JACOB Zuma's disclosure of his negative HIV status has once again set the cat among the pigeons and shamelessly exposed our opposition parties' ideological bankruptcy .

Equally exposed have been our mostly neo-liberal media and their highly glorified gossipers and underachievers masquerading as analysts.

According to this lot, Zuma can never do anything right. Had he not disclosed he would have been faulted by media innuendo and suspected of being positive. And as for the oppositions' sterile criticism and chameleonic standards, he is equally damned for disclosing.

He should have indicated disclosure intentions before the test, says Cope's Phillip Dexter. He would not have disclosed had he been positive, says aspirant soothsayers Helen Zille and Patricia de Lille.

In the light of the rape trial evidence his negative test will send the wrong message, says Makhosini Nkosi. In other words, Zuma should have tested positive to declare his status publicly.

Until the opposition realises the folly of oscillating between thesis and antithesis, without having any original ideas, they will continue to wallow in the mud of meaningless noises of socio-political mediocrity.

What is needed is a complete avoidance of politics of intellectual decadence and negation for negation's sake. In that regard, lessons as old as 1925 from Antonio Gramsci will prove handy.

He said: "To limit oneself to negative criticism, to spread doubt, scepticism and distrust, without indicating anything positively constructive, constitutes not only lack of character, but also reveals little respect for (one's own party)."

Malose Monene, Johannesburg