RAMAPHOSA’S CHIAROSCURO
This week in South Africa, the little known concept of CHIAROSCURO [meaning shady in this context], describing a technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow – first brought to its full potential by Leonardo da Vinci – landed firmly in our South African firmament. And a serving President has an open criminal dossier; that’s a BIG thing.
A shady character and former Zuma spy boss, Arthur Fraser, laid charges of corruption, money laundering and kidnapping against President Ramaphosa, accusing him of covering up a multimillion dollar burglary at his Phala Phala game farm. One could literally hear the nation’s major power players & ex power players drawing gasps of shock, denial, but mostly of joyous retribution.
THE THEFT
Consider the theft. Apparently USD 4 million was stashed away in chairs & sofas at Ramaphosa’s high-end game farm Phala Phala. It made me think of the old joke that my grandmother preferred to keep the proceeds from her home store under the mattress because she did not trust the banks. Only difference is that she legitimately earned that money – it was legit.
PAID OFF TO SHUT UP
Because Fraser is so shady, the story was at first treated with some scepticism, but as the week rolled by more information seeped through the upholstery. It was Ramaphosa’s house cleaner who vacuumed the money, ably assisted by other shady characters. Later in the week it emerged that her partners in crime were aggressively interrogated and then paid off to shut up. FACT IS the ever smiling, benign looking, President Ramaphosa, covered up the crime until exposed. THERE IS ALWAYS A BAD REASON FOR COVERING UP A CRIME – period; as the Americans say.
THE JOYFUL ONES
Into this rushed the disgraced Public Protector, who was quickly suspended by the President for other innumerable acts of violating her oath of office, incompetence and being under impeachment investigation – truly a shady character.
CHIAROSCURO manifested itself again and again, with shady characters such as communist styled Supreme Commander Malema & comrades storming centre stage and parliament, again. Into the mix marched former military leader [of a Bantustan] Holomisa, and now a democratically elected elder. Multiple Zuma partisans are currently still fuming at the mouth as I write this and yet other ANC faction leaders are quietly sharpening their knives in the shade.
Meanwhile President Ramaphosa, who shocked reasonable South Africans to the core with this story of his COVER UP, was acting out the benign and reasonable part of his persona again. Yes it took place, and yes I will cooperate fully with the police, I could have, should have …… Unfortunately for him, it is now one pontoon bridge too far. He has become the subject of abuse. Those who differ from him will take a leaf out of the Trump / Republican Party playbook – abuse your opponents and don’t’ allow mere criticism or differences to stand in the way. Press the ‘low life’, ‘corrupt’, ‘coward’, and other Trumpian buttons, and you are allowed access to the Ramaphosa condemnation show.
A TO Z, WITH A SHORT DETOUR THROUGH R
A IS FOR ARREST – AND THE BIG A THIS WEEK WAS GUPTA & GUPTA BEHIND BARS. MAYBE Z WAS FOR ZUMA, BUT THAT IS ALREADY AN OLD AND SORDID STORY. THIS WEEK THE R IN RAMAPHOSA STANDS FOR RETALLIATION & RETRIBUTION.
What they all now have in common, is the Money in Morality. They share different shades of bars; Zuma was already behind bars, the Gupta’s are awaiting their transfer to their place behind bars in South Africa, and Ramaphosa has moved frighteningly close to the shadows of bars.
Truly, sadly, but yes, multiple cases of CHIAROSCURO – a word aptly employed in an excellent piece by Poplak in Daily Maverick, The Shakespearean Tragedy of Cyril Ramaphosa:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-10-the-shakesperean-tragedy-of-cyril-ramaphosa/
My favourite President is leaving a minimalist black-and-white chiaroscuro of ambition, greed and misery imprinted on his legacy, with the Ramaphosa criminal dossier wide open.
But tomorrow is another day. It may be a case of “Events dear boy, events”. [Answer given by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan when he was asked what the greatest challenge was for a statesman]