Sigh. But for reals, Mr President?

It's not the the Mail and Guardian's release and analysis of the KPMG forensic audit on Zuma and his finances comes as much of a surprise. Ever since the Arms Deal and the Shaik trial, it's been fairly indubitable that Zuma's not as squeaky clean and incorruptible as he has always maintained. And it's not that I'm not pro public interest media, but the M&G's pre-Manguang timing is not going to do them any favours when they are inevitably criticized for "being political"...

Look, Zuma is not the first, only and won't be the last politician with a dubious financial history. Shady finance sort of goes with the territory it would seem. Politicians abusing their office crosses party lines like nothing else. For me what it comes down to is inconsiderate abandon of the responsibilities granted to them by their electorate. Now, like most South Africans, I'm no forensic auditor and so as this whole situation unfolds I'm going to have to rely on the interpretations of others more skilled in the gentle art of financial management to make up my mind. But I'm a human being, capable of feeling, and being inconsiderate is something that I can see and understand.

About a year ago now I went on a site visit of "problem toilets" in Khayelitsha with some ward councillors and city officials; a particular flavour of politician. At one point, we stopped at a standpipe where a young woman was just starting to fill up a large bucket of water. We stood around as local residents talked about their lack of access to toilets, about how they have to come to fetch water for cleaning, cooking, drinking, washing, everything, from this standpipe. They explained how the ground here is dirty and invited one of the visiting officials to reach down and feel it. Not given much of a choice, he bent down and connected just the tips of his fingers with the ground. It looked dry at places, but he'd got a bit of a mushy patch.

As the group started to move on, the official walked over to the standpipe where the woman's bucket was close to full. Looking away from the standpipe and toward the group as he started to talk again, the official moved his hands under the steady stream of water filling the woman's bucket. The water covered his hands and then dropped into her bucket as he rubbed his fingers clean. I looked at the woman standing next to his shadow and watched her watching the water flowing over the man's dirty hands and into her bucket in sepia slow-motion.

"What if she has to cook with that?" whispered my companion, equally mesmerized and confused by the scene.
"Obviously he didn't think about that." I whispered in reply. Now I wish we had shouted.

There are many ways to be an inconsiderate politician: you can steal tax money, take bribes, you can revel in your unearned wealth while your neighbours starve. Or you can wash your dirty hands in somebody else's bucket. I can't quite work out whether inconsiderateness occurs along a spectrum, where bribery is definitely worse than insensitivity, or whether each activity occupies its own paradigm of wrong, and it's how deep you go down that paradigm that adds to the severity of each action.

And as if Zuma isn't bad enough, the DA circus that is sure to arrive soon will no doubt drive me up the mountain. Yuk, yuk, yuk. Maybe anarchic self-government is the way forward?