JAUNDICED EYE
All the African National Congress schmaltz around President Jacob Zuma’s birthday makes me feel faintly bilious. Although 75 is a pretty number and deserves a nod from family and close friends, the practice of a populace fulsomely celebrating any national leader’s birthday is offensive.
A person, after all, is not a nation. Let’s not encourage the nascent narcissism of power by conflating the two.
In any case, who really gives a damn? Aside from, of course, those fawning colleagues and the ingratiating supplicants angling for gravy trough positions, always hoping to reap reward for their fealty.
Birthday sycophancy over politicians is an ugly habit – witness the annual hullaballoo around Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe – but the powerful are surprisingly easily flattered.
Possibly the most memorable political birthday party was that of President John F Kennedy. The Democratic Party had needed a peg on which to hang a fundraising dinner and JFK’s 45th was it.