At first glance it looked like a cruel hoax: marketing bumph circulated on Monday suggested that convicted abuser and violent misogynist Mduduzi Manana was being promoted as a speaker at a gathering against gender-based violence, under the headline: “Legends united against gender based violence”.
Things got even weirder on Tuesday, when news headlines suggested Manana had been invited so “both sides” of the appalling story could be represented. You know, the way Eugene de Kock gets invited to address commemorations on June 16.
Below the headlines, however, the story was more complicated. In a series of increasingly frantic Facebook posts, organisers Shevolution Africa explained that Manana was not going to deliver a speech on Saturday. Rather, he would be sitting on a panel to face questions from a no doubt angry audience.
They did not explain why they thought it was a good idea to have a picture of him on one of their posters: the only place Manana’s picture should appear is on flyers warning people to stay away.
The official narrative was one of justifiable outrage. And then Manana withdrew altogether. But I suspect the real story here is lurking between the lines. To winkle it out in the open, we need to go back a week. That was when Manana appeared in a video clip, citing the “hard lessons” he had learned and urging men to join last week’s women’s march. Because obviously what a women’s march needed was more men.I must confess I’m not sure which “hard lessons” Manana was referring to. His conviction for assaulting three women came with jail time or the payment of a R100,000 fine? For a deputy minister, R100,000 is about two weeks’ pay. If Manana thinks that’s a hard lesson he must have found Grade 5 very difficult.
So why was Manana posting videos of himself pretending to care about gender-based violence? Why did he agree to help raise funds in the fight against people like him?
The answer lies in one of Shevolution Africa’s Facebook posts. Not the ones punting the Miss Wild Coast semifinal. The one in which the organisation claims it “actively participates in programmes geared towards the re-integration of offenders into society”.
Now, I don’t know Mr Manana but I imagine he wants to be reintegrated into society as fast as possible so he can get back to earning R200,000 a month for warming a leather armchair.
The ANC usually reintegrates scumbags simply by reintegrating them into government. But we’re coming up to an election which means Manana is going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: crocodile tears on a carefully planned rehabilitation tour.
If paying R100,000 was a hard lesson, imagine how he’ll whine when he’s back in government in a year or two...