What a l-o-n-g year it's been! - This is the sort of asinine and banal comment that a columnist is wont to make at the end of a year that has been, scientifically speaking, no longer or shorter than any other.
And yet, when it comes to the life and activities of Jacob G Zuma, president of the Republic, it does seem to have been an unusually long year, does it not? By this I mean that an awful lot has happened to, and around, him in 2010.
Without even resorting to the internet or to the pages of a learned tome such as the second edition of Zuma: A Biography - merely by, as it were, letting one's mind idle for a few minutes in neutral - one can think of numerous events.
At the start of the year - on the last day of January 2010 - it was revealed that the president had fathered a child with the daughter of "powerful" soccer administrator and (apparently) long-time Zuma friend, Irvin Khoza. This new example of Zuma fecundity did not seem to go down well with body politic or his political allies.
A little later - in about March, if my memory serves me - Zuma went to England to see Queen Elizabeth II. This visit apparently went down pretty well, though there were the usual quasi-racist howls of execration by the English "reptiles" (the name given to members of the English media by Private Eye magazine).
During this visit, Zuma was also given the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath by the queen. This was amusing for Zapiro aficionados, already amused by the saga of the shower head that the cheeky cartoonist had bestowed on Zuma's head.
Then came the soccer world cup. Notwithstanding warnings of doom from all and sundry, it was a massive success for South Africa and its people (that's you and me, china), and of course Zuma collected a house-full of kudos for the general achievement.
Admittedly, Zuma did sometimes have to play second fiddle to the man from whom some of us would not buy a second-hand football: Joseph Sepp Blatter. But so it goes if you want your country to host a world cup.
The next "Zuma event" that floats into my mind is actually a series of events - or, rather, images of Julius Malema, president of the ANC youth league, fulminating against various people and in favour of nationalisation. Then came the ANC's national general congress in Durban at which Zuma firmly rapped the young chap on his knuckles, suggesting, albeit in ANC-speak, that Malema mind his Ps and Qs.
The country was agog. Firstly, it was clearly something for which everyone had been waiting. Secondly, it was the first time that Zuma had actually shown some "leadership" (as it is called). Zuma's admonition has such a palpable effect on the body politic that one actually wondered why he had not spoken out previously, more frequently, and on a wider range of issues. It was clear that South Africans were as thirsty for leadership as waterless people in a desert for something to drink.
Then came the great cabinet re-shuffle. This was a very positive move on Zuma's part, though I would hardly have called it "masterful" as did political commentator Raenette Taljaard in a recent column [Times, 8 Dec, p 17]. It was positive not least because the ANC is not in the habit of criticising its own, let alone divesting cabinet members of their lucrative posts. Yet Zuma did it. Good for him.
Unfortunately, however, in the view of some analysts (including this one), much of the re-shuffle was more about shoring up Zuma's support - this, perhaps, was the "masterful" part (it was masterful in a Machiavellian sense) - rather than chopping off dead wood. This was obvious from the amount of dead (or very lazy) wood that is still to be seen around the cabinet table.
In recent days we have seen Zuma in Cuba where he has inter alia been awarded a medal bearing the name of Cuba's national hero Jose Marti. This was presented to the president by Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz.
For Zuma, the visit to Cuba is a very serious and significant one - especially given the relationship between the ANC, and African leftist forces in general, and the rulers and people of the Marxist island off America's shores. And one can see from the TV footage just how seriously the Cubans themselves have treated Zuma's visit.
But, at the end of this "long year" for Zuma, what I have found most significant of all, as I watch the footage, is the new-found air of authority and confidence that Zuma exudes. Let us hope for his sake that it is a firmness that he will bring to carrying out his job at home throughout 2011.
This article first appeared in the Daily Dispatch. Jeremy Gordin is a veteran journalist and author of Zuma: A Biography.
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