OUR president was once again the butt of jokes on virtually every form of media this past week for fumbling while reading a figure during his speech at the ANC’s National General Council congress in Midrand.
Quote: “Membership stood at… seven hundred and sixty-nine thousand, eight hundred and… seven hundred… Listen properly! Seven hundred and sixty-nine thousand… eight hundred and… twenty (clears his throat, amid laughter from audience)… and seventy. Numbers down from one hundred and …one hundred point two million in 2012. This correctly shocked the delegates.”
No wonder delegates were ‘shocked’ as this would have been quite a mind-boggling statistic, especially as we don’t even have ‘100 point two million’ people living in South Africa – never mind ANC members – unless we count illegal immigrants from neighbouring states.
What he meant to say was… well, very difficult for anyone to work out, even after numerous ‘kyk weers’ of the video clip. Suffice to say, he was trying to stress that ANC membership was down in significant numbers, but certainly not by millions.
One has to wonder whether the person who appointed that fake sign language guy for Mandela’s funeral had anything to do with writing the president’s speech for the congress. If so, an ambassadorship somewhere near Syria might be a good call.
Yes, it was funny but it was also understandable. The speech writer could have written the figure out in words, making it easier to read. You try it. Even those who are fluent in English (but not accounting) might well have struggled as well.
Some of us also forget that English is a second language for many of our leaders.
Our MEC for Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, spoke at the launch of the Rotary Family Health Days at the Albert Luthuli Museum last Wednesday. He spoke English for a short while out of courtesy to the American Consul-General and Rotarians. He was quite articulate, but there were no fireworks.
However, the vast majority of more than 3 000 people who attended were Zulu-speaking so he graciously apologised to the ‘dignitaries’ for delivering the rest of his speech in Zulu. The crowd went wild and responded enthusiastically when called upon.
The moral of the story? We (whoever ‘we’ happen to be) should not make the mistake of thinking that, just because some of our leaders battle a bit with a second language, they are fools who can’t communicate with and inspire the vast majority of South Africans.
Yes, English is a universal language and it probably makes sense for out politicians to work on improving their vocabulary.
But let’s cut them some slack when they stumble over their words sometimes. Ask yourself this: How many English-speaking leaders are capable of delivering a speech to the nation in Zulu, Xhosa or any of our other official languages?
