Better to get to hell through bad intentions

Ramaphosa, Mchunu, Mkhwanazi and the battle for an honest headline

Photo by Peter Leong on Unsplash

How are we to respond to the latest corruption bombshell in South Africa, with KwaZulu-Natal’s top cop, Lieutenant-General Mkhwanazi, accusing the minister of police, Senzo Mchunu, of being captured by a tenderpreneur?

We know all this already don’t we? The Zondo Commission already detailed how top politicians, who remain top ANC politicians, were involved in state capture and still nothing is done about it. The great surprise is not that our top policeman is accused of being tight with dodgy tenderpreneurs, but that our media reports this as if it’s a surprise.

In even less surprising – and even more demoralising – news, it will soon be reported that Mkhwanazi is not making these allegations because he is a rare good guy determined to defeat stereotypes about corrupt African governance; no, he’s doing it on behalf of Jacob Zuma in the interminable factional battling that characterises our politics.

While our president has announced that he will address the nation on Sunday about the allegations, we can be assured that nothing surprising will come out of it. The real shock is that otherwise intelligent people take this news so seriously. As per the Daily Maverick headline: Ramaphosa’s test of nerve – SA awaits announcement on Mkhwanazi’s explosive allegations. Almost everything in this statement is plain wrong.

Ramaphosa has had plenty tests of nerve and failed them all. From Guptas to BEE, economic growth to “kill the Boer”, US tariffs to Hamas, BELA to land expropriation, Ramaphosa has spurned every opportunity to show nerve and save the country from the madness of his own party.

No, Daily Maverick, South Africa is not awaiting Ramaphosa’s announcement. Yes, we’re awaiting the Wimbledon men’s final on Sunday, and some good rugby on Saturday, but we don’t care what Ramaphosa says about corruption. He’s the guy that hides money in his sofa and took billions off white business, using it to bribe his way to the top job in the country instead of sharing it with his comrades.

Then there’s the “explosive allegations” bit of the headline. Accusing one of our top African politicians of corruption is as explosive as a sleeping kitten. It is not only un-explosive, it is irrelevant. Even if our politicians do bad things, it makes no difference. In fact, the worse they are the more they have to rely on the private sector and on minority expertise. That’s a good thing. Remember why we are still here … not because they want us but because they need us.

I feel a little sorry for Senzo Mchunu. By some accounts he was doing a decent job of keeping us safe behind our electric fences. What’s more, he has a kind, intelligent face. I trust him more than I trust Ramaphosa, whom white business gave billions with nothing to show for it. It would have been far better to give that money to Mchunu.

Ramaphosa is Venda, one of South Africa’s smallest black tribes. Even the smaller of the white tribes, English-speakers, far outnumber the Venda. Ramaphosa has as much claim to the presidency as I do. By contrast, Mchunu is a Zulu, who make up almost a quarter of the country. The moral of the Ramaphosa story is that if you are going to throw money at a black politician, make sure you don’t waste it on a Venda.

Anyway, Ramaphosa does not actually care if Mchunu is corrupt. They’re all corrupt. He only cares about which way the chips fall in this latest twist of his battle against the ANC faction that wants to grab the frog and eat at now, as opposed to Ramaphosa’s preferred method of dealing with whites (“frogs”) which is to boil them slowly. It’s factionalism (or patronage networks) all the way up and all the way down.

I’m waiting, vainly I know, for Daily Maverick to come up with an honest, if rather long, headline: It’s Africa: They’re all corrupt because they love their families and mates more than they love political order; politics and principles are bunk, it’s about demographics and since the 60s instead of having children you had women’s rights and now you’re screwed; serves you right you woke white tw*ts! Now that would be a factual, reasonable heading. The truly shocking headline would read: Senzo Mchunu betrays old comrades to fight graft.

I don’t much like corruption but I do like the predictability of it. I would rather trust our politicians to be corrupt than hope that absolute political power will make them magically turn into Swedes and be disappointed when they don’t. Besides, when they’re not being corrupt they’re being ideological; an ideological African politician is far worse than a corrupt African politician. Think of what awful damage the ANC’s last remaining incorrupt cadre, the minister of health, Aaron Motsoaledi, will wreak with his National Health Insurance.

In Africa both roads – the path of bad intentions and the path of good intentions – lead to governance hell. But I prefer getting to hell by bad intentions. At least you can flatter and bribe bad people to do good things, which is what’s keeping South Africa going at the moment: big business using BEE and employment equity to bribe and flatter big government into not destroying the country immediately. This is no bad thing. It might even buy us another generation or two of good weather and Rugby World Cup trophies.

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