Bad Taste

Well, in fact, South African President Jacob Zuma does not present as anyone's idea of someone invested in good taste. Does South Africa in this day and age need a president with multiple wives; it may be a Zulu tradition, but it appears sordid and unseemly for a head of state of a country that is imagined to be representative of the best that African has on offer. His construction of a palatial home in his ancestral village using state funds was a questionable move.

But his having raped a young woman who trusted him as she would an 'uncle', even while knowing she had HIV, and looked upon him as a mentor, and then claiming innocence -- why he even took a shower afterward to ensure that he did not become HIV-infected himself, left him with a tarnished reputation. Perhaps not internally, but most certainly it did diminish his international authority. Nor does it speak of his skills in governance that South Africa remains mired in viral social violence.

The political party that Nelson Mandela and his political, anti-Apartheid cohorts launched in South Africa barely resembles the respected and reliable one that it was in its early days, when Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa after the collapse of the white Apartheid government, under the African National Congress. This is now a party seemingly disinterested in seeing that poor South Africans are gainfully employed, have decent housing and education opportunities.

But it seems that the same government that has been implicated in ordering its military to put down inconvenient union protests by underpaid miners is now concerned over the dwindling reputation of its political party and its expectations going forward to the next election. Being seen to pay respects to the elderly, ailing former head of the African National Congress could do nothing but aid in that respect, must have been the prevailing opinion.

"There's not a single grandchild or child in their sane mind who would want their parent or grandparent to be exposed to the public in this state.
"I would never expose him to that. I wouldn't like it if I was in that condition for my picture to be shown -- I would want people to remember me in the good times", explained a disappointed and irate Maki Mandela, daughter of Nelson Mandela.

AP   South African President Jacob Zuma, left, sits with the ailing anti-apartheid icon Nelson Madela as they were filmed on Monday, more than three weeks after Mandela was released from hospital for a recurring lung infection.

Upset because Jacob Zuma presumed to use the former president and party leader as a prop to ingratiate himself with the followers of the African National Congress, to portray himself as a devoted and concerned advocate for Mr. Mandela's future health. Ignoring in the process, how he was foisting his presence on the privately intimate space of a man who is no longer of this world and wants little other than to be left in peace.

Having no shame, as a bumptious pretender, at manipulating a vulnerable, ill old man for his political purposes. Insisting that the former president was in good health: "up and about" and "in good shape and good spirits", as he indeed would presumably have to be, so pleased would he be to have been visited by his successor who has successfully managed to sully the good name of the party that meant so much to a world-renowned statesman.