Election day

Today I did my democratic duty by voting in the national and provincial elections of South Africa. I did so with a certain sense accomplishment, about myself and my country. Here I was, a citizen of a country on the African continent, a continent notorious for the absence or distortion of democracy, and I could vote in total freedom, with utter peace and tranquillity. It was first an accomplishment for the country - its fourth general election since the momentous change in 1994. My personal accomplishment was my part in bringing about this day in the history of this country through my vote years ago in a deciding referendum, which with the votes of many other fellow South Africans, had given to the government of the day the mandate for change to a fully democratic system in South Africa. The rest of the day went by in casual idle - it was a public holiday.

I am not looking forward to the likely next state president, Mr Jacob Zuma. The man is an unbearable embarrassment to all with even a remote sense of modern civilisation. A leader of the Zulu ethnic group, Mr Zuma occasionally enjoys parading about in his traditional skins and paraphernalia when he visits his tribe in KwaZulu-Natal Province. He also has a propensity for ungainly quasi-tribal dance steps on the public podium when the mood takes him. He has a rather colourful past and does not strike one as a person fit to represent a modern country on the international stage. I cannot for one moment imagine Gorden Brown, the British PM, engaging in stone-age Celtic rites when he visits his origins in Scotland.

Alas, one will have to deal with reality and that means feeling increasingly alienated in my own country.