January 5, 2008

ANC head adds a fourth wife

I hadn't been following the election of Jacob Zuma as president of the African National Congress, the ruling party of South Africa, other that this item from the genially witty I, Ectomorph:
Quote of the day:
"I am happy Zuma won because under his rule women will have fewer rights," said Johannesburg parking attendant Brilliant Khambule.

It just works on all levels.

But, Brilliant does seem to have a point. The Washington Post reports:
Zuma, 65, is a former guerrilla with no formal education and a personal theme song, "Bring Me My Machine Gun" [Zuma sing it to his supporters here], that evokes the party's history of armed struggle rather than its more recent emphasis on the unglamorous work of reconciliation.

As a polygamist with a reported 16 children -- as well as a former rape defendant acquitted in 2006 -- Zuma has alienated many South African women, and his personal life threatens to tarnish the party's image as a champion of gender equality. The wedding, scheduled for Saturday, would bring the number of his current wives to four, news reports say. ...

His ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is South Africa's foreign minister and, according to many reports, Mbeki's preferred successor as party leader before Zuma's election last month. Another wife, Kate Zuma, killed herself in 2000. In a scathing suicide note, published by a South African newspaper, she wrote that her married life was "hell."

Among Zuma's three current wives is his first, Sizakele Zuma, news reports here say. His marriage to Ntuli would make four.

Zuma's sexual encounter with a family friend infected with HIV also became public fodder after she accused him of rape. Zuma defeated those charges in court, but statements from the trial -- including his assertions that her knee-length skirt made clear her sexual intentions and that his culture compelled him to satisfy her -- outraged women's rights groups.

But many of his supporters reached a different conclusion about that trial, saying the rape charges came only after the family of the woman, who was not publicly named, tried but failed to have Zuma take her as a wife.

My Cameroonian friend always said he wanted four wives. He wasn't Muslim, but he agreed with them that four was enough.

He planned to add an additional wife each decade. Anthropologists call this "gerontocratic polygamy." One theory is that it tends to appeal to women in disease-ridden environments, like Africa. If a man survives to age 65, like Zuma, then he must have a good immune system, so his offspring would be more likely to inherit good immune system genes, thus making him a good father.

Incidentally, my friend had gotten married in Cameroon as a teenager and had a son. Then he went off to UCLA and kind of forgot about being married. Much to his surprise, about a half dozen years later, his wife showed up in LA one day, leaving their son behind with relatives. He wasn't sure he wanted a wife, but quickly came to enjoy having her around, and they had had another baby just before I met them.

A Ghanaian friend in Chicago told almost the exact same story about how his semi-forgotten wife had showed up one day. It's a happier variant on the one John Updike tells in The Coup, which matches the story of Barack Obama Sr. almost exactly: a married African student attends an American college and bigamously marries an American girl. (Updike has an African son-in-law and an African daughter-in-law, so he knows Africa far better than most Americans. Plus, he's John Updike, so he notices stuff.)

Update: Ben Trovato asks:

Why, in the name of God, won't someone bring Jacob Zuma his machine gun? I can no longer stand by and watch the man suffer like this. Has he not been through enough?

There is an organisation called the Friends of Jacob Zuma, and yet not one of its members is willing to do as he asks. Some friends.

Jacob Zuma has anywhere between two and five wives. But what good is that if none will go the extra mile? Who brings him his pint of Ijuba after another exhausting live concert outside the Pietermartizburg High Court? As a proud Zulu man, he cannot be expected to fetch his own sorghum beer and automatic weapon.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

16 comments:

  1. If elected, will Obama follow his father´s footsteps? I mean, have a couple or more women on the side?
    Still, Obama doesn´t conjure up the image of the "Big Man" in the African sense.

    I wonder if the rumours of his homosexuality are true? He certainly does look the part, according to my (admitedly prone to error) gaydar.
    That would explain his inexplicably tormented youth.
    If there´s any truth to that, Hilary should be busy right now leaking it to the press.

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  2. which matches the story of Barack Obama Sr. almost exactly: a married African student attends an American college and bigamously marries an American girl.

    Except that the current whispers around Washington (and I imagine the Hillary! dirty laundry department is busy at work on this) is that no one has been able to find any legal documentation that Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham were ever actually married. Not that it makes much difference, but it would be interesting to nail down.

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  3. Of course, in Winnie Mandela's day, it would have read
    "ANC wife adds a fourth head"

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  4. Nah, I don't pick up anything at all on my gaydar concerning Obama -- e.g., he remains a pretty fanatical basketball player in his 40s. Gays don't go in much for team sports, especially as a lifelong hobby. And he's a golfer, which is one of the most reliable indicators that a man isn't gay.

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  5. Man, it's depressing to see the ANC leadership degenerate from genuinely impressive figures like Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and Joe Slovo to clowns and criminals like Mbeki and Zuma. South African whites will yet regret the assassination of Chris Hani, one of the few decent and fair-minded ANC leaders from the younger generation.

    I asked a South African friend what she thought of her home country's long-term prospects, and her assessment was that it's another Zimbabwe in the making.

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  6. "I asked a South African friend what she thought of her home country's long-term prospects, and her assessment was that it's another Zimbabwe in the making."

    Ditto here but I asked years ago. She said things will likely remain stable if troubled until Mandela is dead then sink like a stone....

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  7. African polygamist patterns of family/society seem stable-unstable.

    Stable in that the pattern can persist for millennia even though it is clear that polygamy family/society organization keeps African societies poor, violent, and unable to compete with other monogamist and wealthier powers. First Colonialist Europe and now, China.

    Unstable in that polygamy means that for the three extra wives that Zuma takes, there are three men without wives, plotting, waiting in the bush or slums or whatever.

    If you've read Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom" he makes the same point about the UK's white underclass -- it has the same defacto polygamy and the same stable/unstable characteristics, particularly violence and failure.

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  8. SS:

    And he's a golfer, which is one of the most reliable indicators that a man isn't gay.

    Interesting. Is there something in golf that puts gays off or is it simply a matter of fashion?
    What are the gayest sports? Track and swimming?

    Back to Obama, there´s something about the man that doesn´t look right.Has he any known health issues? He looks sickly.

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  9. Mandela and Slovo were communist criminals. None of them were "impressive". South Africa, like every country under black rule, is screwed.

    And mark my words, America is going to be toast if Obama is elected.

    You think Bush is bad? You ain't seen nothing yet.

    Watch the flood of illiterate migrant workers from Mexico. Watch the pressure from Jeremiah Wright and the media to be the most-diversest-president evah.

    The Ashkenazim will still get places at the table, of course (or else we'll see a steady drumbeat of retrospectively hilarious articles like this: http://www.observer.com/node/43888).

    But the rest of the administration will be staffed with NAMs as far as the eye can see. Imagine legion upon legion of Roderick Paiges...no longer hidden in no-account departments like Education, but front and center in every governmental agency.

    At best, black ruled cities in the US have been flooded (Nagin) or flooded with criminals (Dinkins)...at worst they've completely fallen apart, like DC under Marion Barry or Detroit under Coleman Young.

    Now we're talking about a black ruled country. And not just any country, but the USA! The opportunities for plunder and malfeasance are limitless.

    Obama himself is not stupid...but his cabinet and administration will manifest incompetence, cronyism, and corruption on an unprecedented level.

    Actually, there would be precedent -- in Africa. You really want to think about shorting your stocks and leaving the US if he looks like ly to gain the presidency.

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  10. Mandela and Slovo were communist criminals. None of them were "impressive". South Africa, like every country under black rule, is screwed.

    Exactly. Anyone who couldn't see this disaster coming is...well...Peter Gabriel.

    I'm just surprised things have deteriorated so rapidly.

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  11. Obama IS stupid. He has made his limited political career out of catering to wealthy white liberals jockeying to be as "morally pure" as possible for let's be honest, status.

    This is why he makes stupid statements about his world "apology for America tour" after he's elected President.

    Any Republican at this point could beat him. Obama needed Jack Ryan to be kicked out by scandal (the wife-swapping thing with Jeri Ryan of Star Trek Voyager) and up against Alan Keyes.

    Love Alan Keyes, but he's not the most impressive political candidate around. Beating him is like me beating up Vern Troyer in a cage match.

    Ashkenazi Jews are not some monolithic bloc, many are fairly conservative. Adam Sandler for example is a Rudy Backer. They are unlikely to be part of an Obama Administration (which would consist pretty much of the Chicago political machine that backs him). Which in any case is never going to happen.

    A few wealthy white liberals positioning themselves in the Iowa Caucuses as the most enlightened is not the same as the privacy of the voting booth. Ask Governor Tom Bradley.

    As for Black run cities, Wellington Web did not preside over disaster in Denver. Neither did Tom Bradley in LA. Dennis Kucinich meanwhile made Cleveland unlivable for generations in his one term in office (through all his damage).

    Some black pols CAN find their butts in the dark with either hand. That's minimal competence but yes it does exist.

    What is scary is Huckafool. He's like Al Gore a shady character, another Benny Hinn only more cagey. Huckaboo-boo understands that people are tired of the PC-religion junk and tired of that "religion" being forced down their throats. From everything to icky sex themes on primetime TV when kids are watching to condoms for middle schoolers to every religion but Christianity allowed in the public square. I say this as a non-believer myself, I can understand it.

    Pat Buchanon DID get the culture war right, the importance of it, even if he got nearly everything else wrong. Huckaboo is riding that wave of anger over a debased culture.

    Of course Huckaboo is for open borders, amnesty, Affirmative Action for illegals, his own "world apology tour for America" and basically everything Jimmy Carter ever thought up.

    But that anger exists. It's real. And potent to whoever can manage to capture it. Which won't be Obama.

    Like Steve said, the tolerance for Affirmative Action and other idiot schemes is only there as long as Whites are relatively well off and in the large majority. Neither condition obtains now.

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  12. Obama is perfect medicine for guilty white liberals and -neocons-. It's possible that future cultural enforcers -commissars- will enact mandatory race mixing on this continent or at least -first dibs on wedding night- for dark men in the pale man's home. All done in the tradition of the medieval lord's primae noctis. Or maybe coercion will be unnecessary..a pop culture flooded with heroic black sexual images for decades might do the trick. Author Alon Ziv claims we're on the cusp of an unprecedented interracial age. But, frustratingly, whites are still outmarrying at very low levels.

    Female career advancement in the modern matriarchy is causing white females to view large numbers of white males as -less than husband material-. Not to mention the black and hispanic males. Asian men have the financial status but they can't seem to close the deal in large numbers either. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

    It follows that the authorities will have to turn up the heat. President Obama is a good start. But only a start.

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  13. "But the rest of the administration will be staffed with NAMs as far as the eye can see. Imagine legion upon legion of Roderick Paiges...no longer hidden in no-account departments like Education, but front and center in every governmental agency."

    I'm not an Obama supporter, but just to play devil's advocate: wouldn't Obama be under less pressure to add diversity hires than a white president (particularly a white Republican president)? Bush has appointed the most ethnically/racially diverse cabinet in U.S. history. I doubt Obama's would as diverse.

    "Obama is perfect medicine for guilty white liberals and -neocons-"

    Obama is opposes the Neocon foreign policy completely. He also opposes their pro-growth domestic policy, for that matter.

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  14. Dave David -- as noted Neocons loathe Obama's policies and person. Which might be said to be a melange of the worst parts of "President Bartlett" from the "West Wing" TV show.

    Running around and talking a lot importantly is not getting things done.

    As for marriage, and inter-marriage, if people want to marry someone, why not?

    Would you want Zoe Kravitz or Halle Berry as your girlfriend? I sure would!

    But like the small pressure on Jews not to intermarry and lose racial-cultural identity, there is considerable pressure among Blacks to NEVER intermarry. Because it is viewed as a betrayal of those who struggled for survival in slavery and segregation.

    The idea of "droit du seignor" is laughable and not serious. Not only would Blacks object to it, particularly Black women, it would cause an open revolts.

    Women with their own earnings and freedom want ... the most Alpha man around there. Which isn't most men. Regardless of race. They end up pursuing the Alpha man until their fertility window closes. It's defacto polygamy. You see it in all nations where women have more earnings. Women naturally prefer Alphas and will put up with almost anything to get them. Mostly monogamous nuclear families being the organization of societies has been the aberration not the norm.

    Society will get very ugly as the men priced out of the relationship market (not having enough income differential vs. women to appear "Alpha" enough) make trouble. X box substitution can only go so far.

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  15. Evil Neocon - why is it that you always spell [Pat] Buchanan as 'Buchanon', what is that about? Is it deliberate?

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  16. We must rescue these people by bringing them here to America to reform them and simultaneously bask in their diversity. Jesus told me so. Surely you have room in your neighborhood, you sinner?

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