SA and USA, Trump and Zuma – a tale of two insurrections

There are striking similarities between the 6 January insurrection in the US and our own “not insurrection” that ensued here in the past fortnight.

Both protagonists are former presidents who so enjoyed power they refused to leave office, even when their time was up.

Donald Trump refused to vacate the White House after being defeated by Joe Biden in the 3 November 2020 presidential election.

Instead, he kept on telling his right-wing supporters and fellow conservative politicians that he had, in fact, won and that Biden had stolen the poll. This was despite losing court challenges and vote recounts in states like Georgia proved him wrong.

Similarly, our former president fiercely resisted when he was recalled by his party. He kept on asking his comrades: “ngenzeni bakithi” (what have I done, people).

Even after Trump had almost conceded and flew in a helicopter for his defeat golf day, his followers were convinced that he was still the president of the US.

They invaded Capitol, the country’s legislature, putting the lives of lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in danger. She was almost lynched but escaped that fate thanks to the police and guards who risked their own lives to protect the building.

The attack on 6 January on the US Capitol was an insurrection in which Trump used his supporters to prevent his democratically elected successor from assuming power. However, as could be expected, no insurrectionist would ever just admit to it. In the US, intelligence is sharper and most of the instigators’ addresses and how they organised the insurrection were known in no time.

But the same cannot be said of our spooks.

Our own insurrection began with an apparently well-organised gathering in Nkandla. The event was characterised by some former uMkhonto we Sizwe members excitedly shooting bullets in the air and party members singing and displaying clearly sponsored, expensive political banners bearing the face of their hero.

Then followed a synchronised mobilisation of sorts to bring people from as far and Gauteng and Mpumalanga to the expensive rural homestead. Although the closure of highways showed the plan was economic sabotage, the insurrectionists did not envisage being outrun by looters.

They wrongly imagined the hungry would confine themselves to the demand for the release of a politician, who had been their president but failed to provide them with jobs.

The have-nots could not care less about factional party political infighting, but filled their shacks with looted new goods. It’s an insurrection that went wrong because it was planned around disgruntlement, not sober reasoning.

Most importantly, it revealed the weaknesses of the SA Police Service and intelligence to handle well-organised public disorder with a political agenda. It’s not long since we heard via the

Commission of Inquiry into State Capture that our intelligence agency had been used as a political tool to fight an individual’s factional battles.

The incumbent president only appointed a panel to probe the intelligence, but failed to restructure his state security system and appoint a suitable minister untainted by party factionalism.