Things change. In the old days to be a hero you had to do something brave, more often than not alone. These days to be a hero you have to perform in front of a crowd, have them standing in the gallery, cheering you on.
Like on Thursday when the EFF rushed at public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan as he stood to speak at the podium in the National Assembly.
That's the new heroics, designed for a TV audience, devoid of any bravery at all, utterly disgusting and hypocritical in the extreme.
Apparently they were doing it because Gordhan has failed to meekly bow to the ludicrous "findings" made about him by arguably the worst public protector we have had in our democracy, and there's been some stiff competition for that accolade. "The EFF is the teeth, the sword & the shield of the Constitution & its Institutions [sic]," crowed EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi after the party was ejected from parliament. Like hell it is. The EFF is an existential threat to the constitution and the entire country.
I've had a fraction of the experience Gordhan had on Thursday, three years ago now outside my home. It's ugly and frightening. The game is intimidation. They come incredibly close and incredibly loud. Flecks of spit hit you as they scream abuse at you. Having initials like mine doesn't help. They're careful not to touch you, though. If they touch you it's assault and they lose.
Back then I wasn't prepared. My pulse raced, adrenaline pumped. The accusations are so extreme you've never even thought about how you might answer such things. I remember asking one of the people screaming at me if he'd like some water. He looked at me as if I were mad.
Pravin Gordhan, though, would have known exactly what was happening on Thursday. He remained calm. He is an experienced and designing revolutionary. A lifetime of struggle would have prepared him for Thursday. He may look docile and gentle but Gordhan is arguably the most resilient and calculating politician in the country.
And while you may disagree with his politics and his policies, his integrity and courage, and the courage of his family, are exactly why I want to live here forever. He is a magnificent South African.
So as the EFF MPs left their benches to approach him, and other MPs moved out of their benches to defend him, Gordhan would have been ultra calm.
He would have known what to expect and I think I hear, on a recording, him saying to his defenders something along the lines of "wait for them to touch me".
I've had advice from him before. When the Guptas built an army of Twitter bots (fake accounts) to spread lies about me and had me under daily surveillance, I mentioned it to him at a chance meeting. He laughed. "That's common," he said. "We used to do that in the struggle. It's to put pressure on you, to disassemble you. We learned it from the [apartheid] security police."
If the public protector or the Zuma 'faction' of the ANC think they can scare Gordhan, trust me, they can't
— Peter Bruce
Even now, as he is often accused by the weak-kneed of being a bully, he won't have it. I remember once writing about it. I got a call the next morning. "Of course I shout at them," he said of the faceless officials in state-owned companies he was supposed to be bullying. "It's what we were taught to do.
When you shout you might scramble a brain and get an answer you hadn't expected."
Or words more or less to that effect. These quotes are my own reconstructions.
The thing is, he's been around. More than any minister in President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet, Gordhan can take the pressure. He's an expert. If the public protector or the Zuma "faction" (can there still be such a thing? Do they want Zuma to return in some form?) of the ANC think they can scare him, trust me, they can't.
Steve Biko told Donald Woods, the Daily Dispatch editor who, fortunately for me, was married to my sister Wendy, that if he was ever killed in detention Donald should know it would have been because of a fight and not self-harm. I still think of some slimy special branch hack slapping Steve in an interrogation and getting the fright of his life when he got moered back. Steve was a big guy. It would have hurt.
That's when they piled in and mortally wounded him. But they didn't know who they were dealing with. Neither, in Gordhan, does the EFF. They are as intellectually sharp as the security cops of old. Those guys thought they could do what they liked. That the future belonged to them. But they couldn't. And it didn't.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.