Why must our progress constantly be hamstrung by arcane thinking?

AS PRESIDENT, Cyril Ramaphosa has found himself pretty well jammed between a rock and a hard place.

Or should I say South Africa is caught between a rock and a hard place. That Ramaphosa had to abruptly cut short his trip to the UK and rush back to try to put out the fires that erupted around the Supra Mahumapelo in North West is testament to this.

On one hand our country desperately needs foreign investment, and might I say the positive global outlook that is necessary to go with it.

On the other hand we have to contend with the huge cost of misrule by ANC leaders who have antiquated and twisted ideas, if not outright gangster ones, about leadership.

The flames that erupted in North West as the people went on rampage, torching everything in sight in protest against a man dubbed “Black Jesus” are but a miniscule example of the kind of cost that leadership gone awry has exacted on our society.

I’m not sure why Mahumapelo was nicknamed Black Jesus, but there seems nothing … eh, Jesusy about him, except maybe his physical form.

The crisis that forced Ramaphosa to return home prematurely when he should have been out and about displaying South Africa and our many attractions to high powered world audience is exactly the kind of thing that keeps pulling us back.

We have, on the one hand, the forces of progress seeking to develop and advance our country, but these seem to be consistently countered by an immense backwardness which keeps compromising our future.

This clash is so pervasive that it exists even at the level of ideas. New ideas about how things should be done and what works well elsewhere in the world are all at the mercy of an old, outdated mindset supported by the political elite.

This is arguably the greatest failure of this nation’s leadership – that the majority across all possible divides have been allowed to languish in the dank waters of outdated thought.

And the same ANC that Ramaphosa needs in order to make his vision for South Africa come true is itself possessed of the most gobsmackingly antiquated ideas about how to approach economic growth and social justice.

Whilst clearly mandating Ramaphosa to turn the economy around after a decade of mismanagement under Jacob Zuma, the ANC remains one of its own – and the nation’s – biggest stumbling blocks due to its factionalism and established patronage networks.

Ramaphosa has to tiptoe around powerful political gangsters who have the capacity to turn provinces into virtual war zones.

The possibility of Ramaphosa fulfilling his mandate to turn the economy around seems doubtful as a result, not because of a lack of suitable people in the ANC, but due to the existence of an entrenched thinking and culture which is woefully inadequate for bringing about much needed change.

There is no question that over the past few years we have seen a parade of powerful politicians coming to the fore who completely lack the ability to put this country ahead of their own interests.

Blood is being spilt and chaos accelerated, all in a self-gratifying rush to retain power and avoid accountability. Surely the wellbeing of the ANC is far from the minds of such leaders. Even when their days are clearly numbered.

I’m not sure if it is a character trait of all political gangsters to refuse to budge until pried out, but it sure seems like it.

Incidentally this weekend’s Sunday Times reported that the dictatorial premier of North West took cattle meant for emerging farmers to Nkandla and gifted them to Zuma.

Being a noteworthy acceptor of gifts, the former president was said to have accepted the gift gleefully.

I’m not sure what men feel when they exchange ill-gotten loot, possibly super-powerful and untouchable. Well so much for that! Zuma has been indeed been touched and if the allegations of corruption mounting against Mahumapelo are anything to go by, he too may find himself touched.

If the ANC is serious about saving itself it should get behind its president once and for all.

The nation needs to see its leader empowered to deliver his professed vision, in line with his ANC mandate, and lifting South Africa out of its self-created quagmire.

Without being in position to try out what this vision entails, we will never be able to judge how to modify it or change it to suit our national objectives.

So far, almost exactly as happened under the colonial and apartheid regimes, we still behave like a loose collection of divergent interests and ideas, each vying for domination. And so we expend most of our energy, thrashing about and achieving very little, or nought.