Defeat is a very hard thing to swallow. No one loves to lose.
As a result, most of us go on the defensive whenever we are faced with defeat and our default action is to blame someone else.
I have observed over many years how people find it easy to lie during defeat or when they are found to have done wrong.
I have advised far too many clients who had lied before they came to me and were wondering why the story was “not going away”.
A certain client once told me “but I have told these journalists that I do not know what they are talking about. Why don’t they leave me alone?”
Of course I found that client not only knew what the journalists were talking about, but was fully complicit in the matter they had been investigating.
I had to empty the whole aisle of pliers at a hardware store to pull the truth out of the stubborn teeth of the client. And once the media were told the truth, the client was “left alone”.
It is with this in mind that I found it refreshing the comments of the African National Congress parliamentary chief whip Jackson Mthembu earlier on Friday.
Shortly after it was confirmed that the ANC had lost the Nelson Mandela Bay metro council in the local government elections, Mthembu shocked one and many, me included, when he did not shift the blame to others.
Said Mthembu: “We have to look ourselves in the face to be very critical of ourselves so that come 2019, come another election, we are able to regain the lost ground.”
Speaking to Primedia earlier, Mthembu added: “… but we are likely to lose the metro because of our own undoings, difficulties and factions.”
In one fell swoop Mthembu not only accepted defeated like a man, he also admitted to the fact that his party was bedevilled by factions. We know how many time this was denied in the past.
I reckon it would be nonsensical for any journalist to henceforth badger the ANC about factionalism in the party, because the ANC, through its chief whip has now confessed.
Politicians find it very difficult to admit their mistakes. And for Mthembu to speak publicly about his party’s mistakes is a masterstroke.
This is what I call spin. Contrary to popular belief, spin is the art of managing the truth. It is not lying. Spin is good. Lies are bad.
Of course the view that spin is lies is not without reason or justification. Most political spin doctors have embraced the lies so much that they battle to open their mouths without lying.
Mthembu bucked the trend. And he (and I suspect the ANC) will be the better for this. It will not change the reality of defeat. It will not make the next five years better.
But like medicine, the truth may be bitter to swallow but the effects are often quicker and most effective. Lies and deceit (especially self-deceit) have short legs.
It does not mean that once you have spoken the truth, you will be fine instantly. As one American once said: “The truth shall set you free. But first it shall f*ck you up.”
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