Durban — An outrageous miscellany of lies, myths, untruths, fibs and fabrications that tell the woeful history of South Africa. Aimed at offending and entertaining everyone in equal measure, this will have South Africans sniggering and spluttering into their porridge. It will also pique their curiosity.
The lies come thick and fast, like a burst sewerage pipe. Way, way back the Europeans “discovered” southern Africa and found a land that was largely uninhabited. Um, no. On the other hand, Africa was a paradise before the settlers pulled in. Not quite!
Back in the darkest of ages (the 1970s!), citizens were told that there were Satanic messages if you played songs by The Beatles backwards. During the civil war in Angola, there were no South African troops in that country. National icon Hansie Cronje was a paragon of virtue and integrity … until he wasn’t. President Nelson Mandela told us that we, as a nation, were “special”. Turns out we aren’t.
This is an extract from Jonathan Ancer’s book “BULLSH!T: 50 Fibs That Made South Africa”, written after consulting with historians and barflies and encapsulating a fascinating and witty collection of the lies we’ve been told – and the lies we tell ourselves.
It is published by Jonathan Ball and the recommended retail price is R270.
15 YEARS AT DEATH’S DOOR
Schabir Shaik shook his head. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” he told a reporter. “I can’t believe it!”
It was November 6, 2006, and the Supreme Court of Appeal had just dismissed his appeal against his corruption and fraud convictions. His luck had run out. Three days later, he began serving a 15-year stretch behind bars.
However, it wasn’t long before Shaik’s fortune turned and he started losing his eyesight, suffered a stroke, was diagnosed with life-threatening organ failure due to malignant hypertension and reached the final phase of a terminal disease. Just two-and-a-bit years after knocking at the door of Westville Prison in Durban, Shaik was knock-knock-knocking on heaven’s door.
The parole board decided that even if he didn’t have a dignified life, he should at least be allowed a dignified death. So, on March 3, 2009, an ambulance stopped outside his home in Musgrave, a suburb of Durban with majestic sea views, and Shaik slithered out.
He had spent most of his jail time in St Augustine’s private hospital and Inkosi Albert Luthuli state hospital. People think Shaik had it easy in hospital but it was a bitter pill. I mean, there were at least two patients to one TV remote.
Shaik had been Jacob Zuma’s financial adviser. And by “adviser”, I mean ATM. He paid for the former president’s clothes, his children’s school fees, gave him R700 in a brown bag at the airport (from his company’s petty cash) and bailed him out when creditors came calling. And what did he get in return? Prison, that’s what. Zuma didn’t even name one of his children after his comrade-in-arms deal.
There were no strings attached to Shaik’s largesse ‒ at least that’s what he told the court. But Judge Hilary Squires disagreed and found his evidence less than impressive. Shaik, he ruled, had been buying Zuma’s influence to sell on to arms dealers, and he must go to the slammer.
Fortunately, an incurable ailment came along in the nick of time. And with the clock of terminal illness ticking, Shaik began to live out his final days in Durban. As days turned into weeks and the Grim Reaper failed to clip Shaik’s one-way ferry ticket across the River Styx, news spread of the businessman’s remarkable recovery.
People came from all over the country to get a glimpse of this modern-day Sisyphus and for a chance to be in the presence of this extraordinary medical miracle. Just like the king from Greek mythology, Shaik had managed, with cigar in hand, to LOL in the face of terminal illness and slip the bonds of death.
Fans and newshounds stalked him on the beaches, they stalked him on the golf courses and they stalked him at Nando’s. It wasn’t only Shaik-spotting that became all the rage; Shaik became all the rage too. He was accused of punching a man outside a mosque, assaulting a caddie, throttling and slapping a reporter and threatening to kick another reporter “in his p**s”.
After coming out of the Big House, he found that 18 holes was the best way to Shaik off those jailhouse blues. Maybe his doctor told him he needed more greens.
While Shaik was putting for birdies, Jackie Selebi, the former national commissioner of police and president of Interpol, became a jailbirdie. He was convicted of corruption and handed a 15-year sentence. And as the saying goes, if you can’t do the time, get medical parole. So, after just 229 days in prison – with a terminal illness diagnosis to his name – Selebi came home.
Shortly after his release he was photographed shopping, seemingly healthy, which prompted questions about whether his recovery was as miraculous as Shaik’s. But it was not to be. Two-and-a-half years after Selebi shuffled out of prison, he shuffled off this mortal coil.
Shaik, however, has continued to surpass all expectations in his daily tango with terminal illness.
Scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark examined how long patients with terminal illness lived after they were diagnosed. Of the 11 062 people in the study, the average survival time after diagnosis was 55 days. The research also found that patients with a non-cancer terminal illness – which is the diagnosis for Shaik – lived for just 17 days.
Schabir Shaik has spent 15 years at death’s door. When it comes to living with a terminal illness, Shaik is an outlier – or maybe he’s just an outright liar.
THE ZUMA SHAIKDOWN
In Schabir Shaik’s fraud and corruption trial, Judge Hilary Squires said the evidence showed that Shaik readily asked Jacob Zuma for help and Zuma readily provided it. The judge found that while Shaik paid Zuma’s debts, Zuma could never “pay back the money” (a phrase that would later become the EFF’s political calling card). The clear inference to be drawn was that Shaik had paid money to Zuma to achieve some business-related benefit.
Shaik solicited a bribe of R500 000 a year for Zuma from Thomson-CSF in return for protection against investigation into alleged corruption on the part of Thomson and its role in the arms deal. The smoking gun in the case was an encrypted fax from the CEO of Thomson’s SA subsidiary, Thint, confirming the bribe.
While Zuma has continued to dodge arms deal justice (see #24), when he found himself behind bars he played the medical parole card himself.
Independent on Saturday