Are Zulus obligated to rape?

Mavis Makuni:

THE rape trial of former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma continues to be a Pandora's box of shocking and bizarre revelations about the behaviour and philosophies of the man who has ambitions to become the leader of his country when Thabo Mbeki's current and last term of office ends in 2009.

While it is true that persons accused of rape and their lawyers always come up with the most fanciful testimonies to show why they should not face the wrath of the law for violating the rights of their victims, Zuma's court utterances are more disturbing and have an absurd quality about them because of who he is. One simply expects him to know better.

This is a man who less than a year ago was the second most powerful man in a country regarded as Africa's most advanced economy. Being a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land, the least that could be expected of this man was that he was aware of the tenets of the country's constitution and laws, which he had an obligation to uphold.

But far from giving that reassuring impression of a leader who was aware of his duty to serve South Africans of all ethnic and racial groups, Zuma has chosen to portray himself as someone who has been unable to rise above the confines of his Zulu culture to be in a position to navigate his way under a cosmopolitan dispensation in "a rainbow nation" as his esteemed countryman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, would put it.

South African law says, "Thou shalt not rape". Fullstop. It does not say you may be exempted from culpability if you are Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Anglo-Saxon, Tswana, Ndebele or Sotho. But incredibly, Zuma has tried to use his Zulu upbringing to justify his actions on the night he is alleged to have raped a 31-year-old HIV positive woman, described as a family friend, without wearing a condom.

The main thrust of his defence is that he did not force his attentions on the young woman but had consensual sex with her. In an attempt to drive this point home, Zuma told the presiding judge that in accordance with his Zulu upbringing, it was not the done thing for a man to leave a woman in a state of arousal. In other words, he had an obligation to rape her whether she liked it or not or whether it was right or wrong.

South African newspapers reported Zuma last weekend as claiming that a woman could get a man arrested for this supposed dereliction of duty. It is not clear who would effect such an arrest and whether law enforcement agents in South Africa are aware of this unusual aspect of their duties.

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