’s ability to do anything well has nothing to do with race, and that includes being a politician. We have bad politicians right now because they are led by a man who rewards loyalty above all else – even in the face of blatant incompetence, corruption and stupidity. But it’s not a racial problem, and to try to turn it into one will only strengthen the hand of someone like Zuma, who has increasingly used racism and racial politics as a trump card to legitimise himself.

I don’t have the solution for the race problem in this country, and I’m fully aware I’m going to be called a “libtard” by the usual clutch of outspoken racist fools for simply stating what I think is a perfectly reasonable position: that we cannot judge all black people by Zuma and his loyalists alone, regardless of how angry we may feel and how frustrating it must be that a majority of the people in this country voted for an ANC who installed this man into power – not once, but twice.

All the same, Mcebisi Jonas is a black man who rejected, by his account, a bribe of R600 million from the Guptas to sell out our country for what (presumably) Malusi Gigaba may now be willing to do a little more affordably.

If we judged groups by the actions of individuals, imagine the consequences even for white people today, who can say (true or not) that they never supported apartheid and it was always someone else voting for the National Party.

What about what Mandela told the nation in 1993 on the brink of civil war following the assassination of Chris Hani by a white man. He appeared on TV and told angry, wounded black South Africans that, yes, a white man had killed one of their biggest heroes … but a white woman had taken down the registration plate of Janusz Waluś’s getaway car, which led to the assassin’s arrest.

These things are never simple, never “black and white”. We live in a democracy, and it’s flawed. But we have to find a way to make it work for more people, more of the time. If black leaders are not at the centre of that solution, you can forget about it. It’s as simple as that. Otherwise, please, just go live in Perth already and leave the rest of us to figure it out.

Zuma’s recent blatant disregard for the welfare of this country and all of those who live in it is yet another rare opportunity for people from all walks of life in South Africa to finally agree on something, with the goal of eliminating the parlous approach to “governance” under this current administration.

But that’s not going to happen if we reduce this major issue to petty racism once again.

This isn’t a Spur video, people. This is a moment that will define the future of one of the world’s most beautiful countries. Let’s keep that in mind, eh?

Charles Cilliers, Citizen.co.za digital editor