MANDY WIENER: Politicians (particularly from ANC) are trying to revise history

In his excellent podcast series ‘Revisionist History’, writer Malcolm Gladwell interrogates how our memories as human beings are fallible. He references excellent examples such as that of broadcaster Brian Williams's distorted recollection of his experiences in Iraq, to demonstrate how memory erodes over time. We can be absolutely certain of how events unfolded yet when faced with evidence to the contrary that challenges our memories, must admit that things did not play out as we remember them.

“Only a fool accepts the evidence of his own memory as gospel, and we’re all fools,” says Gladwell in the series.

What we are already seeing from politicians this year as election season gets into full swing, is an attempt at revisionist history. Expect many attempts at airbrushing past failures, particularly by the ruling ANC and its representatives.

South Africa has a particularly eventful news cycle. This means that for most citizens, it is incredibly difficult to remember the minutia of every scandal. We can’t recall every version or explanation presented by government officials around a story because there are often too many to recall. That’s what happens when you tell fibs. You forget which version is which and which one is the truth.

The controversy over ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula’s comments on the party ‘polishing’ former President Jacob Zuma’s image and lying about the Nkandla fire pool to parliament is a good example of this.

I have a clear memory of then Police Minister Nathi Nhleko in May 2015, sweating, explaining to the country that the R4 million swimming pool built at Zuma’s Nkandla residence was in fact a fire pool and a security feature. If you don’t share that memory, then you can go watch the actual briefing here. This week Nhleko stood by his statements and maintained the pool was in fact a fire pool and that the report he presented was backed up by facts and evidence and ‘scientific work’.

In his initial statements, Mbalula attempted to airbrush our collective memory of that event and weaponise it as an election tool. He fumbled and inadvertently confessed that the ANC had misled parliament on the issue to protect Zuma.

“In defence of our President, we went to Parliament and opened an ad hoc committee and said a swimming pool is a fire pool. The [then] police minister [Nathi Nhleko] was sweating, seeing that this was a lie because it is difficult to explain lies. People have lost their careers because of that thing,” Mbalula said at an ANC event this week.

He has said that his statements had been misrepresented by the media and ‘it is false and misleading to claim that there have been new admissions or revelations’. Mbalula pointed to an interview done with EWN’s associate political editor Tshidi Madia in 2022 in which he made similar remarks.

What the stance does show however is that the approach taken by the ANC in response to the Nkandla scandal is vintage ANC. It is an attempt at revising what happened in the past. It has historically placed party before state, compromising in whatever way to ensure that the party is protected to the detriment of the state.

Political analyst Dr Ongama Mtimka emphasised this in an interview on The Midday Report this week.

“The ANC’s own voters have been withdrawing support since 2009. Voters were never under any illusions during the fire pool saga that it was in fact not a fire pool. It simply gives political or in fact even legal ammunition to those who want to explore if there are any avenues to bring the party to book in light of the new revelations. Many South Africans are clear that this is what the ANC does at a national level, at municipalities when it is faced with officials whom internal audit findings paint a bad picture of. It closes ranks, it protects both politicians and senior municipal officials. So, it is vintage ANC. It is nothing new,” said Mtimka.

As we find ourselves moving deeper into election season, institutional memory and accurate recollections of prior events will be crucial. Journalists and interviewers will have more of a role to play in fact-checking statements from politicians and holding them to account when they attempt to revise the past. You can expect an airbrushing of past controversies and a massaging of the truth in the interests of swaying voters.

Stay alert. If you doubt your memory and consider yourself a fool as Gladwell suggested, at least there are the video archives to remind us of the sweating politician farcically explaining how a swimming pool is in fact a fire pool.