Of all the things the Big Man fears — disobedience, consequences, educated women who make eye contact — there is one terror that haunts him above all others, and in SA that spectre has just become horrifyingly real. Our Big Men have been revealed as very, very small, and they are shrieking.

I understand the shock. For years the ANC was able to claim, without fear of contradiction, that it represented “the masses”; an overwhelming majority that had conferred on the party an unquestionable mandate...