Opinion / Columnists SIMON LINCOLN READER: ANC has perfected the race blame game so it does not have to account If the ANC can claim any accomplishment it would be consistency in rejecting criticism of its behaviour as racism BL PREMIUM

In an ideal world I would have started this column expressing frustration at the absolute state of VBS Mutual Bank and the avarice surrounding it, but we’re immune to controversy and its political extensions. Eventually all these things — the arms deal, Nkandla, On Point, the Guptas, VBS and everything that slipped between the cracks — will form a single trail of discharge and you, dear reader, will not care to distinguish one horror from another. If the ANC can claim any accomplishment, outside of an addiction to scandal, it would be consistency in rejecting legitimate repugnancy over and criticism of its behaviour as racism. No other similar movement in the world has boasted success in this like the ANC — not Jose Mujica’s Broad Front in Uruguay, not Xanana Guzmao’s National Congress in East Timor, not even Lula’s Worker’s Party in Brazil. From Thabo Mbeki admonishing ANC activist and rape survivor Charlene Smith to ministers Charles Nqakula and Jeff Radebe, to Julius Malema and A...