[DEBATE] : Masses baying at the gate but no pervs in our camp!

[Russell]

Any views on this list on the unprecedented (mostly anti-Zuma) hysteria in today's Sunday Times? According to Mondli Makhanya, the "...stupidity sweeping the nation is a good dress rehearsal for what life would be like under a Zuma presidency". He goes on to warn of "thuggish shirt burning, knobkerrie-wielding mobs" and a "nation of babbling fools".  Scrape away the veneer of smarmy liberality of the new middle class intelligentsia and there lurks the most visceral fear of and scorn for the masses. Complementing these fears of an imminent descent into chaos and barbarism under Zuma, Justice Malala's article calls concerns over the man a mere "sideshow" to the "...real horror" of the  Mbeki reign. And as for the Zapiro 'Zuma Simpson' cartoon - was this drawn on orders from the editor or merely from his own fevered opinions? This really plumbs new depths with its only half joking panic talk of a rand at R30 to the dollar and Shaik as finance minister. You'd really think the masses were baying at the gates!

All this hyperbole seems to indicate the depths of panic and despair among what passes for today's political intelligentsia about the performance of all factions of the current political elite. So chaos, decline and horror threaten, BBBEE is just limping along, and nobody has a big idea for moving forward? Why the sudden panic and where exactly have these commentators been since 1994 (or 1990 for that matter)? 

By the way, does anyone have any hard info (or views) on Zuma's alleged Heritage Day statement today on the un-Africanness of gay marriage? Could this be the first salvo in a new battle for the lowest common denominator in the race to prove who exactly is the most authentic representative of the people? What next: some other hack asserting that his ranks contain no perverts, only authentic family men?