The ongoing antics of
Jacob Zuma remind me of the Arthurian legend of the Fisher King.
This
myth has it that the King is the last in a long line to keep custody of the
Holy Grail. He has been wounded, typically in the groin or upper thigh – there
are various iterations of the myth – and he becomes increasingly ill and
depraved. As he sickens, so his kingdom collapses and decays around him,
becoming a barren wasteland (cue TS Eliot). The King whiles away his time by
fishing in the river beside his Nkandla, I mean castle, possibly for even more
state contracts that involve a kickback, awaiting a cure that his knights have
been tasked to find, sustained for the time being only by the Grail itself.
The
tale of the Fisher King is one of folly and depravity, and the immediate
parallels are obvious. Charged with upholding the principles of the ANC, Zuma,
(along with his not insubstantial Spear of the Nation) has instead perverted
them – together with his supportive courtiers – to suit his own self-serving
agenda. I hardly need to point out the parallel between the state of a country over
which Zuma presides, and the failures, past, present and future, which are
all simply too depressing to list. Even the current drought and its mismanagement
seems to play into the themes of this ancient story. The only lightness (for me anyway) is
that the Fisher King’s wound is often interpreted as the result of a punishment
for philandering. Too bad the courts never speared The Spear, and instead found
its owner not guilty.
But
the parallels, as with most parallels, are superficial. An essential difference
between the myths of Zuma and the Fisher King is that the King is more or less
passive, a victim of his own inaction and errors rather than the active agent
of his own undoing. Zuma, we know, has actively taken decisions that build an
ever-deeper moat around himself, to the detriment of the country and its
citizens, and he is supported by a cohort of courtiers, whom I can only assume
protect this idiot for the handouts they are individually afforded.
The
original Fisher King wishes to be cured, which suggests some desire for
redemption, not to mention a residual sympathy for his subjects. Zuma, however,
is not seeking a cure, and so soundly has he lost touch with his voters, those
people who embraced what the ANC promised them in 1994, that he is prepared –
no, happy – to watch them and their children grow up uneducated and
disempowered, if they are not killed in the streets first. And yet, the
fingers, deeply tainted from being embedded in our leader’s willingly spread arsehole, are
pointed at white privilege. If you, King Jacob, had not misspent, what is it, R300, R500 billion, on things since your tenure that did nothing to lift your people into a position where they
could compete with me for my job, fight me economically or intellectually on a level playing
field, and therefore for the taxes I pay, you have in a word, failed. You have fucking failed. Failed. There is no other word. If I can
sit here on a Friday afternoon on a Mac laptop, connected to the Internet at a tolerable speed, boring anyone who has read this far with my own
solipsistic bullshit, why can’t the people who voted for you do the same?
Because you never fucking let them, never gave them the opportunity that you’ve
allowed me to enjoy since 1994.
We need to understand
that Zuma is not stupid, despite his innumeracy, lack of basic geographical
knowledge, and tactical buffoonery. Bauernschlau
is a German phrase that translates literally as “farmer sly”, and it refers to
a cunning that is not learnt from books. Unfortunately, it also seems to suggest
a total lack of an ability to foresee consequence. As we watch Zuma storm ahead
with his agenda of enriching himself and his cronies, it’s clear that he either does not
understand the inevitable outcomes of his actions, sees himself as some kind
of Olympian god, or simply doesn’t give a fuck.
Meanwhile, we sit on our Weylandts
couches, gaping and horrified, while our elected leader fishes in his firepool, hoping to land the big one that will get
him off the hook. Fishing rod in one hand, the Spear in the other. Time to go, JZ. Time to fuck off into the nuclear
sunset of your own doing, and the sooner the better.
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