Get back on track by serving SA

There can be no doubt, even in the minds of staunch ANC supporters, that the ruling party lost its way during the time Jacob Zuma was president of the organisation and of the country. It is going to take years to clean up the mess he and those involved in state capture made of various departments and state-owned enterprises. It is doubtful whether all the money which was siphoned off in the various corrupt schemes will ever be fully recovered.

The other legacy of the Zuma years was the encouragement of the poison of race politics, which is now reaching a zenith with the populist campaigns of the EFF, itself an ANC offshoot.

The ANC, as it stood in December last year, ahead of the watershed conference which deposed Zuma and his cabal, was the very antithesis of the century-old liberation movement of people like OR Tambo and Nelson Mandela. The latter, particularly, was beyond reproach when it came to issues like corruption and, unlike Zuma, he was fully committed to the ANC’s principle of non-racialism.

The “old ANC” was made up of people who fought for an ideal – freedom, democracy and equality. They had no desire for riches and they stood shoulder to shoulder, regardless of race, in their opposition to apartheid.

It is interesting to see President Cyril Ramaphosa harnessing the power of those heroes past to help repair the ANC’s image and take it into the future. In invoking the spirit of the “authentic” and original ANC, Ramaphosa is saying to the party and to the country: let’s get back on track.

Back on track means selfless commitment by politicians and civil servants to serving the people of the country.

And it means valuing everybody on the basis of what they do, not their skin colour.