May the voices of reason stay loud

There was a period, far back in the mists of time admittedly, when the ANC was an organisation with a purpose… and one with a social conscience. During the struggle against apartheid, many ANC leaders seemed driven by a zeal to right the wrongs of the past and build a fair, egalitarian society where everybody had equal opportunities, regardless of colour, creed or any other differentiator.

They were determined that “never again” would South Africa’s citizens have to struggle to survive economically and that, in drawing up a constitution which would be one of the most progressive in the world, those economic rights would enjoy the same status as the other basic human rights.

Sadly, as two ANC veterans who helped draft that constitution admitted yesterday, the ruling party seems to have forgotten those high-flown commitments. Mathews Phosa and Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi were cutting in their assessment of how their party lost its way.

Today’s South Africa, far from delivering the “better life for all” promised by the ANC, is beset with corruption, incompetence and good governance is conspicuous by its absence. On top of that, the rights of women, especially, are trodden on, as sexist behaviour reverses the constitution’s injunction that women not be treated as second-class citizens.

Whether people like Phosa and Fraser-Moleketi will ever be listened to is moot, as the country of promise – Desmond Tutu’s famed “Rainbow nation of the people of God” – slides further down the road to a failed state.

It all boils down to a selfishness which did not exist in the struggle days. Now, everyone wants to get their piece and, in the process, the ordinary people are tossed aside.

Yet, we still hear those voices of conscience, reminding us of what we could be. May they never fall silent.