Cohesion requires hard work
We are in desperate need of a leadership that will remind us that the haves and the have-nots are joined at the hip.
South Africans of all races and sizes meet up once a year to do the 702 Walk The Talk. It has become a part of Gauteng’s winter landscape. One of the few truly integrated events that one can find on the Johannesburg social calendar, on this day people put aside their inherited racial differences and for a few hours they become one.
As I took part in this year’s edition of the walk, I could not help but remember a caller to one of the radio stations’ talk shows. The caller was a white male who bemoaned the fact that when a march against state capture happens, the marchers are almost exclusively white.
Could it be that black people do not understand what state capture is about? Could it be that black people do not consider state capture important enough to warrant their being on the streets calling for the president to resign? The caller asked all these questions in what I regarded as a genuine and heartfelt manner, however distorted.
The heady days of Rainbow Nationalism where everything we touched turned to gold are far behind us. Stripped of Mandela’s charm, we are now left to deal with the realities of a country that has been hijacked by a faction of the ruling party for its own selfish needs. And with the magic gone, we now turn towards each other with venom and untold hostility.
With the exception of events like Walk the Talk providing a very brief and temporary respite from our dreary social and political landscape, it now becomes a national sport to look at each other suspiciously.
The caller who says black people don’t care about state capture sounds reasonable and there are pictures of the marches to back him up. But that’s the tragedy of the current superficial national discourse. The caller represents one section of society that doesn’t take time to learn and understand the ways of his fellow countrymen.
Every day there are black people marching against the state’s failure to provide the most basic of economic necessities that they have promised. And what the caller misses is that those black people look around themselves and ask: “Where are my white countrymen when I’m marching against service delivery on my own? Where are my fellow countrymen when I’m trying really hard to understand their ways and language in an attempt to get them to learn of my lived experiences?”
The current and very tiring narrative that “you are getting what you voted for” does nothing to help social cohesion. There is a huge section of South Africans that have never taken to the streets against state capture even though they are the most affected by it.
These South Africans, mostly poor and black, watch SaveSA calling for Jacob Zuma’s removal and want the same but are held back by what they perceive as ignorance of their everyday issues by the other side.
South Africans keep talking past each other and because social cohesion is very dependent on a leadership that acts ethically and proactively, in trying times our differences appear huge and almost insurmountable.
We are in desperate need of a leadership that will remind us that the haves and the have-nots are joined at the hip. As per the words of the Freedom Charter, South Africa belongs to all who live in it.