Anti-Zuma protests: An opportunity wasted

Thousands of South Africans took to the streets of the country’s major cities in April to demand the resignation of President Jacob Zuma after the country was downgraded to junk status by two credit rating agencies. The first march was held on 7 April and the second march, which was organized by the opposition parties was held on 12 April, Zuma’s birthday.

The credit rating downgrades were largely triggered by the political turmoil after the sudden dismissal of several ministers, particularly the Minister of Finance who the president accused of conspiring to undermine him and the country’s economy. Immediately after they were fired, the economy took a hit as the Rand fell by a several percentage points. This was because the Finance Minister was deemed by many, including international investors, as financially prudent and he was also credited for stabilizing the economy after Zuma fired two other finance ministers within a month, a period of turmoil that hammered South Africa's markets and currency.

Judging from media reports, the demonstrations on both days were relatively peaceful, despite a few clashes here and there with the police, especially at the controversial Gupta family compound in Saxonwold, Johannesburg.

Following the first march, President Zuma, at a commemoration marking the anniversary of anti-apartheid leader, Chris Hani’s death, said the march proved that racism was still alive in rainbow South Africa, 23 years on.

I agree with him.

Some demonstrators, especially white people, held placards with obscene and vulgar language in the Afrikaans language. These included the following: ‘Zuma se Poes’ (Zuma’s cunt), ‘Fokof Zuma’ (Fuck off Zuma) and ‘Tsek’ (Go away/Fuck off) amongst others. And then, there were some white people who were holding up bananas with the obvious reference to black people as being a monkeys or baboons.  This happened in the first march, which, although partly organized by the political parties, was a demonstration by ordinary people of all races and political affiliations to show a united front that they did not want Zuma as their president anymore.

This whole racial issue has now clouded the good message for Zuma to step down if he has the interest of the country at heart.

Now, the President and the ruling ANC party are using this racial disaster to spin it in their favour and to propagate the call for him to step down as pure racism.

When a white man direct those words above and many more to a black man in South Africa and Namibia, you can easily be labelled a racist, even though you are just excitedly expressing your emotions. Yes! We have the equivalent of ‘nigger’ in Southern Africa which is ‘kaffir’, but those words also spark the same emotions. I know this very well and this is something that some whites need to understand.

The second march was an opposition march and that is what it was. Which ruling political party, in their right mind, would heed the call of the opposition for their leader to step down?

Now Zuma has an excuse to continue as President until next time...