Nkandla is our Versailles, Zuma our Louis XIV

NKANDLA has become the symbol of the corrupt, unaccountable and careless state. The R215m spent on security upgrades at President Jacob Zuma’s private estate continues to infuriate. Criticism of rampant state spending as symbolised by Nkandla has become routine in the election rhetoric of opposition parties. Too many questions over who knew about the gratuitous spending remain unanswered. Its extravagance continues its hold on the public imagination.

In these and many other ways, the president’s playground can be compared to that playground of playgrounds, the palace of Versailles.

The way in which information on building Nkandla was withheld from public scrutiny is nothing new. The cost of the spectacular palace of Versailles is unknown, but it would come to about $2.5bn today. Louis XIV was said to be obsessed with security. He moved the seat of government from Paris to Versailles, arguing this would benefit France’s safety.

Versailles was the ultimate vanity project. Louis surrounded himself with mythical and heroic imagery of himself. This form of extreme personal and political narcissism reached a climax in the building of the Hall of Mirrors. Versailles had to infinitely reflect the king’s grandeur. The rich symbolism and allegory of Versailles is easy to grasp: it entrenched the idea of absolutism according to which all power is concentrated in the monarch.

One illustration of the decadence at Versailles was Louis’s wish that the many fountains in the formal gardens run constantly. But there was not enough water to make this possible, so the king’s messengers ran ahead of him when he took his regular strolls through the grounds. Servants would turn the fountains on and off as the king passed them.

But it is not just the building and extravagant expense of Nkandla that can be compared to Versailles. The public reaction and public disturbances triggered by a government that fails to deliver the basics also hits home. The gap between the lifestyle of the nobility and the people of France led to the historic march on Versailles.

By the time of the rule of Louis XVI, the French state was in financial crisis. Poor harvests in 1788 meant grain supplies fell. The price of bread rose dramatically in 1789. This and its limited supply in 1789 mobilised the poor. In October 1789, food shortages led 6,000 women to march on Versailles in one of the most violent episodes of the French Revolution. It is unlikely that writings of Enlightenment philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire alone mobilised the third estate. To a large extent, the revolution was triggered by bread. Bread can be the most powerful political mobiliser.

Like Versailles, Nkandla is a celebration of vapidity and consumerism. Like Versailles, the Nkandla homestead reflects an archaic, obsolete world. The materialistic values embodied by these structures are incongruous in a context of desperate poverty. The building and upgrade of Nkandla and the subsequent coverup of expenses offend not just South Africans but shows no sensitivity or solidarity with many countries that are still in economic recession. Building projects such as Nkandla show that a ruler is out of touch and has elevated his own needs and ego over those of his people.

When Zuma shrugs his shoulders when confronted with questions on Nkandla, this is tantamount to saying, "Let them eat cake." Asked if he would resign over Nkandla, Zuma argued that if he did not resign over the struggle, he would not give up over Nkandla. Equating his role in the struggle with overspending on Nkandla shows his ignorance of the moral questions attached to overspending on his private home. It also shows complete disregard for the seriousness with which the public views Nkandla.

Nkandla does not stand on its own. The cost of the recent ceremony accompanying the state of the nation address and after party was R5.7m.

The French Revolution raised its head again and again in my history syllabus in school. Apartheid and recent South African history were sorely neglected but the dramatic fate of the Bourbons was impressed on us year after year. The teachers of the time might have been unintentionally prescient in emphasising the French Revolution. By ignoring the plight and pleas of the poor, the ANC government is fuelling the fire of violent protests. At any moment, the dispossessed might decide not to suspend the revolution but to storm the Bastille.

• Swart is professor of international law at the University of Johannesburg.

- BDLive