After the fall: Why South Africa needs to move on from Jacob Zuma. now
It was quite a moment to see former president Jacob Zuma s motorcade sweep past the gate and onto the grounds of the Estcourt Correctional Centre shortly after 01:20 on Thursday. It was the culmination of a legal process which became emblematic of Zuma s entire, fraught political career. Delay, deny, ignore, dismiss, appeal and denigrate. Zuma simply refused to be subjected to the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, and then refused to abide by the court s rulings. In the end, justice was served, and Zuma went to prison. Without bloodshed and without the governing party subverting the process. The Constitution, battered, remains intact.
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South Africa’s political landscape is unique and complex, underpinned by a history of racial inequality and discrimination. The idealism of a ‘Rainbow Nation’ is held aloft whenever a politician needs to tug at the heartstrings of South Africans. The reality is far removed. The wrong word, uttered by the wrong person is quickly churned into a hate-filled froth by sensationalism on media platforms. Strip a single word of its context, magnify its connotations and you’ve got fuel for the South African ritual of the Two Weeks Hate. James Myburgh extends George Orwell’s description of the “Two Minutes Hate” in his book “1984”, to describe this phenomenon. The article was first published on Politicsweb. – Melani Nathan