Vote for the Big Man or God'll get ya!

Speaking of African belief in the supernatural (see yesterday's review of V.S. Naipaul's The Masque of Africa), The Economist reports this week that 80% of South Africans describe themselves as Christians, and two-thirds believe that the Bible, as the Word of God, should be interpreted literally. A politician would be foolish not to build God ... or the gods ... into his campaign oratory.

Looks notwithstanding, South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, is no fool. Here's what he said to an African National Congress election rally on February 5th.

"When you vote for the ANC, you are choosing to go to heaven. When you don't vote for the ANC, you should know that you are choosing that man who carries a fork, ...who cooks people."

Mr. Zuma, who happens to be a "lay pastor" of an evangelical Protestant sect, assured the party faithful that "when you are carrying an ANC membership card, you are blessed. When you get up there, there are different cards used, but when you have an ANC card, you will be let through to heaven."

And if you don't have an ANC card? What if you should defect to the opposition? Then "you will struggle until you die. The ancestors of this land...will turn their backs on you."

So in one short speech President Zuma invoked the Christian deity and the spirits of the ancestors. He missed Allah, but there aren't as many Muslims in South Africa as in, say, Nigeria. The backing of God and the ancestors should be enough to get the ANC its customary overwhelming majority.