In relation to the ongoing furore about President Jacob Zuma’s baby with Sonono Khoza, I would like to state categorically my displeasure at the degree of subjective, personal political interests and self righteousness exhibited in the comments by many in our society.
Leadership online wrote, “President Jacob Zuma’s latest sex scandal threatens completely to overshadow his State of the Nation Address on Thursday, despite the importance of a number of issues he should be addressing. The scandal seems to significantly have weakened Zuma’s position in the ruling ANC Alliance, with all Alliance parties toning down their reactions and not coming to his defence. In the longer term, it seems a second term as president is now no longer a given. However, should this or any other scandal cut short Zuma’s presidency, for South Africa the sting in the tale of this saga lies in the question of who could succeed him.”
For me there are many issues at play on this matter. The president has said that he is the father of this child, who is being ‘despised’ by many South Africans, including some in our movement. Like many South Africans, President Zuma has a right to a private life. What he does in his life is not our concern and should not have been brought to the public attention.
The problem in South Africa is clearly painted in what Dr Xolela Mangcu wrote in his article about sheebeen and a certain ambassador’s party.
In this article Dr Mangcu paints a clear picture about the gap between the elite and the masses of the people – the context used in this, as I understood the article, is about the rich and the poor people.
Writing on his facebook status, a friend of mine asked why people are so ‘obsessed’ about the life of President Zuma – because the same obsession started before was the president.
I am defeated by the degree of personal hatred against the president of the ANC and of the country.
In South Africa, the media controls what is in the public discourse, many of our media is, especially that is ‘in charge of the public discourse’ is printed English.
In a country that, thanks to apartheid, has huge numbers of illiterate people, the public opinion is not fair.
The elite, who are made up of former activists and young people of SA, have full access and control of the media. The fact that all media products want to target them evinces my point. These are the people, who most of them, come from rural areas where people have a number of relationships. In our society, black and white, people stay with their girl friends, boyfriends, divorce their wives and stay with girl friends and boyfriends, we have allowed same sex marriages, we have allowed women to abort, we have increasing rap cases, we have men and women who cheat on their wives, deny it, spend money on their extramarital affairs – one hand, you have a president who has more than one relationships and takes responsibility about his actions.
Central in the furore is that his sexual relations put his wives at peril as if the president sleeps with strangers. As if the president does not think before he gets into relationships.
Many in our society give their comments because they hate the fact that Zuma is their president, they hate the fact that a person who is not educated as they are is their head of state, is their president.
In politics, there are many people with extra marital affairs, people who behave bad when it comes to taking responsibility for their actions.
The media has reported that some Senior Leaders in the ANC, my movement have ‘forced’ the President to apologise or they will criticise him in Public- that is very bad and opportunistic. You cannot have Senior Leaders thinking they are in charge of the masses, their view goes. If these leaders were concerned, they should have dealt with this in a senior manner.
The media cannot be blamed because they have sources that keep on giving them the information. It is sick to note that there are people in our society who are delighted by causing pain to other people by divulging issues that are not for public consumption. It must be noted that those who wanted President Zuma to be politically destroyed, still exist in the ANC, in our society – even thou some moved to other parties.
It is not the first time in SA to have a person with three wives, to have 20 children, there are many who have more and there is no issue with that. Why do we get excited by a person’s private life that some of us would even call for the president to resign. I am surprised by the fact that hypocrisy in SA has borrowed eagle wings. We possess a potent self righteousness that inspires despair. It is superfluous for us to subjectively focus on the President’s Private life and not the work he is doing in Government.

Those that have recorded their views and calling for the president to resign are cowards. They base their arguments on the fact that the president is not leading by example. That’s absurd. Many parents are weak. They are not capable of being parents to their children and outsource their work to public figures and teachers.
As President Zuma will be addressing the nation during his state of the nation address, we should focus on the programs of government that he will be presenting, look at the work that needs all of us to do in building this country. We should not despise the fact that, due to apartheid, he could not study, he lost his father at an early age, as was the case with many black children during those dark days, we should respect him as the President to an extent that we will not pose our noses on his private life.
If there is one thing that good parents teach their children, is that don’t mind other people’s businesses. In a divided country like ours, we borrow what works in other countries and think it will work here. Many people, even those that grew up in rural areas, don’t see the role of traditional leaders in our society – hence some call for it to be abolished.
We cannot transform our society to be a western society. We can drive nice cars, wear nice western clothes, own big houses, but we will remain Africans in South Africa. President Zuma is going nowhere.
When arguing their views, those who want my president to resign are the very same people that did not want him to be president in the first place, they force us to take what they say – they say if you support the president, it is because you are currying favour with him – now that’s wrong.