ON THE MONEY
STUART THEOBALD: Unlike Mbeki, Zuma is treated like an irresponsible child
’In spreading responsibility we seem to be saying Zuma is too weak, too compromised, too incapable to really be held responsible for SA's calamity’
I can never quite figure out if the idea of shared accountability means anything. Whenever someone points fingers at President Jacob Zuma as personally responsible for the economic mess SA has become, the quick response is usually that he is a symptom, not a cause, of some wider systemic failure that others are responsible for. That failure can be pinned on the ANC or on postapartheid governance or even on global economic and political developments. But if we are to claim that Zuma is a symptom rather than a cause, we have to make some uncomfortable assumptions. One is that Zuma somehow lacks agency; that he does not have any authority or power to make active decisions of his own; that his actions are somehow predetermined by the system or conditions in which he finds himself.That would be a very strange view to hold, as it simultaneously defends the president and condemns him. Would we ever say the same of Thabo Mbeki, that his decisions were somehow not his to make and inevitable ...
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