Throughout the ANC's history, it has created its own monsters, only to squash them when they really get out of hand. Julius Malema is one; Jimmy Manyi is the other. Willing to act as stalking horses for the ANC, the two JMs regularly throw out polemical utterances into the public domain just to gauge public reaction.
Imbued with unrestrained power from the party bosses, they often get out of hand, needing to be reeled in as soon as they cross the line. Malema is now in that situation and awaits party discipline while he is kicking and screaming to retain his position.
Manyi, on the other hand, continues to be used, shifted sideways, and promoted as long as he does the party's bidding. Twit that he is, he takes on the honourable Pravin Gordhan, who rightly suggested to a conference of internal auditors that government's rigid labour regime was a hindrance to reducing South Africa's unemployment rate of 25.7% and makes the achievement of four million jobs by 2025 very difficult. This indisputable empirical fact, corroborated by the world's major economists, is contradicted by an idiot who does not have an iota of Gordhan's experiences and expertise.
The Alliance partners predictably take sideswipes at Gordhan, labelling such sensible ideas right-wing, proposing as, is their wont, even more and more redistributive tax measures. True to form, Manyi claims that he was not speaking on behalf of the Minister of Labour but of the Cabinet.
We all know what this means - imbued with power from above, the democratic adolescent instructs the seasoned democrat and financial expert how to articulate and deal with the unemployment challenges facing South Africa.
Lest we forget, the recent posting of former labour minister Madlalana to Burundi must have brought a sigh of relief from Zuma Inc and the ANC's multitudinous tendrepreneurs. Sidelined in October last year, Madlalana lost in a bruising battle with his spokesman, Manyi. The cause of his political demise was obvious.
Zuma Inc, the extended family of the Zuma clan, depends in substantial measure for their burgeoning wealth on the goodwill of and contact with Chinese politicians and business delegations. In 2008, Madlalana was outraged when the Pretoria High Court ruled that South African Chinese nationals could be defined as black in order to benefit from Affirmative Action and Economic Empowerment measures.
The successful application was brought by the Chinese Association of SA; Madlalana was first respondent. At a subsequent briefing Madlalana said that since Chinese had been classified as coloured, as employers they no longer had any excuse to mistreat their workers or pretend they could not speak a South African language.
Outraged at this racist stereotyping, the Chairman of the Chinese Association, Patrick Chong said: "I don't think he has missed the point; I think he has missed the entire community. The community that went to court are as South African as the next person and we speak English and Afrikaans fluently. We had to learn these languages. Also, the South African Chinese don't own many factories. I can think of only four, and they are the Western Cape."
These racist comments cost Madlalana his job. The last thing Duduzane and Khulubuse Zuma need is for an ANC minister to alienate the new East Asian capitalist alliance when they are trying to clinch major business deals with the Chinese,
But President Zuma is more than happy to keep the equally racist Jimmy Manyi on the tax-payer's payroll. Remember Manyi's contempt for coloured people? Not only did the Nationalist Party chase coloured people out of District Six; Manyi wants them out of the Province altogether. And, what Manyi share in common with Verwoerd is their unadulterated racism. Astoundingly, in the eyes of the President Zuma, Manyi is made of the right stuff needed to do the Chief's bidding.
He shamelessly abused his previous post as Director-General of the Dept of Labour by touting for business from a Norwegian Diplomatic delegation in March last year. No action was taken against Manyi for bringing this country into disrepute. Indeed, the ANC showed its approval for his actions by promoting him to cabinet spokesman as the head of Government Communications Services, where he daily articulates the Party's antipathy towards the media.
When the cabinet gives power to young people like Manyi, to attack a powerful and exemplary colleague like Gordhan, at whose feet he should be sitting to learn some basic lessons, and most of all, manners, then there is no hope!
This article first appeared in Die Burger.
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
