admin
Tichaona Zindoga in Johannesburg, S. Africa
NO doubt, and quite predictably, the biggest talking point around the State of the Nation Address (SONA) by South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma was – would be – the chaos wrought by the opposition as the Julius Malema-led Economic Freedom Fighters embarked on a familiar script as they sought to disrupt the President from delivering his address. It has come to be expected that the EFF embarks on such histrionics in and outside the chambers of Parliament.
It is its own way of showing the world how dissatisfied it is with the ruling ANC party and in particular its leader, President Zuma.
The EFF is more than an opposition party, or put in another words, it is not the kind of traditional opposition that had been witnessed in South Africa before.
In the whole sub-region, in fact, and beyond, you may not find the kind of young, vocal and iconoclastic opposition party which must now be a subject of careful study by any student of political study and history.
While in Parliament, the EFF stands out with distinctive red overalls and domestic worker dresses, ostensibly to represent working people – a new political sartorial statement that the party introduced to these parts.
To much controversy, of course.
It has not been lost to observers that outside Parliament and these sartorial pretences, the leaders of EFF do not lead particularly modest lives with Julius Malema, the so-called Commander-in-Chief of the EFF, being given to expensive tastes, including sporting expensive watches.
Hence, the EFF has been branded as “Gucci revolutionaries”, a term recently made use of in Zimbabwe when authorities tried to put Malema and Co in their proper place when Malema’s nose became rather too long for Harare’s liking, and in general for his decidedly African face.
So there was chaos in Parliament on the occasion of the President’s State of the Nation Address.
Chaos.
Interjections.
Points of order.
Heckling.
Presiding officers of Parliament losing patience.
You tend to pity especially one Baleka Mbete, the Speaker of Parliament, whose tenure (and possible ambitions as State President) could as well have been the most unluckiest and most unfortunate.
You see her beautiful face twisting in all manner of shapes and scowls in irritation.
She cannot hide it.
Her opponents on the other side like to rub it in, rub her the wrong way, always until she can’t take it any longer resulting in an all too familiar call upon the Sergeant-at-Arms to “assist” offending members out of the chambers.
Last week was no exception.
There was even a premonition, or more specifically expectation, that the chaotic scenario would play out hence extra security including the army that was deployed around the precincts of Parliament, a point that was a matter of such angry debate as to its constitutionality.
And when the time came, the security – the EFF pejoratively call them the “White Shirts” – was at hand to violently eject members of the EFF in such violent manner that has become a disgrace in this land of Oliver Reginald Tambo.
Chaos. Total chaos.
So much pushing and shoving and shouting and yelling.
We heard the obscene being spewed.
Female members complained of being violated.
They wept.
Julius Malema had been telling us that the white shirts target a particular area of his anatomy in seeking to subdue him.
Over the weekend he posted a video on Twitter showing this violation.
That about sums it all.
Suffice it to say, the chaos that occurred on Thursday quite overshadows the real substance of the delivery vis-a-vis the state of the South African national.
One would be forgiven for switching off the TV once the drama was over.
However, there are important things one could take away from President Zuma’s address as he touched on all the important questions of the day.
Not least, this would be President Zuma’s last SONA as President.
The theme of the address was “The Year of Oliver Reginald Tambo: Unity in Action Together Moving South Africa Forward”, a dedication to the revolutionary who served as president of the ANC from 1967 to 1991.
This year Tambo would have turned 100 years old, hence the abeyance.
President Zuma touched on a number of things, addressing the main issues affecting South Africa, in particular on the social and economic fronts.
Jobs are a key issue here.
And President Zuma said government had decided to focus on a few key areas packaged as the Nine-Point Plan to reignite growth so that the economy can create much-needed jobs.
The focus areas include industrialisation‚ mining and beneficiation‚ agriculture and agro-processing‚ energy‚ SMMEs‚ managing work place conflict‚ attracting investments‚ growing the oceans economy and tourism.
Added to these are cross-cutting areas such as science and technology; water and sanitation infrastructure; transport infrastructure; and broadband rollout.
The president talked about the issue of black empowerment and the participation of blacks in key economic sectors, highlighting the untenable situation in which blacks owned just about 10 percent of major businesses in the country.
The question of land is even more scandalous, if not tragic.
Twenty-three years after independence, the black majority in South Africa owned slightly less than 10 percent of land in the country.
South Africa has a population of about 56 million.
Of this 78,4 percent are blacks, 10,2 percent white, 8,8 percent Coloured and 2,6 percent Asian.
It is estimated that 80 percent land in South Africa is owned by whites – specifically about 40 000 of them!
That was almost the situation in 1994, when the country got its independence and the rate of transfer of land ownership has moved ever so slowly with government only achieving reform for less than 10 percent.
President Zuma spoke to this issue.
He said: “It will be difficult if not impossible‚ to achieve true reconciliation until the land question is resolved. Only eight million hectares of arable land have been transferred to black people‚ which is only 9,8 percent of the 82 million hectares of arable land in South Africa.
There has also been a 19 percent decline in households involved in agriculture from 2‚9 million in 2011 to 2‚3 million households in 2016.”
There is also an innate tragedy.
Black South Africans laying claim to land are being bought off, or accepting money, instead of the resource.
And President Zuma appealed to land claimants to accept land instead of financial compensation.
He said: “ . . . 90 percent of claims were currently settled through financial compensation which does not help the process at all. It perpetuates dispossession. It also undermines economic empowerment.”
It remains to be seen what government and South Africans themselves will do with this situation. The EFF has made the question of land one of its key messages, calling for expropriation without compensation.
The ANC government has lately been appearing to be talking tough on land and radical socio-economic transformation (yes the Zimbabwean nomenclature!) Yet it has to be seen whether this is just a way to counter the EFF.
Meanwhile, in all this, and in particular the question of land, Zimbabwe is held as a spectre of what could happen if 10 percent of whites (or more specifically a handful of that) are made to share land with the majority in particular the 80 percent that must also enjoy the fat and fruit of the land.
These fundamental questions, though, are lost in all the drama and madness – billowing plumes of confusion – such as we saw last week.
Online Reporter