Gone with the wind? - South Africa and the demise of a dream

There is a fascinating piece of writing in the newspaper today, by Zelda Jongbloed. It is in the Afrikaans newspaper Rapport.

Jongbloed begins her piece by referring back to a few years ago, when President Jacob Zuma declared he will not stand for a second term. She then goes on to say that Zuma is now looking strong. He is on his way to be re-elected as president of the ANC and South Africa. This despite levels of corruption that would, in a well-functioning democracy, have led to the end of the president’s term.

Chief amongst these controversies are, of course, the two-hundred-million rand project of upgrading the President’s Nkandla home.

A while ago, there was this conversation on the radio about Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa has been all over the news for all the wrong reasons since the tragic Marikana massacre, where 34 striking mineworkers were killed by the police.

For many years, Ramaphosa was one of the brightest stars of South Africa - former president Nelson Mandela’s first choice to follow in his footsteps. But then there was the Marikana massacre. And then Ramaphosa apologised. In September the former trade union leader said on the Marikana massacre that “I think a lot of us as stakeholders are to blame. Marikana should not have happened, we are all to blame and there are many stakeholders that should take the blame. But taking the blame should mean that we should make sure it never, ever, happens again.”

But there was quite some fuel added to all this when a series of emails was revealed in which Ramaphosa demanded some tough intervention on the part of the government to end the strikes.

Just 24-hours before the August 16 events, Ramaphosa wrote to a Lonmin officer stating “The terrible events that have unfolded cannot be described as a labour dispute. They are plainly dastardly criminal and must be characterised as such. There needs to be concomitant action to address this situation”.

On the radio show that I heard, it was argued that Ramaphosa could not be directly linked to the shootings because of these revelations. But, it was said, his reputation will be forever tainted.

Ramaphosa once was the man who walked side by side with former president Nelson Mandela as the latter was released from prison. But today he is known to ‘splash the cash’ (apart from apologising for the Marikana massacre, Ramaphosa also apologised for his recent R18 million bid for a buffalo, stating “Yes, I did put a bid and that was a mistake on my part. It was a mistake; I regret it ... it’s an excessive price in the seas of poverty”).

This is the sad state of post-apartheid South Africa. It is as if our leaders just do not care anymore. We were once the people who were trying to build a dream together. We were hailed as a “rainbow nation” – a people with whom God has created a new covenant. Sadly today, it seems, it is just everybody for himself.

It is no wonder that there are people on television crying and shouting that they (the politicians) are only interested in the people of this country when it is voting day. And it is no wonder that Zelda Jongbloed is calling for an end to the system of proportional representation.