It’s Friday, President Jacob Zuma’s not going to #PayBackTheMoney and parliament is paralysed because Thuli Madonsela’s a spy. South African politics is too silly to take seriously, so I’ve hacked into the President’s iTunes account and am listening to his beats.
There is a soul classic from the 1970s called ‘If Loving you is wrong I don’t wanna be right’. Everyone from Percy Sledge to Rod Stewart has covered it. It has a universal sort of appeal: you know that it’s irrational and morally wrong to do something but you do it anyway. You accept that you shouldn’t do it, but it feels so good that resisting it simply isn’t an option.
I have a sense that if you asked them to choose a theme song, the ANC parliamentarians who continue to defend Zuma would unanimously vote for this one. Their boss might concur. Or he might choose the legendary James Brown hit ‘I feel good’ as the first song on his iTunes.
In many ways, Zuma’s ascent has been characterised by his own dogged belief that he will do what feels good, even when he knows that it is wrong. What other explanation can we have…