The Zumas Zoom into victim mode… again

The bizarre public interaction between Jacob Zuma and his favourite son, Duduzane, has broken the country’s lockdown slumber with the release of recorded conversations between themselves via YouTube.

In the rhyming-titled series Zooming with the Zumas, they invite the public into select sections of their private lives, as well as public events that they have, until now, not shared their personal views on.

Were it not for who they are, this would be just another reality television series and would be considered quite boring because of its format. But the two main characters in this charade are no ordinary citizens.

For almost a decade, they were the father-son couple who corruption-hating South Africans loved to hate.

This series comes hot on the heels of the senior Zuma having finally decided to abandon his “delay-by-all-means” Stalingrad approach to having his day in court, to face the more than decade-old arms deal corruption charges. His trial date is provisionally set for 26 June.

It is difficult to tell what reaction Jacob Zuma’s announcement would have elicited had the situation been normal without a lockdown or a pandemic to deal with. The country has had to wait almost 15 years for the former president to exhaust almost all his legal options in trying to avoid this trial, while always loudly proclaiming to want his day in court.

Does the Zooming with the Zumas series have anything to do with the upcoming trial? One would have to be very naive to see the two as separate events.

The former president’s biggest defence over what he has always labelled as trial by the media has always been to play the victim. This is the theme that the series continues without any hint of a shame.

In the opening episode, Duduzane takes his father (whom he superficially and cringingly refers to as “Sir”) through the events surrounding the death of his mother, Kate, who committed suicide in 2000. In what can only be regarded as asking for public sympathy the pair go through the event as though it has just happened. Struggle stalwart Frank Chikane was left with some questions to answer regarding the whereabouts of the suicide note that Duduzane Zuma’s mother left behind.

The need for this public display of their pain can only be understood in the context of the images that the two have in the public domain. For the greater part of almost a decade, they were viewed as being behind the biggest corruption network that has yet plagued democratic South Africa. Duduzane was allegedly the sweet-faced link between the now infamous Gupta network and his father’s political machinery in government and the ruling party.

It is no wonder, then, that on the eve of his father’s trial he becomes the former president’s interviewer in their attempt to win public sympathy and approval.

The uncertainty caused by the lockdown and the pandemic has relegated the Zumas to being alternative news – but it is important for this young democracy to stay true to its constitutional and legislative promise of transparency.

Jacob Zuma was a central figure to the ruling party’s duties of ensuring the constitution’s core values are respected. It is now time for him to account for some of those instances where he might have undermined it. The public begging for pity must have no bearing on his guilt or innocence.

Sydney Majoko.

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