There is a certain air particular to a person out of their depth. It is difficult to define but you can sense it: a kind of misplaced confidence, so their tone is imbued with positivity, almost melodic in the rhythmic beat it strikes. Every word peaks with a high inflection at the end. They seek to sooth, as if reading a child’s bedtime story.
But the story itself is another matter. Inevitably, if they hold high office, it is not some whimsical mystery, but a subject for grave and serious concern. Thus, tone and meaning battle each other in delivery, and the resultant contradiction befuddles and confuses.
It is as though Morgan Freeman were reading your death sentence, in his distinctly dulcet pitch. Horror never sounded so good.
The head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Shaun Abrahams, is such a person. Not so much out of his depth as mired at the bottom of a deep lake, bubbling out words from the abyss; up and towards the surface, where they break into the atmosphere. Little pockets of ostensible good will that explode on contact with the air.
He is many things, is Abrahams, but of them all, the final and inescapable truth is that he is simply obtuse.
It’s all too much for him — this law thing, politics, reason and argument. He has read about them somewhere. Enough to know they matter. Enough to know he must keep up appearances. And he gives it his best shot.
He could tell you he has decided to re-enact the Nuremberg Laws and he would present it all just as if he had decided instead to give everyone a chocolate. Perspective and awareness are usually the first things to go.
He is earnest enough. It’s the kind of disposition that works well when you have genuinely good news. But, when it’s bad news — and it is almost always bad news — it works against him.
The thing about being earnest is that it is premised on wisdom. When you are earnest and stupid, the only impression you leave is that you are a fool’s fool; entirely unaware that your rhetorical repertoire engenders little more than contempt, and that the pretence that it is anything otherwise, only exacerbates its effect.
Abrahams seems entirely ignorant of his own shortcomings. You feel for him on this front; promoted to a position he is utterly unprepared for, putting on a brave face, singing his terrible tune. Who amongst you would want to believe the worst about yourself? Shaun Abrahams believes in Shaun Abrahams, even if no one else does. At least he tries. That’s something to admire.
And he does try, so hard. Announcing his decision not to prosecute Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan et al, he boasted a thick yellow tie, just a little too big, the knot just a little too fat, as it sat below his neck, like the glutton who has badly stuffed a serviette into his shirt as he looms over his next meal. You can be sure it cost a fair deal, that tie, the suit too. These are the tools of his trade, part of the game he plays. Any actor must have a good costume, and the look to play the part.
He doesn’t really pull it off. He appears like a puffed-up penguin. He waddles along, pecking and flapping. You like penguins. They look sleek enough. They go about their business on the shoreline, seemingly purposeful, until some killer whale beaches out of nowhere to devour them whole. Then it occurs to you, they didn’t have the faintest idea about how life really works or where they fit into the food chain.
He has all these complex things attributed to him: deviousness, cunning, manipulation, intrigue. It’s all rather flattering but I’m afraid the fact of the matter is that they are all a bit beyond Mr Abrahams. He couldn’t manipulate a piece of play dough into a ball if his hands were moon cups. There’s nothing there. The lights aren’t so much off as still in the factory.
Of course that doesn’t mean his bumbling isn’t experienced as the machinations of an evil genius. No doubt there are powerful people whispering into his ear. But, whatever their agenda, Mr Abrahams has enough self-belief to believe he is in complete control. That is the saddest part. The guy thinks he is doing good work.
It’s what happens when you put a construction droid in charge of the main computer on the Starship Enterprise. His program doesn’t really distinguish his new responsibilities from his old. He smash. He do good. "I am more upbeat than ever about the integrity of the NPA," Abrahams beeped, as he delivered his non-prosecution message. "I certainly do not owe anybody an apology. I certainly do not."
I smash. I do good. I good robot.
That analysis is easy enough from the outside. Observing Abrahams from a distance can be hilariously disturbing. Hilarious because he is a buffoon, disturbing because it’s the Constitution he is breaking. It does require some detachment. And he, like Hlaudi Motsoeneng before him, is one of many at that particular workbench, smashing away.
But don’t develop any sympathy for him. You must understand it is a pretense. Abrahams does. He knows on some level he is caught in a universe he can neither define nor understand.
But, if you are trapped in that universe with him, as everyone in the NPA is, it is a nightmarish place to be. Then all that feigned earnestness is something else completely; unchecked and rampant arrogance at the least. He sold the entire NPA down the river this week. Lock, stock and barrel. So that he might play his game of public perceptions. That’s the kind of boss who engenders contempt and hatred in double-quick time. You can be sure he’s long since maxed out his quota.
You see, people like Abrahams, deeply insecure and incompetent but imbued with much power, tend to kiss up and kick down. The media has enough power still to demand some deference. But when doors are closed, all that self-doubt and supposed self-belief can manifest in only one way: superciliousness. He must exude the stuff. Hell, he can barely keep it in check on a public platform.
Why is it that Motsoeneng is so obsessed with the idea of intellectuals and his own prowess on that front? It’s because he is deeply insecure. It’s because he knows the truth. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks". Well, quite. Abrahams is no different. He knows the truth. Only it’s buried now, so deeply buried; way, way down, below a mountain of conceit.
That’s how one copes: in your soul, you build a monument to your own glory, and on introspection, you bask in its reflection.
All our greatest demagogues and tin-pot tyrants have such a monument inside them. And, because they have chosen a life in the public eye, the game is so much crueller; because their own insecurity draws them to the public stage, like a moth to the flame. It’s there much affirmation is to be found. At least that is hope.
Abrahams, like many of his contemporaries, is currently in the heart of that fire. He is burning up at an exponential rate. But to him, its all feels like a warm embrace. It’s being on the stage that counts, playing the game and feeling important. That’s what matters.
Poor guy. He doesn’t have the faintest idea what he is doing or, perhaps more disturbingly, what he has done.
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