Johannesburg – Dubious ANC MP Supra Mahumapelo weaponised history the other day in support of corruption accused former president Jacob Zuma.
It’s important to not fall for such an abuse of our struggle narrative, which is why I want to examine what he said and explain why he is wrong.
Mahumapelo was giving an interview outside the court in Pietermaritzburg where Zuma’s corruption trial was meant to start, finally.
He said a couple of disturbing things. First, we were urged to let Zuma “go quietly into dignified obscurity”.
Next he argued that Zuma had already been punished enough having sacrificed so much in the struggle against apartheid that he didn’t even have time to enjoy most of his life, including being robbed of precious time with his children.
At any rate, concluded Mahumapelo, Zuma’s reputation had already been damaged by “those who want to inflict pain on him” and “that’s punishment enough”.
This is a disturbing set of claims that amount to disrespect for the principle of constitutional supremacy, apart from it being a pathetic form of political and psychological blackmail.
Let’s list the reasons why Mahumapelo is offside.
For one thing, an admirable political biography does not give you immunity from criminal prosecution.
It is a red herring to tell us what Zuma did in the struggle against apartheid. You cannot weaponise biographical facts to avoid legal accountability for alleged criminality.
Just because someone did important work in the underground structures of a liberation movement does not mean we should discount their post-apartheid sins.
That would amount to implying they were not fighting for democracy, but for a right to steal from society without consequence.
Why on earth would Mahumapelo want to sustain such a wrong use of struggle narrative?
We cannot allow this abuse of political history.
For another, any damage to Zuma’s reputation is not only of his own making but, more importantly, is no substitute for legal processes needing to unfold properly.
The rule of law is only alive and well in a society if everyone is treated equally before the law.
This means that even a former president must have their day in court to answer to charges of corruption.
Imagine if all accused persons were to argue that their diminished reputations in their communities are punishment enough.
If we took Mahumapelo’s advice at face value, then we would be collectively trampling on the constitution.
The constitution cannot properly be said to be supreme if it is undermined by politics.
Politicians aren’t beyond the reach of the principle of constitutional supremacy.
That is why this trial must continue and the substantive case must proceed.
As for Zuma’s age, which Mahumapelo also hinted at as yet another reason to treat him with kid gloves, this too is ridiculous.
If an old man is fit enough to allegedly have stolen from society then they are fit enough to face jail time. Weaponising someone’s age to have a corruption trial set aside is possibly the flimsiest part of Mahumapelo’s sucking up to Zuma.
Corruption is not victimless. Millions of black South Africans are living under conditions of poverty despite some 27 years of democracy.
That is in large part because of state-sponsored corruption. Therefore, the opportunity cost of letting corruption go unpunished is simply too high.
If racism was the original sin on which the colonial and apartheid states were founded, then corruption is the foundational sin of our democracy.
And the biggest instance of that foundational sin is the arms deal that has got us to this Zuma corruption trial.
If we do not, as a society, entrench accountability right now, even if belatedly so, then we effectively give politicians and their nefarious private sector friends permission to steal into perpetuity.
A culture of corruption is supported by ineffective accountability mechanisms.
This Zuma corruption trial is thus a crucial and necessary opportunity to make accountability matter.
A story of a comrade’s revolutionary past is not more important than a story of a society in which wrongdoing gets punished.
By Eusebius McKaiser.
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