The evolution of JZ

Originally published at PoliTrick or Treat

A few weeks ago the media was buzzing with a dumb American gimmick that is totally irrelevant to South Africa. I'm talking about that silly "100 days in office" PR stunt that was pulled. Predictably, everybody and their mamma had nothing but praise for our leader. Everybody was giving him cliche titles like "man of the people" "approchable" and so on and so forth. In the words of the great Andile Mngxitama, The same people, including the moral crusaders, who were telling up Zuma is not fit for the presidency were now dick-riding Zuma to the fullest. But has anybody asked themselves why? I mean, Zuma is still Zuma what exactly is it that he did that transformed him from Supervillain to hero? I'm gonna offer a reason for this:

The reason is simple. Unlike the likes of Malema et al, Zuma (or rather his PR team) is smart enough to practise an art I'd like to call "tip toeing around whitey", He knows well that media serves the interest of the minority because the minority have the money and money is power. The bottom line is money has to be made, one can do the honourable thing and speak the truth or they can tell everybody what they want to hear to get them to buy shit and advertise in their papers. So Zuma goes about telling people what they wanna hear and I'll point out two instances where he did this.

1. His stance on crime

Those of us who were fortunate enough to live in a society that wasn't cocooned from the real world know very well that the whole bullshit that the media is trying to sell that crime has grown out of control is....well, bullshit. The real story is that crime used to affect one section of the population, once it started affecting the other section, the wealthy and powerful section, We then got to hear about th ''crimminals that are taking over our country". What's the best way of winning over the wealthy section? Tell them that it is time to get tough on the crimminals. The asshats who lost at Polokwane used to boast by releasing crime stats, telling the country on how crime rate is declining then comes this guy who tells everybody what they wanna hear, "the crimminals have more rights than the victims, it's time we get tough on crime".

2. His stance on race issues

By now we all know the story, Julius being Julius says something sensational, Julius Malema raises the issue of minorities in the economic cluster, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu suggests that we need a dialogue on the race question and what did Zuma say? The smart thing: "The ANC is a non-racialist organization........Debating race is backwards" (I'm paraphrasing here). Some people where up in arms over that statement, I was disappointed as well but Zuma and his PR team are very smart people, they know very well that because of past injustices the majority were left penniless, the majority were left with the bulk of the wealth. Like I've said before, money is power. Who wants to guess which section of the population were left powerless? Anyhoo, Zuma has been a villain for almost five years he wants to feel appreciated for once, can we all give him a break. The worst thing he could do is threaten white hegemony. Let's get real we live in a country were the "minority" own almost all the wealth, some (if not most) want to keep it that way, a debate on race would include a debate on such things. Zuma has to appear as if he's the non-threatening black guy not willing to do anything worthwhile for the people who got fucked for four hundred years. If you've seen the type of comments at the times lately, you'd know that people would like to see the majority in the situation their in, they don't want change. They feel like change would mean upliftment of the previously oppressed at the expense of them by saying we shall have no debate on race Zuma is basically telling them "you can relax, things will stay exactly as they are". That's exactly what they wanna hear.

Let me leave it at that before I piss more people off. If you feel different then bad luck, we live in the age of Zuma, "there shall be no debate on such matters". Kidding, if you disagree with me. Speak on it!