May the people serve as the wind beneath president’s wings
I MUST admit that, not since the historic inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president of the Republic of South Africa, did I have the “goose bump” phenomena – until Mr Cyril Ramaphosa was declared as the president of the country by Chief Justice Moegeng Moegeng.
The emotion was not so much that I was in awe of the man: it was more a rekindling of a sense of patriotism that had become suppressed and diluted by one Jacob Zuma and his willing accomplices, and their collective decimation of state and people.
While the “new broom” has yet to open his account in anticipation of very decisive changes that we all expect, the notion that Mr Ramaphosa is cut from a different cloth than that of his predecessor heightens all expectations.
Make no mistake, the road ahead for our new president is strewn with more obstacles and landmines than even he may contemplate.
The stranglehold of a rather decrepit ANC and its former leader on the country, in the guise of the “ruling party”, is a legacy best forgotten.
Mr Ramaphosa was part of this establishment as well and many have been critical of his reticence to take on his comrades who were evidently pillaging the state before his very eyes, until very recently when the first citizen’s position beckoned.
The critics may have had valid reasons for their censoriousness and, dare I say, rightly so.
However, and notwithstanding such criticism, there is, after a very long time, genuine cause for hope.
Mr Ramaphosa inherits a presidency marred and tainted with gross ineptitude, blatant cronyism, despicable nepotism, gratuitous patronage and a whole host of unpatriotic conduct that was often blind-sided by even the most virtuous in the ANC.
Further, his ascendency to the highest office was not as decisive or welcoming as he would have liked.
The crevices of divisions in his own party, coupled with the extreme political ambitions of factions that served more their own causes rather than that of the country, should alert him to his unenviable task of rectifying a recent past and converting the aberrations for a hopeful future.
Our inequitable system of electing public representatives aside, Mr Ramaphosa assumes the mantle of the king of this castle; and, concomitant with that, is the unenviable burden of now actually doing the right thing.
That his responsibilities, conduct and resolve are daunting, to say the least, would be an understatement.
The hopes, aspirations, dreams and, indeed, the future of a nation rests on his broad shoulders.
His task and road ahead is nothing short of demanding a Herculean effort that is unprecedented.
Despite the vulture-like critics who will be eagle-eyed at every instance to pounce on his frailties and fragilities, he comes with a historical perspective that does augur well: an academic, a liberation fighter, a trade unionist, a negotiator of repute, a politician and, indeed, a deputy president.
In politics, nothing is cast in stone; and, as Charles Dickens alluded to in Great Expectations, so too will the citizenry of a country in despair look up to a man who is being touted as some messiah of redemption, reconstruction and rehabilitation – and not another meaningless deployee serving a means to an end.
Like the proverbial Phoenix, he has to rise from the ashes and soar to the great skies of a new world with the hopes and interests of a people that must serve as the wind beneath his wings.
His opening gambit will set the pace for what will be very interesting times ahead, noting that we will be electing a government again in 2019.
Hope does, indeed, spring eternal in the human breast – or does it? Narendh Ganesh Durban North