Gaslighting — a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception and sanity — Wikipedia.

Whichever KwaZulu-Natal High Court judge is saddled, on 23 August 2019, with determining whether an urgent application by former Cabinet minister Derek Hanekom, to sue Jacob Zuma for calling him an “enemy agent”, will have to avoid the many decoys and distractions strewn along the path.

After an earlier struggle to serve Zuma with papers, the former president filed his answering affidavit with the court on Wednesday 21 August, in the nick of time. Hanekom is suing Zuma for a tweet posted on 29 July 2019 in which Zuma claimed Hanekom was “an enemy agent”.

Zuma’s affidavit opposing Hanekom’s relief not only suggests that the entire matter is “best left to the African National Congress and how it seeks to deal with those within its ranks that may have sold out their own comrades. It is also a matter best left to Hanekom’s own conscience”.

And in a supreme demonstration of expert gaslighting, the No 1 King of Meandos adds;

“The purpose of this affidavit is to demonstrate that it is actually Hanekom himself that continues to perpetuate a lie about his true role in the South African conflict during Apartheid”.

Go figure.

Before we head up shit creek without a paddle it is important for the tenuously sane among us to understand that the court will not be asked to determine whether Hanekom was a spy or not, but to cut to the heart of the “meaning” of Zuma’s statement.

Said Hanekom in his reply to Zuma:

“The dispute between Mr Zuma and me is confined to the meaning of his statement. I say that it means I was an apartheid spy. Mr Zuma says it does not. The resolution of the dispute is therefore primarily an interpretative exercise that the court is well equipped to perform on the papers.”

Widening the ambit of the potential damage of his unfounded (in court papers and elsewhere) allegation that Hanekom was an “agent”, Zuma, in his responding affidavit, claims Hanekom’s proposed court action is an attempt to “muzzle” him from giving further evidence to the Zondo Commission “relating to the existence of enemy spies in the ANC who are executing an intelligence plan”.

And just in case Hanekom didn’t get the message the first time round, Zuma adds that he “may or may not” include Hanekom in his further Zondo testimony, that he had “not yet mentioned him as an Apartheid spy” and that Hanekom’s role “during Apartheid may or may not be part of testimony in further forums”.

In his response to Zuma filed on Thursday 22 August, Hanekom said Zuma’s affidavit was “deeply offensive”.

“I say that Mr Zuma’s statement means, and was understood by those who read it to mean, that I was an apartheid spy. Mr Zuma denies this. He says that ‘my tweet has nothing to do with whether or not he was an apartheid spy’.”

Instead, added Hanekom, Zuma said the proper meaning of his tweet was that “Hanekom has connived and colluded with the enemies and opposition parties that sought to remove me as President of the Republic of South Africa.”

The only relevant question before the court, said Hanekom, was what Zuma’s statement means and how a reasonable reader would understand it.

“I say that, in the context of the liberation struggle in which both Mr Zuma and I fought on the side of the ANC against the apartheid state, the reasonable reader would understand ‘enemy agent’ to mean an agent of the apartheid state who infiltrated the ANC, pretending to be loyal to the ANC, but in fact answering to and furthering the interests of the apartheid regime,” said Hanekom.

Zuma, however, in his answering affidavit, claims that “enemy agent” in the context in which he tweeted the words “is a person who secretly met with the EFF” to plan for Parliament to vote to remove him as head of state.

This was, added Zuma, when there had been “no ANC resolution” to remove him.

“I point out that equating a political party represented in Parliament in a constitutional democracy to an ‘enemy agent’ is indefensible,” said Hanekom.

Zuma said his tweet correctly described Hanekom as an “agent” for “conniving with those who seek to undermine the objectives and resolutions of the ANC” and in the context of Hanekom’s meeting with the EFF’s Godrich Gardee.

“Who is the enemy on Mr Zuma’s interpretation? Is it the EFF, the other opposition parties and anyone, including any bona fide member of the ANC, who sought his removal as President of the country?” asked Hanekom.

Hanekom added that what Zuma actually said was that an “enemy” in fact meant “an enemy of Mr Zuma in his capacity as head of state”.

“I submit that the reasonable reader would not, when reading Mr Zuma’s tweet, have understood ‘enemy’ to mean the EFF, opposition parties or ANC members who wanted to remove him as head of state.”

Aha.

But, said Hanekom, Zuma went further.

“He called me an ‘enemy agent’. The word ‘agent’ means a person who acts on behalf of another person or group. An ‘enemy agent’, is therefore not merely someone who connives with the enemy, it is someone who acts on behalf of the enemy, secretly and dishonestly, someone who is on the enemy’s side.”

So, asked Hanekom, who’s “agent” was he, in Zuma’s interpretation?

What Zuma meant, said Hanekom was that an “enemy agent” was anyone he [Zuma] regarded as “political enemies”.

“The NEC of the ANC ultimately decided to remove Mr Zuma from office and this would, by his definition, mean that the NEC, in taking this decision, became his political enemy. That carries a different meaning altogether.”

And then the snotklap.

“It is an act of hubris to describe one’s political enemies as ‘enemy agents — enemies of the ANC and enemies of the state. Mr Zuma was not and is not synonymous with the ANC or the state.”

The “reasonable reader” would not understand the meaning of “enemy agent” in this manner — that is (in case you are confused or feel gaslit) “to mean one of the people who wanted Mr Zuma removed from office.”

“Mr Zuma and a handful of his supporters might confuse his political opponents with ‘enemy agents’ but the reasonable reader would not,” said Hanekom.

In fact, any, sane, rational person, said Hanekom, would be well aware that it is legitimate ANC practice to recall a head of state.

“It is the prerogative of any political party that adheres to democratic principles. (Ironically it was Mr Zuma who led the charge to remove Mr Mbeki as head of state). The reasonable reader therefore does not associate ‘enemy agent’ with those in the ANC who seek to remove the sitting head of state, whether through the democratic processes within the party or together with fellow members of Parliament.”

What was worse, said Hanekom, is that Zuma not only said he was an “enemy agent”, but a “known enemy agent.”

“By using the adjective ‘known’, Mr Zuma was saying he was not just reacting to the revelation of Mr Malema that I met with Mr Gardee. He was saying the meeting was merely confirmation of what he had known about me all along. In other words ‘known enemy agent’ speaks to my reputation, not a recent event.”

The use of the words “known enemy agent”, added Hanekom, had to be read together with Zuma’s reference in his evidence to the Zondo Commission about ANC spies and foreign intelligence agents and their nefarious plan to unseat him.

Zuma’s assertion that “the statement I posted about Hanekom says what it says. By assisting the political enemies with information to weaken the ANC and topple its leadership, Hanekom acted as an apartheid enemy spy”.

Zuma added in his affidavit that Hanekom’s conduct “fits well within the pillars of the intelligence plan that I spoke about at the Zondo Commission”.

Pointing out Zuma’s doublespeak, Hanekom said:

“While Mr Zuma disavows ever having suggested that he called me an apartheid spy, he implies and even says it expressly in his answering affidavit. In doing so, he undermines his own interpretation of his tweet.”

In so doing, said Hanekom, Zuma admitted “the true sting of the statement is that I was part of the plan he spoke of at the Zondo Commission in terms of the apartheid government and foreign organisations attempted to infiltrate the ANC”.

The effect of Zuma’s tweet, said Hanekom, was “fortified by the response from the public”.

“In my founding affidavit, I included numerous threatening and abusive tweets I received after Mr Zuma tweeted his statement. I was threatened, in the most, by people who had understood Mr Zuma to mean that I was an apartheid spy, and was therefore responsible for the loss of life of many members of the liberation struggle.”

Therefore Zuma, said Hanekom, not only accused him of “working for the enemies of the ANC during the apartheid era, he also says that that was the meaning he meant to convey in his tweet.”

Beware the gaslighter. A decision on the matter will be made later today, Friday 23 August. DM