Dear Mr Ramaphosa, we long for your visionary and moral leadership
GOOD morning, Mr Ramaphosa!
I want to ask you a question, Mr President. If I look at all the factions in party politics manoeuvring for position, power, the infighting to get dominance for various reasons, I become depressed. I don’t get a lasting impression that all these voices have the essence of being caring leaders for all the citizens of their country as a priority. “Darwinism” still rules! Power! Greed! Own group intentionality! Simplified formulations of culprits.
I want to be honest, Mr President. Should all those members of Parliament be tested for emotional intelligence – not for intellectual capacity, which most would surely qualify for, but the capacity to be purely, not shrewdly, people-minded, kind and empathetic, with a grasp of the immense complexities of life; a sense to be unbiased towards all people across the spectrum of society – the results may possibly be a sad reflection of mostly the wrong type of people representing society and the country. We ordinary human beings are so gullible.
Here is another test for politicians to take note of: We are daily killing the Earth with our greedy ways of living beyond what is ecologically sustainable. Time is ticking, and here and all over, we with overgrown egos continue to buy vehicles that gas the atmosphere to hell. We continue to build factories to create growth, that “genie word” for a better life for all (not reaching the bottom-level guys, sorry), but the waste created in the process will in time smother our children and grandchildren. Either we become moral politicians and take this up with more focused fervour than all the bickering across party partitions, or we fail human existence.
Either we play the easy game of netting as many as possible folks to follow our egos and manoeuvring lead because we only present the discomfort and neglect that a biased and self-orientated society and political system spit out, and the propaganda that we will make it all better, no sweat, or so often we think carefully whether the pivotal point in power could possibly tilt your own way for you to glow in short-term praise where, after reality in international context, will just overtake all simplistic thinking and over-easy implementation.
But for overgrown egos, all that is just cannon fodder. All ideas have consequences. Think carefully before you implement or you may in time become a grotesque remembrance of an oversimplified past. History does not count in mere decades, it counts its essence or its deplorable political masturbation in terms of centuries.
What about a scientific test that can quantify and qualify the value of precious time lost because politicians played the cancerous game of manoeuvring and cementing of personal positions to the detriment of doing the hard, consequent, unwavering, empathetic work to gradually bring relief to immense human pain that cannot be reduced to simplistic ideologies.
Mr Ramaphosa, we know you are no fool; in fact, you are a gifted leader. We wish you well, we long for your full display of visionary leadership and we hope you will be continuously joined by all moral and ethically inclined people to create a meaningful future not only for the well-heeled and cushy-minded, but more importantly, to fundamentally create a society where neglected children will be fed, be kept safe, and be taught with vigour to face up to the toils of the 21st century.
Only then will we have the start of a society of substance. Now we look at the daily bickering, the positioning; we hold our breath in exasperation and borderless longing.
Hi, Brenda Fassie, now I will listen again to your rendition of My Black President. We have another gifted one here in the wings of time. We wait on him. We wait on him. Sing, girl. Sing. My Black President.
Van der Walt is active in the property industry