The ‘uneducated’ Zuma…
The notion that a person with no formal education possesses no intellectual faculties and thus must be dismissed as a hapless intellectual zombie is so antiquated and unscientific such that even those who once held it as a basis to oppress Africans are now embarrassed when reminded of such nonsensical views. Seemingly Prince Mashele harbours no such inhibitions, and repeats it with impunity at every opportunity he gets.
The view that intellectual rigour is the preserve of those who have spent time behind a classroom desk, assumes that there are only western forms of education. This betrays lack of knowledge about the various ways to impart knowledge in society, particularly, among indigenous Africans. The fact of the matter here is that long before there were classrooms, there were always various means through which knowledge was shared and acquired.
Communities taught their young, how to engage in economic, social, religious and political activity; gathering plants for food, hunting wild animals, rearing cattle, planting crops, running initiation schools, slaughtering cattle or goats for ancestral rituals, paying tribute to kings, attending traditional courts, even engaging in war. Who would deny that this was education in the fields of agriculture, politics and law?
As a result of its ability to organically develop intellectuals that were its products, our pastoral communities produced orators whose persuasiveness could swing decisions in traditional courts and in lobola negotiations. They did not have to be lawyers to perform such tasks, but had been schooled in the University of Life.
No one can now dispute that military strategists and organic intellectuals such as King Shaka and Moshoeshoe could turn defeat into victory in the battlefield. Were these not intellectuals? Not in Prince Mashele’s book.
I am reminded of an anecdote. A young man was sent to university by his uneducated parents. They sold all their livestock risking their livelihood in order to realise their son’s dream only to be later confronted by the horror of their son being embarrassed of them as soon as he received his university qualification and ultimately rejecting them. In this case, who are the non-intellectuals here: the overzealous parents or the ungrateful son? The answer is clear.
The “uneducated” Jacob Zuma started serving in the ANC NEC in 1977, was re-elected into the NEC in 1985, elected its deputy secretary-general in 1991, was elected its national chairperson in 1994 and in 1997 was elected its deputy president, but Mashele is not embarrassed to allege that Zuma is where he is today because of “victimhood” : “If Zuma did not incarnate victimhood in the faction-ridden politics of the latter-day ANC, nothing exceptional would have propelled him to the fortuitous heights he now occupies.”
Is it so difficult for Prince Mashele to appreciate the fact and fix it firmly to his mind that Zuma may have risen to the dizzy heights he now occupies because of his dedication to the struggle against apartheid when many of his peers hid behind the skirts of their families and homelands.
Surely, with the above evidence, Mashele’s statement ranks as nothing but a figment of his imagination.
Although pretending to write about the intellectual inaptitude of Zuma, Mashele shows the shocking disdain with which he holds us “ruralitarian” ANC members. We are all guilty by association. The fact that we grew up in villages renders us thoughtless mobs that supported Zuma because he could “dance” and sing just like we do.
Mashele must accept that we supported Zuma because we were tired of the “educated” former president Mbeki who we felt treated many with disdain. One’s level of education is no weapon to insult the rest but should assist one to act as a resource to the rest of society. There is no necessity for the gratuitous insults and disdainful assumptions that we suffer incurable levels of intellectual bankruptcy.
84 Responses to “The ‘uneducated’ Zuma…”
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He’s able to earn the love of the very same voters he’s screwing stupid every day. South Africa deserves him, as those who follow him mindlessly will find out the hard way over the next few years. He may even sell our country out to the Chinese when things get bad enough. Dan gaan die poppe dans.
Unfortunately, but evidently, Jacob Zuma falls short of the above by a hell of a long way.
It has always boggled my mind that how can anyone who fails to understand the simple logic of an immune system destroying virus causing a syndrome can be celebrated as the only thinker in an organisation with a proud intellectual heritage. It is an insult to the likes of Moses Mabhida, Walter Sisulu, Sol Plaatje and Chris Dlamini who themselves did not have much formal education but are still acknowledged as towering intellectuals of our movement.
Graham J
What are you saying Vervoed did? Where and for whom? I know of concetration camps called homelands that he pioneered and Bantu education amongst many horrors. Your comparison reveals a very disturbing mindset.
He was totally self-educated and started out dirt poor, starting work in a grocers packing boxes, at the age of 14, to support his breadwinner mother, who took in washing for a living, because her husband was disabled.
BECAUSE he was self taught, through Libraries, with the help of Librarians, he established 900 Libraries around the world – 3 of them in South Africa.
Unless there are, then this debate is utterly pointless.
@Lazola, i think that people should be called to order when comparing TM and JZ. All our Presidents post 1994 contributed greatly to our country and ALL of them brought their own uniqueness to plethora of leadership. It is totally out of order to call into question TM’s intellect when he together with others consolidated the international struggle against apartheid. This was a huge contribution amongst all other contributions he made. In fact it is arrogant to measure his contribution noting that those who criticise did not make any notable comparable contribution. These notions of creating divisions must be challenged and rejected with the contempt it deserves.
“Whose ethics should Africans be measured against?”
Are you saying that indigenous Africans have a different standard of ethics and morality, and that justifies corrupt practices and Jacob Zuma’s lack of integrity?
That is as ludicrous as some white people of a certain religious persuasion trying to justify Apartheid because they believed it was the teaching of their Bible.
Which is exactly my point – Obama got the best education he could get in America, and then went to Kenya – and found out that almost all he had been taught about Africa was inaccurate. His book was a fascinating read, and taught me a lot about the myths and fantasies being taught to American children.
Are there actually any university courses which deal specifically with how to be a state president and, if so, is there a universal standard to these courses?
Unless there are, then this debate is utterly pointless.”
What you are saying then that any misfit can run a country?
Or that being educated means the individual has at least some knowledge behind them on the workings of an economy and administrative teachings? Which will go along way in the decision making capabilities of such an individual. MBA, Bcom…whatever. Anything one of those will aide a statesman in decisions wrt his country.
For sure, try beat the odds with an uneducated statesman and in this case the proof is there for all to see in Zuma. Uneducated statesman’s do not do perform so well.
And his financial illiteracy you can add to that. He can not manage his own finances now and in the past. Yet he and the ANC voters expect him to understand the basics of an economy that affords him his Nkandla home, wa’benzie and the likes?
You are correct there’s no debate here. For future generations look for educated people to be president and ministers. N
“Graham J
What are you saying Vervoed did? Where and for whom? I know of concetration camps called homelands that he pioneered and Bantu education amongst many horrors. Your comparison reveals a very disturbing mindset.”
Verwoerd was prime minister during a period of great SA growth. For example, black heath facilities and life expectancy were raised considerably during his tenure. It’s a pity he had an inappropriate mindset and spoiled what could have been a great reputation.
Many in our present government say that Bantu education is better than what Zuma presides over today.
No, my mindset is fine, it is anchored in reality. It is not disturbed. Relax. Grow some cojones.
Obama has another advantage – having lived in Indonesia he knows that the Extremist Wahhabi Sunni Saudi interpretation of Islam is NOT the only interpretation.
Our Cape Malays come from that part of the world as well and their interpretation of the Koran was always monogamous.
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-political-economy/zuma-associate-benefits-from-r125bn-joburg-contrac
Subsistence farming with no commercial elements, one tribal leader who got given everything he wanted and the successor was always a relative – politic where? And law? Please, give me a break. Law is a set of rules to be applied – not an old man sitting and giving judgment in favour of the person he likes the most. Customary “laws” change with the mood of the chief. Where is the law which has the element of equality in it? Women can’t even approach the courts or inherit and are SOLD as property – law? Please.
Tofolux does behave a bit like a cyber bully/political spin doctor. She had a nasty and unnecessary go at me on another thread and generally does post a lot of make believe as well.
God bless our Zuma/ANC loyalist Tofolux.
You can tell them, till you are blue in the face, that South Africa never had a genocide, never had Black Slavery, in fact had an anti slavery fleet catching the American, Brazilian and Arab slavers from 1807 until 1860s (American Civil War) and gave the Blacks MORE than half the land of Southern Africa – but they will never believe you!
“It is totally out of order to call into question TM’s intellect when he together with others consolidated the international struggle against apartheid.”
Are you saying any person involved in the struggle qualifies to be president, and is not to be criticised?
Zuma received almost 10 years of education while he was on Robben Island. He might not have a degree on paper, but his tutors were not political wannabe’s.
He also headed up the ANC’s intelligence wing and, along with Thabo Mbeki, was involved in the first negotiations with P.W. Botha during the 1980′s.
Zuma might be a greedy douchebag, but he is far from stupid.
Who are these many in our present goverment? Vervoed was an author of the mass murder of African people. He escalated the idea of separate facilities with the ones being used by Africans being suffocatingly overcrowded, he designed the forced removal and uprooting of communities throwing them into arid areas and overcrowded compounds.
There was growth yes at the back of the enslavement of Africans boosted by the looted mineral wealth of the country.
You really need help.
For example of what I am talking about, if Zuma wants to remove somebody from office that the king makers wanted in office, he is powerless to do so. Malema has been doing his thing a long time but, the party decides to take actions against him because he is an outcast. The justice system in SA is controlled by the party along with the tax system and as long you are in good standing, the party will protect you.
De Klerk reassured White South Africans that Communism had failed,
so it was safe to hand over to the ANC – but he did not consider the strength of Communist Denialism, nor did he understand anything about Black American Kwanzaa Cult Mythology.
De Klerk was an outsider, former education minister, and not part of the Security Cluster of the Nationalist Party.
Not only did White South Africans NOT dump Blacks on arid semi-desert
like White Americans did to their Natives; but they turned arid, semi desert, which had never been farmed before by anyone, into farmland.
Any country, including Botswana, with a similar problem should read the book “Plains of Camdeboo” by Eve Palmer to see how the Karoo became farmland producing 1/3 of South Africa’s food.
Zuma inherited this problem,and is a vast improvement on Mbeki. White South Africans thought Black South Africans educated sufficiently to hand over to them, and that the rest of Africa had collapsed because Africans had been not sufficiently educated – but this has nothing to do with education at all, and EVERYTHING to do with Africa’s exile leaders being indoctrinated in exile.
1. Send all Wahhabi priests and Imams back to Saudi Arabia.
2. Remove all Saudi translated or sponsored Korans from the bookshops and schools, and send them back to Saudi Arabia. It would not be a good idea to destroy them because the majority of Muslims have no idea that they are mis-translations.
3. Convene an International body of Islamic Scholars, including from Turkey, Egypt and Iran, to do an accurate translation of the Koran from Ancient Arabic to Modern Arabic.
4. Give that Arabic Translation to the top liquists in every country to translate as accurately as possible.
What brings about this topic from the point of view that is mostly espoused by Prince Mashele, is that the lack of education on the part of the current President JZ is what causes his lack-lusture performance as a leader generally. But also, his traditionalism and tribalistic tendencies, all of which would have been expected to be polished had he possesed some form of formal education.
Quite repeatedly, the ANC itself has to issue a statement after another in order to clarify statements already made by the President. In order to accomplish this, Mac Maharaj had to be brought back from running away since his brush with the law in the days of TM.
It is an academic dishonesty to suggest that President Zuma is any intelligent. The President tries struggles to find a specific agenda to address in his term of office. We are coming to a closure of his first term, but we can hardly attribute a specific issue we know him to have been passionate about. Mandela dealt with Reconciliation. Mbeki dealt with African Rennaissance and GEAR. JZ has nothing…
At the time of the American Civil War South Africa was not a Dutch Colony any more but had been a British Colony for half a century, AND had run an anti-slavery fleet out of Cape Town to catch American, Brazilian and Arab Slavers (the ONLY slavers left)and free the slaves in Cape Town FOR 50 YEARS! There are therefore considerable Historic records in Cape Town. Consider the following facts:
The North was the AGGRESSOR in the Civil War and attacked the South who wanted to pull out of the Union where they were being outvoted on all issues including their own taxation. Lincoln made no anti-slavery speeches BEFORE the war started, and there were Northern Slave owning states fighting on the side of Lincoln. AFTER the war started the South appealed to Britain and France for help against the Northern AGGRESSORS. Only THEN did Lincoln start his anti-slavery speeches, which, in my opinion were to impress the French and British and stop them coming to the assisstance of the Southern States.
In other words I consider the Lincoln speeches pure politics – born out by the events after the Civil War, and the Black Americans having to fight against segregation and for the vote FOR ANOTHER HUNDRED YEARS!
There was never any Black Slavery in South Africa by Whites – but Blacks were enslaved by their Feudal Tribal Chiefs in their Homelands who refused to allow any change of – which is why both Mandela and Zuma ran away from their Homelands.
I would not enter a building not designed and built by qualified engineers. I would also like the national budget to be run by someone who has a western education and understands net present values, amortisation and other financial concepts. I would like hospitals to be run by doctors who have the best training in how to diagnose a patient using X rays, blood tests and other modern concepts. Modern media is run through the western alphabet which you the author have learnt to use. The ability to understand communications require a good vocabulary and grammatical training. These are not learnt from a tutor on Robin Island.
Winnie Mandela just wrote her matric and passed. Well done to her. learn from her example. if we are to compete in a world with modern amenities like telephones, engineering, financial and medical skills then lets equip ourselves to compete on that level.
All cultures develop. embrace those changed and be the best person you can rather than try to justify not having an education Get off your derriere and raise your personal standard and demand the best from our national leaders.
Do not accept mediocrity when those around you have raised themselves to a higher level as you will be left behind. That applies to you the person as well as us the nation of South…
South Africa was never a British Criminal Penal Colony .
Which might explain why there was no genocide in South Africa like in Australia and America, and no Black Slavery like in America.
South Africa was a Dutch Colony from 1652-1807, and the Dutch allowed no slavery of Natives in any of their colonies. Dutch settlers were literate educated Civil Servants who chose to stay and not go home, not criminals from the prisons of Britain.
South Africa was a British Colony from 1807-1910, but by then Britain had abolished the slave trade.
There was a brief period of a few years, called the First British Occupation, when the Brits defeated the Dutch -but then the Dutch defeated the Brits again.
When Britain could no longer send their criminals to America, they tried to send them to South Africa, but South African burghers refused to allow their ships to land – so the Brits had to send their criminals on to Australia.
Which is why the Burghers of Cape Town would not allow the British Ships to land – they opposed both White AND Black Slavery.
The Mountain Passes of the Cape Colony were built by Convict Labour
But they were convicts, not slaves, and were sought after labour after their sentences were ended because they had been taught to read and write and also taught construction skills, AND had earned money for building the passes.