Behind the Rainbow

So, the South African national elections 2009 have concluded, and Jacob Zuma is the new president. It is easy to articulate the anxieties which many have over this man as the leader of the country. He has multiple wives, which those of us dedicated to the notions of geese-like, to-the-end partnership, or even serial monogamy, cannot help but associate with a kind of lecherousness and disregard for the subtle interplay of interdependence and attention to the independence of those we love. Zuma's erstwhile financial adviser (Schabir Shaik) was sent to prison based on evidence of his corrupt relationship with the now president, a fairly straightforward indication of Zuma's corruptibility, despite the failure to level these charges in court. Despite the enigmatic quality to the man himself (which stems in part from his seemingly perpetual status as a legal defendant over the past few years, being advised not to comment), Zuma is surrounded by some hideous characters, none more so than the President of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema, who combines what is clearly a talent for vivid linguistic imagery with a kind of terrifying loyalty and aggression reminiscent of the lieutenants to ancient warlords of the Asian steppes. Yet there is a willingness to give Zuma the benefit of the doubt, and an almost eager anticipation of a change from the excruciatingly dull Mbeki and dutifully sombre interim President, Kgalema Mothlanthe. Personally, whilst I voted for the Democratic Alliance (DA), mainly out of principled opposition to the devolution in character of the ANC, I still do believe that a mass-movement party with some kind of philosophy or ideology rooted in history (however tenuous and subject to revision that may be) is better suited to the task of "nation-building" (cringeworthy term..) and the kind of large-scale development required here, than a party which espouses rationality and efficiency as the panacea to every ill. To me, the DA is the opposition, and an opposition is important, but I see their insistence on rationality and efficiency as both rootless and inherently racist. The kinds of solutions proferred by the DA, or the Congress of the People (COPE) to problems such as crime, unemployment and poverty are those that any reasonably competent group of students would arise at were they thrown into groups and given 20 minutes to produce a mock-manifesto. The ANC, with all its shortcomings, still gets my vote of confidence as the party which has the best chance to emulate the Asian tigers, as a party which may develop large-scale, successful solutions to the specific large-scale problems extant in the specific context of South Africa. This is a long-shot, especially considering the willingness to compromise and revert to the de-historicised and generic approach illustrated in the ANC's shift in economic and development policies shortly after 1994. However, any other party would have no shot at all. For these reasons, I voted against the ANC at the ballot, but I still have faith, despite the absence of evidence.