that what he thought would be the result of his blood and tears is not food in the belly and a nice comfortable house but simply a set of high sounding theories about equality which he does not understand .
What is even more puzzling is the fact that his former oppressor seems to have his life intact and even getting better while his lot is diminishing and getting worse by the day . Those fancy houses on the hills are still out of his reach and he still lives in a rat infested hovel . Some things just don ’ t add up .
In confusion and disillusionment he turns to those that seem to understand these highfaluting ideas and of course he turns to his clansman . The clansman aware that democracy gives him the power of numbers sets himself up with his coterie to profit from the situation .
This is how the big man in Africa is born and nurtured and invariably he can only thrive in the midst of his clansmen since he becomes their de facto leader and spokesman . The big man syndrome is a natural consequence of the voiceless trying to be heard .
As long as resources are scarce in the world and there is a fierce competition for these resources globally then the fact that the voiceless will be exploited by the big man in exactly the same way that the
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previous oppressor did is almost a given . The voiceless begin to see their own start moving to the hills and they are encouraged believing that it is only a matter of time before they also start to move up in society and any attempt to subject their spokesman to accountability will be viewed as fresh oppression .
What the voiceless are unable to fathom is that all they gained at independence was political liberation but they are still in economic apartheid . They now suffer both economic oppression and mental oppression as they realize the Promised Land is an illusion .
So when you humiliated ‘ their president ’ and reduced this paramount chief of theirs into a commoner and a mere mortal , you touched a raw nerve of tribal pride . This should not be too hard to comprehend since an affront to the British monarchy would elicit similar riots on the British streets .
Zuma , unfamiliar with the concepts of constitutionalism and the puzzling division of power is on record asking parliament how the judiciary gets to tell him what to do when he is elected and the judiciary is a bunch of people he presumably appoints .
The ideals of constitutional democracy and tenets of public accountability will not supersede kinship ties in Africa in the foreseeable future . This is of special interest to us as we head to next year ’ s elections . The disquiet of lawlessness is always just under the surface .
Statements like “ yes he is a thief but he is our thief ’, ‘ it is our turn to eat ’, ‘ our victories have been stolen for too long ’ and ‘ you people owe us a political debt ’ demonstrates just how poorly understood the concepts of democracy are .
Our president routinely castigates and ignores judiciary edicts , the parliament does not have an opposition party because the opposition is in government , and the judiciary is busy trying to re-assert itself ; there-in lies the recipe for imminent disaster .
When democracy fails , the big man syndrome kicks in hence the big rush for leadership hopefuls to be anointed the regional kingpins and spokesmen . That just happens to be the type of politicks we understand and subscribe to .
So before we readily point at the chaos that we witnessed in South Africa and feel smug about ourselves , we need to remember that we are in the process of brewing an equivalent type of chaos with our divisive politics and we have descended into deep chaos before . Caution is advised !
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