Violent crime is assumed to be caused by the great ‘lack’ of modern living. Wherever there are a few people with a lot interacting with a lot of people with very little, crime is bound to occur. However, the lack of material wealth does not fully explain how in many countries it has become acceptable to rape, murder and beat people at will.

Our hunter-gatherer evolutionary past has engrained in us a strong sense of being influenced by our leaders and other strong orators. In other words, public figures can become conduits for social conduct. One has just to look at Hitler as an example of a bad idea sold well. Now I’m not comparing Jacob Zuma, the Republic of South Africa’s incoming head of state, to Hitler. But anyone who extols violent philosophies as part of an emotionally driven election campaign (some might say cynically contrived to shift the focus away from his corruption charges) misguides one’s followers. In a country with some of the highest rape and murder rates in the world, Zuma’s general demeanour does little to disavow the violence. He has been charged with rape (once) and corruption (ongoing), his rally song translates to “bring me my machine gun”, he is overtly homophobic (speaking at a Heritage Day celebration in 2006, he proudly told his cheering supporters that “if a gay stands in front of me, I will knock him out”) and he’s eerily chummy with some of the most fire-and-brimstone, ‘one settler, one bullet’ politicians in the country. Peace, and often democracy, is evidently not a value to be cherished by the next leader of the most ‘developed’ nation in Africa.

Zuma didn’t receive any education past primary school and joined the African National Congress (ANC) when he was just seventeen. In 1963 he was arrested by the apartheid government and sentenced to ten years imprisonment on the infamous Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela. In 1999 Zuma was elected deputy president of the ANC and his path to presidency became clear. In 2005 both rape and corruption charges were filed against him. The accuser of the former was the daughter of a deceased apartheid struggle ‘comrade’ and was known by Zuma to be H.I.V. positive. The case was eventually dismissed after much controversy. When asked why he had knowingly risked contracting the AIDS virus he merrily replied “I took a shower afterwards”. In a country with the second largest AIDS epidemic in the world this is not an erudite statement from its next leader. And, if you enjoy irony, during this entire debacle Zuma remained the head of the National AIDS council.

On the 14th June 2005, Zuma was fired as deputy president by President Thabo Mbeki. Zuma’s alleged involvement in a financially beneficial arms deal, orchestrated in tandem with prominent businessman, Schabir Shaik, and then Chief Whip, Tony Yengeni, caused considerable consternation within the core leadership of the ANC but, oddly enough, not Zuma’s rank and file supporters. Perhaps this can be put down to Zulu loyalty. But zealous loyalty can go too far: at one court appearance in 2005, Zuma supporters burned t-shirts that bore Thabo Mbeki’s image, which only served to widen the chasm between Xhosas (Mbeki’s kin) and Zulus in South African politics. Such infighting is diametrically opposed to the concept of the ‘Rainbow Nation’. Yet Zuma seems intent on encouraging tribal politics through his wearing of traditional Zulu warrior skins and adornments at ANC conferences and by his donning of “100% Zulu boy” t-shirts in his leisure time. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with tribal allegiance. Except when it arguably impinges on democratic processes and facilitates cultural xenophobia.

And so the population of South Africa seems bedevilled by both the materialism glorified by capitalism and the brutal ideology heralded by so prominent a political figure. Zuma’s inflammatory rhetoric meshed with his personal life creates a dangerous eclecticism that arguably promotes anarchy and selfishness. For example, Zuma has been married at least four times, defending this fact by labelling himself a ‘polygamist’; and he has had numerous affairs, for which he paid with cattle. Paying for women with livestock is a traditional African practice called ‘lobola’ and is a way for rural communities to measure and transfer wealth. However, it probably did little for South Africa’s international image when Zuma purchased the services of Swazi Princess, Sebentile Dlamini, with ten cows in 2002. Zuma now has about nineteen confirmed children. Stating so vehemently that same-sex marriages are a “disgrace to the nation and to God” seems a little presumptuous then: Zuma’s allegations of rape, his multiple divorces, and his extra-marital affairs seem rather hypocritical when interpreting scripture.

It can be argued then, that Zuma’s antics facilitate the social conditions in which violent crime thrives. In doing so he disrupts the democracy that Mandela fought so hard to forge. Just last year, the head of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema, threatened to “make the country ungovernable” if Zuma’s corruption trial went ahead. As Julius raced around in his Porsche, acclaiming communist slogans to his poverty-stricken followers, and angry mobs of xenophobic (‘Zuma’) Zulus ran amok through the streets of Durban, one couldn’t help but wonder: how far is violence in Africa a part of its leadership?

by Matthew Child