Dear Mr President Elect Mr Zuma
What a time you must have had the last couple of years and now came the elections and victory.
As I was standing in line to vote, I kept on thinking that you must be feeling quite anxious being a male in South Africa.
The men sharing the line with me were all in a happy peaceful mood. Men in their rugby broekies and oversized shirts, others in jeans and khakhi shirts. More modern dressers in outfits that actually matched and suited their body types stood next to tracksuit pants with various bulges showing the time of day.
T shirts with an array of messages on them, dress shirts worn tugged into old suit pants and flashy shoes. Here and there a blazer of sorts. Men of all shapes and sizes came to vote.
Now you are leading this pack of males – our Alpha male. As our male leader, you choose to wear very expensive European designed suits, matched with crispy shirts and silky ties. Your shoes always glimmer with the same lushness as the cars you emerge from. The eye wear you chose, fits the shape of your face perfectly. Well groomed and stylish, you stand at the helm.
When dressed in your traditional Zulu clothing, you look every bit like the Zulus the Afrikaners saw in the wars. The muti we see hanging from your clothes at court appearances speak of a man with his feet planted in two worlds – the spiritual as well as the Christian faith as seen when you overshadowed our other dress guru in his own church.
We, the men of South Africa, keep our woman happy as far as we can master. You, oh great one, have many women. You keep them silent and happy, raising your many children away from the spotlight that scorches your daily life. Each time you take another wife, we see glimpses of her for a day or two and then she too disappears into the shadows of Zuma. How do you do it?
How do you walk on a stage and captivate every person that sees you there? How do you sing a song with such harsh words and get the nation to do your backing vocals? When did you realise that your personality keeps people glued to your lips? Waiting for your laugh to come from deep inside your belly?
You are now walking ahead – behind you are a lot of angry men. The taxi drivers want you dead, the opposition wants you in prison, the shack dwellers want you poor, the rapists in our country want you vindicated, the females wants your balls cut off.
The rich want you at their parties, the poor wants you to come and experience how 10 000 share a single tap. The sick want you on a drip next to them lying in filth whilst the nurse stole the bedding from hospital.
The AIDS patients want to hear your secrets of avoiding this illness, the treatment campaigns wants you to eat beetroot till you vomit. The Gays cheer you on, but stay clear of any space you may be visiting, fearing your hound dogs in black suits with earpieces might be too attractive for them to ignore.
Motorists wants your car to crash and burn between the blue light thugs that force a way on the crowded highways for you. Motorcycle drivers plant trees in the potholes that used to be our roads, hoping you will share their sense of humor.
But Zuma stays as secretive and closed as the day he first appeared on a screen. Happy, singing, dancing, smiling, laughing large man that falls asleep during long tedious speeches and trials, rolls his eyes at news cameras and is never seen shocked.
We the men of SA, we are watching and learning from a man that is just that – a man.
