The dictionary defines a prima donna as “a very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance”.
Those who have observed tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu over the years will know that dictionaries don’t lie. In her response to ANC veteran Mavuso Msimang, Sisulu presents herself as someone engaged in what she calls “intellectual debates” – even though only she believes herself to be an intellectual.
To be fair, Prof Tomas Sowell (in his book Intellectuals and Society) advises us not to exclude people like Sisulu: “But just as a bad cop is still a cop – no matter how much we may regret it – so a shallow, confused, or dishonest intellectual is just as much a member of that occupation as is a paragon of the profession.”
There are people who suggest that given what the dictionary says about prima donnas, and what Sowell says about shallow and dishonest intellectuals, acting chief justice Raymond Zondo should have never dignified Sisulu’s attack on the judiciary with a response.
That suggestion would make sense in a normal democracy where members of cabinet know the significance of their positions. But in a country where temperamental people with an inflated view of their talent or importance find themselves in august positions, judges have no option but to respond to prima donnas.
In an opera performance, a prima donna is a likable entertainer. But when such entertainment is misunderstood and transposed into state affairs, one wonders what will happen to a country run by people who are supposed to be performing in a theatre.
Let us be clear: Sisulu knows what she is doing. The Sisulu name being part of the ANC’s revered aristocracy, it is not difficult to understand why a daughter would like to make a departed father proud by becoming president.
The problem, though, is that what ought to be a party affair has spilt into the domain of the state. Even judges have now been sucked into the ANC’s cesspit.
Ultimately, Sisulu wants to be SA’s president. Since she has identified the ANC as a route to the Union Buildings, Sisulu has conducted a thorough analysis of who in the ANC could assist her to achieve her goal.
Her reading is that her party is divided into two dominant factions: those who claim to represent a radical economic transformation for the benefit of poor black people (RET forces), and those who are instruments of white monopoly capital (the new dawn brigade).
From the tone of her original article, and the language of her subsequent response to Msimang, no doubt is left that Sisulu is positioning herself to become the candidate of the RET forces at the ANC’s elective conference in December.
Since RET forces have looted state resources and are therefore in trouble with the law, anyone seeking their support must demonstrate animosity towards the judiciary. That is exactly the game Sisulu is playing. She wants to assure criminals that her presidency will protect them.
The strategy is to blackmail black people by projecting the judges who have sent Jacob Zuma to jail as puppets controlled by white masters. In this sordid affair, RET thieves are presented as the authentic voice of the masses. There is also a thinly veiled assumption that poor black people are ignorant and stupid and that gullible black masses will support any ambitious prima donna who claims to speak for them.
The sensitive issue of land has been identified as an easy way into black people’s hearts. It is precisely what Robert Mugabe did in Zimbabwe, destroying the country while claiming to restore land to poor Zimbabweans. In such a scheme, the rich are projected as parasites who impoverish the masses. The poor masses of black people are not told that Sisulu herself is not poor, and that she dresses like and lives among the same rich people she clams to dislike. In which township or rural village does she live?
In short, people like Sisulu are using poor black people as a step ladder to get to the top. The truth is that Sisulu, Cyril Ramaphosa and others have for many years sat silently among the thieves who captured and looted our state.
All of them, including Sisulu, live like millionaires while claiming to speak for us black people. Please leave us and our esteemed judges alone.
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