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The story about the destruction of the kingdom of Babylon, as recorded in the Good Book, has reference.
King Belshazzar held a great feast, to which he invited a thousand of his lords. He commanded that temple vessels be brought in from Jerusalem to be used for drinking at the feast. As the elite feasted and imbibed lavishly, a hand appeared and wrote the following on the wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN.
Diviners and magicians were called in to interpret the writing, but to no avail. The queen advised Belshazzar to call in Daniel, renowned for his wisdom, to interpret the writing on the wall. When Daniel arrived, the king duly asked him to help unravel the mysterious writing and proffered him the third-highest rank in the kingdom for the trouble. Daniel humbly declined the offer, but agreed to elucidate.
Belshazzar, Daniel observed, had drunk from the vessels of the temple, worshipped idols and not given honour to God. Continuing, Daniel told the king: MENE means God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. TEKEL, you have been weighed and found wanting. UPHARSIN, your kingdom will be divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.
Acting within the prescripts of the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the Constitutional Court on March 31 limited its judgment of President Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma to the TEKEL component of the writing of the wall. It weighed him and pronounced unanimously that he had been found wanting. He had failed, the apex court noted, to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution.
Action on the MENE element of the writing on the wall, to wit, the bringing of his rule to an end, remains the unfulfilled responsibility of the effete ANC leadership, and of the National Assembly, whose ANC majority insured a second breach of the Constitution.
At the time of writing, this cardinal act is yet to be fulfilled, placing the nation’s existence in a veritable constitutional crisis.
Last week the ANC members descended on the coastal city of Port Elizabeth to launch their manifesto for the upcoming local government elections. The presence of dignitaries was manifest in top-of-the-range German SUVs and glistening sedans that would have made German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her entourage on a similar mission drool.
The advance team of foot soldiers, resplendent in black, green and gold party colours, had gone from door to door and worked hard to convince bemused citizens about the merits of voting for the governing party come election day. All and sundry were told that a vote for the ANC would provide them with the job opportunities and housing that had not materialised the last time around, thanks in no small measure to incompetence and rampant tender corruption.
It fell upon the president to pronounce on the intended termination of the halcyon days for councillors and their relatives, who would henceforth not be allowed to do business with municipalities. The irony of this injunction, coming from the lips of one who is still saddled with more than 700 unanswered corruption charges, would not have been lost on the relative minnows in the parasitic feeding trough.
A story comes to mind. An employee who was busted for corruption painfully acknowledged his indiscretions. He had some valuable advice for those who had apprehended him. He suggested that when they were done with the lizards, they would do well to focus attention on the bask of crocodiles floating upstream, where the loot occurred in greater abundance.
The writing is on the wall. The Windy City and its environs revealed a few signs. Daniel would have found something to say about the empty seats that accounted for close to two-thirds of the expected 110 000 attendance. He would also have explained the significance of the welcome that reduced the president of the ANC Women’s League and minister of social development, Bathabile Dlamini, to tears. She, a month ago, alerted the nation to the existence of pervasive “smallanyana skeletons” in the national executive committee’s cupboard, warning that their revelation would wreak havoc in the body politic.
And then the cheeky DA!
How could they do this to the glorious organisation? They hoist a poster with the caption “Danny Jordaan, proudly brought to you by Jacob Zuma” and in the process unleash a frenzy of rage by ANC officials who demand its immediate removal.
Kanjani manje? A troubling thought visits. Would a DA poster that read “Danny Jordaan, proudly brought to you by Nelson Mandela” have been deemed offensive? It’s a hypothetical question, to be sure. The DA would not, as a matter of course, have been so gracious to its adversary.
Over the past 10 years or so, there have been numerous writings on the wall. Perpetual optimists that we are, we consistently gave them the blind eye. The Schabir Shaik case; the rape trial and its eponymous shower head; the “spy tapes” and the day Zuma would not have in court; the landing of the Gupta wedding plane at Waterkloof Air Force Base.
Where were you, Daniel, when we so needed you? These were portents of a disaster waiting to happen.
And then we had directors-general being sacked for daring to investigate what vigilance suggested might be an unsavoury influence of the Guptas on the state. The nation watched all of this, and much more, in respectful silence. Or was it just behaving like an abused wife?
History will record that the turning point in the fortunes of the president began with the sacking of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister. This irrational act wiped out billions of rands from the economy.
Significantly, it will also observe that this action drove the citizens’ tolerance threshold to its limit. An ancient proverb comes to mind: those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
Failure by President Zuma and the ANC leadership to honour the March 31 judgment of the Constitutional Court on the Public Protector’s Nkandla report – on the basis of a curious apology – has spawned an outpouring of anger in society.
This is expressed loudly on talk radio stations, in letters and SMS columns in dailies, on postings in social media, in bars, on church pulpits and in many other social gatherings.
The demand is for the president to gracefully step down from office and ensure a smooth transition that will enable ordinary people to get on with their lives. Even at this late hour, such action would salvage the president’s soiled reputation and earn him a positive spot in history, however minuscule.
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