Zuma is (still) an Idiot

The entity designated Kingdom Mabuza penned this article in the Sowetan today in which he rattles off some quotes that ANC President Jacob Zuma spewed at a rally attended by religious leaders over the weekend.

Zuma is still pushing his imagined divine mandate message. Here's the money-shot:

“We in the ANC know God. When the ANC was born, it was baptised. We have respect, we are beautiful, we conduct ourselves in a good way.”

It was at that point that my irony-meter exploded. 

In the very same article, ANC Crybaby Youth League President Julius Malema is quoted:

“Helen Zille was a political toddler... That is the same with all those who left the ANC after stealing from us. They are corrupt and that includes the arms deal.”

If this is the sort of behaviour that Zuma claims is "beautiful" or "good", then my concerns for the future of our country deepen. The contrast of double standards is so stark, I can't imagine how it wouldn't be obvious to any ANC supporter.

Zuma's Country of God - The Sequel

This is an appendix to my previous post in which I pointed out that Jacob Zuma is an idiot.

My lovely and talented wife pointed me to a series of articles on a Democratic Alliance blog, 'The Real ANC Today', going into much greater detail on the attitude towards religion of the ANC in general and Zuma in particular. Paying specific attention to the inherent contradiction between nationalist and religious absolutism and a democratic government.

Here's a highlight:

[T]he notion of governing by divine right is intricately linked to the idea that, ultimately, physical force will be used to impose that ‘right’ - if not by the respective deity, then by those who supposedly represent its will on earth. In South Africa today, we are faced with a position where those aligned to Jacob Zuma have threatened to take up arms in his name - indeed for him - a comment Zuma has failed to condemn.

Chilling. 

Here's another:

Thus, as the apartheid state has been dismantled and its edifice diluted and washed away, so the ANC has been forced to re-invent ‘the demon’ of racism as a central and eminent threat to our democracy, and the evil against which it must both fight and justify its existence. It has simply substituted, exaggerated and conflated the one, generic racism, for the other, apartheid. For, as its Constitution illustrates, central to its ‘historic mission’ is the struggle against apartheid. Remove that, and the ANC’s core mission is denuded. Just as religion needs evil to exist, so the ANC needs racism.

Good, eh?

Here are the links:

• Beyond the will of mortal men;
• The ANC and Religion: Part 1 - The True Church;
• The ANC and Religion: Part 2 - The ANC's Political Religion;
• The ANC and Religion: Part 3 - Thabo Mbeki and the Truth;
• The ANC and Religion: Part 4 - Jacob Zuma and God;
• The ANC and Religion: part 5 - Conclusion

One thing caused me to grimace and make sceptical noises while reading these, and that was the author's continued assertion that objective reality is a myth, as opposed to simply being partially hidden by the veil of subjective experience, and therefore unavaible to anyone for the purpuses of full understanding.

But I'm happy overlook that small quibble due to the otherwise highly rational argument presented - it's only a tangential point anyway.

Zuma's Country of God

Jacob Zuma is apparently an idiot.

That's no big surprise to the bulk of my readers, I'm sure. There have been plenty of examples of idiocy spewing forth from him over the years, but I suppose I always gave him the benefit of the doubt... assuming that his lack of formal education left him intellectually stunted, but not necessarily stupid.

After reading this article on IOL this afternoon, I've decided that there's probably no difference between the two. His stuntedness is, for all practical purposes, equivalent to stupidity.

This is what has led me to this conclusion.

At the National Presidential Religious Leaders summit* yesterday, Zuma said

"When all of us take office in government... we raise our right hand and indeed pronounce... so help me God. I believe no one can argue South Africa is not based on the principles of God," said Zuma.

"The bible says pray for those who are in government. I believe we must go beyond that. You must advise and criticise if there are things we do that are not in keeping with the principles of God."

He also points out the fact that the following phrase appears in the preamble to the constitution:

"May God protect our people...God bless South Africa."

Now, I wasn't there when the constitution was being drafted, but it seems pretty obvious to me that this specific wording was chosen so as to remain ambivalent to which "God" was being referred to here. Is it YHWH? Jehovah? Jesus? Allah? The Deist God? Spinoza's God? Zeus? Thor? Quetzlcoatl? The Flying Spaghetti Monster?

It doesn't specify. And I imagine that it was a deliberate choice to write it this way, and not to refer to a specific version of God, so as not to alienate South Africans adhering to faiths other than Christianity. (I'll ignore for the moment the fact that it still manages to alienate those of us who believe in no gods - that's a subject for another post).

So isn't it interesting that Zuma automatically assumes that the God of the bible is the one we should be paying attention to? Why is Zuma's God the important one, and everyone else's gods are not?

He also presumes that the bible is the best way to find out what "the principles of God" are. The morality expressed in the bible is at best ambiguous. How are we to interpret it correctly? What makes Zuma's interpretation better than mine?

Of course it makes sense that Zuma would look to the bible for his values. He is, after all, a polygamist and not opposed to having his way with younger women - both of which are strongly advocated in the Christian bible.

I would expect a presidential candidate to be capable of looking beyond bronze-age mysticism and see the functional logic in a utilitarian ethical system. Blind adherence to a non-specific religious moral code is intellectually immature, and does not serve a president, or a country, well. Particularly a country such as ours which claims to pride itself on its ethnic diversity.

*Exactly why such a summit exists mystifies me.