Antjie Krog speaks to The Independent about Jacob Zuma

Whatever is being said is arid opportunism. There is no intellectual engagement with politicians.

Jacob Zuma? “I have heard stories about how remarkable he was during the apartheid times, and I would have thought that that calibre of a man would be brave enough to say: I will not sully the seat of Nelson Mandela by being a President while all of these accusations, however unfair I feel them to be, hang over me. I refuse to be a President when this is hanging over me. Now for such a man I could vote.

“But we don’t know to what extent others have pushed him, others that have the power... the pressure to drop the accusations is a sad state of affairs.” At the same time I am quite confused. For the first time in my life I don’t know who to vote for.

SHOOT: Vote for truth. Vote for morality. The DA.

clipped from www.independent.co.uk But I do feel anger that a country with so much potential and a group of people who so successfully threw aside apartheid and so impressively held the moral high ground, could now sound so bankrupt, so politically and spiritually bankrupt as we do. “I am angry at that but there is some kind of normality in it. These are good things to be concerned about. At least it is not the anguish of the apartheid years when it seemed that would never end.” “People use the corruption and lack of services to validate racism. It seems that during apartheid it was clear to everybody what was right and what was wrong, but it is indeed becoming more and more difficult to work out nowadays what is right and what is wrong.” Such as? Well, she says, people in rural areas who stand up, burn things, plunder trains or schools and complain because their services are bad. “Part of me says: good for you for standing up. Another part says, why not do something constructive instead of undoing?