I will deter from making another sarcastic remark about just how much Zuma seems to feature in my posts. Although, there ceases to be anything else which catches so many headlines with such boldly indecent behaviour.
I will keep it simple: The South African President Jacob Zuma has had a child out of wedlock despite having 3 wives of his own. What do South African bloggers think of a president with 3 wives, who has been married 5 times and now has a child out of wedlock?
WE'll start off with Blog South Africa [1]:
I often wonder what goes through the heads of some of these ‘leaders’ in South Africa. Today I opened up IOL as I usually do and found this article [2] about Zuma wanting to initiate a national dialogue on what constitutes South Africa’s “moral code”.
At first glance I thought that this was probably a good idea – especially cming from a man whose morals are dodgy at best. Perhaps he was having a pang of guilt regarding his recent misdeeds. It didn’t take long however, for me to see another side of this plan.
In the article he talks about people respecting other cultures, but what I think he means is that all cultures in South Africa need to accept all the things that HE believes is culturally right, while disparaging everyone else’s beliefs.
The problem I have with Zuma and this morality ‘conversation’ is that they are probably going to come up with a set of morals which THEY believe are correct and then put that into law. The result will be a slew of ‘moral’ crimes and crimes against culture. This is precisely what has already happened in many of the Islamic states. Does this mean that we too will get a ‘morality’ police, where the morals of the chosen few are forced onto the rest of us?
From “The Wild Frontier” [3], we get some interview insight into Zuma:
JACOB Zuma really he can hide his bizarre sexual behaviour (impregnating multiple women out of wedlock) behind the fig leaf of “culture”.
He appears blissfully unaware of how this whole thing is playing out there. He has lost respectability and is the standing joke at the taxi rank.
Instead of accepting this he wants to accuse those who are unhappy of disrespecting his culture. Is he seriously arguing that it is good idea for a 67-old man to have frequent unprotected sex with multiple partners half his age? This in addition to several marriages?
Yep, he is. Read this extract from the Sunday Times interview with him today:“We need this conversation that must help us reach a common understanding as South Africans,” he said.
He appeared shocked and surprised by the outrage that followed the scandal, telling the Sunday Times: “There are Muslims, Christians, Jews, Pedis and so on … How do we live together with an understanding that we understand each other?
“Values may not exactly be the same, but how do we bring harmony to this?
“Since Madiba (Nelson Mandela) said we must live together in harmony, we have not taken that discussion further.”
He said that while the constitution championed “unity in diversity”, South Africans were still looking at “things differently”.
In an apparent reference to concerns about his polygamous marriages, Zuma urged “all (South Africans) to respect all cultures”.
“How do we judge our values as a society? How do we judge other communities with whatever they practise? We need to create some platform to strengthen the respect of one another. We need to create a platform where there is no community that does not respect another.”
Tannemys en Sinterklaas [4] post up Zapiro's extremely funny cartoon on Zuma.
Synapses [5] gives us this response which includes some thoughts on Zuma's uninspring State of the Nation address:
February is turning out to be a rather uncomfortable month for South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma. First we had Babygate, and now it appears that some of his goons have taken to abusing and arresting those whom they believe to not be showing sufficient respect to the Father of the Nation (or at least, a growing proportion of it). Last week, JZ gave a completely uninspired [6]State of the Nation address, which included the embarrassment of being laughed at by some parliamentarians when he mentioned the father of his most recent (known) lover/ prospective wife [7]. And, to top it all off, it appears that the trade union Solidarity’s campaign to highlight the dissatisfaction felt by some (many? most?) South Africans on the Government’s response to crime “has no basis in fact”, at least according to Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya. [8]
Although too long to post here, SoapBox.fm [9] gives a very humorous account of what the State of the Nation address should of said.
Common Dialogue [10] gives another humorous account of a jogger who flipped the bird at the presidential convoy:
I think National Intelligence made a meal out of a molehill regarding the Cape Town jogger who may or may have not flipped President Jacob Zuma the birdie.
The poor guy, Chumani Maxwele, told Times LIVE that he made a dismissive gesture to a VIP convoy taking President Jacob Zuma to his Cape Town residence.
Maxwele says he was simply expressing his annoyance at the excessive noise caused by the convoy.
He was detained but not charged and shunted from one police station to the next, and even spent the night in the cells as a bonus. He says he was told that the NIA wanted to interview him, and they were coming all the way from Pretoria (soon to be or not to be Tshwane).
When the man in black finally came the following day, Maxwele says they asked him what his views were on Zuma. Now, methinks there was no need to fly all the way from Pretoria to ask the guy what he thinks of the President.
When I listened to the audio interview, I expected Maxwele to reveal some serious questions posed to him before he was released.
He says he was released when he told them that he respected Msholozi as the president of the country blah, blah, diblah.
He was lucky he didn’t live in Lybia, Zimbabwe or the United States of America.
And finally… Biltong [11] shares a joke with us… Zuma and a Psychiatrist:
A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at an academic function where Jacob Zuma happened to appear.
Jacob took the opportunity to get close up to the good doctor a bit and asked him a question with which he was most at ease..because he did have something..well ”troubling” his mind..
‘Would you mind telling me, Doctor,’ he asked, ‘ Some people think I am a bit ..well, you know..’ ehh stupid’..How do you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?’ Im really not liking it when people are thinking I have lost my marbles..
Well Mr Zuma ‘Nothing is easier,’ the Doc replied. ‘You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track..then you have a feeling as to whether you are actually having a stupidity problem, or not.’
‘What sort of question?’ asked Zuma.
Well, you might ask something like, ‘Captain Cook, the greatest ocean explorer… made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one did he die on?”
Jacob thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, ‘ Hehhe you Doktor…eishhh, you are trying to trap me with a trick question right?? You wouldn’t happen to have another example would you? I must confess I do not really know that much about history.’
(If you don’t know the answer..it’s time to worry too:)
You cannot disagree with one thing. Zuma is one very colourful character, but whether the final judgment will be to mar or to benefit will remain to be seen. However, in my view, any economic prosperity without a moral foundation will be short-lived and lead the country into greater dangers.