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

It’s hard to get accurate figures on the number of CCTV cameras currently silently watching us in the UK. In any case, it is a question of millions- some say as high as four or five. It’s become a part of our British identity. Only Russia, China and Malaysia, those bastions of liberal democracy, scored lower in a “Surveillance societies” survey comissioned by Privacy International in 2007. In fact, you can buy your very own CCTV kit in Aldi for £29.99.

The average Londoner is filmed around three hundred times a day . Merely walking down a high street, perhaps going into a department store, or sitting down, like I do, to work in my college library means being watched, silently and furtively.

And it’s not the Orwellian overtones, there isn’t one ‘Big Brother.’ In fact, there are lots. In 2004 a law was passed that gave councils more power to spy on their employees. It is so much part of our culture that surveillance is being used to make sure the neighbours don’t fly- tip, and Mary from accounts doesn’t pull a sicky.

Cameras, like anything else, are harmless in themselves. But if we accept the principle; that the cameras only bear witness to the guilty, which is what we do when we allow people to follow our every moves, then we let the gates open to a form of trial by trust in the government’s good will. This is seeping into our approach to legislation- calling a bill which changes the principles on which the police operate an “Anti- Terror” bill damns its opponents, implies that support for Habeas Corpus is terroristic, and masks the fact that detention, arrest and searching are things that are supposed to happen before you have been proven guilty, not with the assumption that you already are. Having a vague idea or suspicion, then giving yourself the benefit of the doubt, is not a firm foundation on which to build law.

The ease with which we accept the presence of CCTV on our roads, in the shops, where we work and, thanks to Aldi, in our homes, is nothing compared to the apathy we feel when civil protections going back hundreds of years are swept away with the wearied fatherly assurance of “National Security.” Everyone knows the drill: a brief storm in the media; the promise of “a full and thorough investigation,” public recriminations and pragmatic defences.

The Independent revealed, in 2006, that every year since 2001, thirty thousand people are stopped and their beings searched under laws purporting to be ‘Anti- Terror.’ And the same laws have been used in high profile cases. An old man screams “terrorist” at Tony Blair and is bundled out of the conference hall and arrested as one himself. The opposition politician Damian Green blows the whistle on Home office mistakes and is arrested for endangering his country and spreading fear of violent reprisal. In a bizarre twist on the conventional moral paradigm of principle vs pragmatism, Jacqui Smith invoked ‘the principle of operational independence’ to defend the illegal police arrest of Damian Green, breaking parliamentary privilege, and unashamedly pretending that the Home Secretary, who is head of the police force, was unaware that the arrest was due to take place, even though the police were brought in by… the Home Office.

by Pascal Porcheron