#Mandela 100 supplement

Nation looks back at the icon’s legacy – he gave the country a vision, but are we following it?

Rabid racism, a burgeoning cost of living, a country fractured over land, a people fractured over each other, the state capture commission, the South African Social Security Agency debacle, the South African Revenue Service commission, Eskom, extreme unemployment – this is South Africa yesterday, today and tomorrow.

It’s become a trite quote ever since Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as president of South Africa 24 years ago, but his legacy is measured in few other words:

“We understand it still, that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.

“Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

“Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. Let freedom reign.”

And yet, here the country is with the phrase “state capture” having entered the South African lexicon in 2016, following then public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report, State of Capture.

“If we say Mandela’s legacy has betrayed us, we are actually saying it has been fundamentally wrong,” said political analyst Ralph Mathekga.

“I believe Mandela was a solid leader, of course, he was not a perfect leader but this idea he sold out means we are not taking responsibility for our own errors we have committed, even since Mandela stopped being a leader.”

South Africans had lost their moral fibre against corruption and we only had ourselves to blame, Mathekga said.

“Mandela gave us a platform through which to communicate with our leaders. We did so badly all we do when we engage is just amplify our differences as a society.

“We are the ones who have betrayed Mandela’s legacy.”

On December 5, 2013, Mandela died.

University of Cape Town sociologist and author Ari Sitas wrote for Al Jazeera shortly afterwards the “Mandela decade failed to achieve many of its ambitions”.

“South Africa is not a society of shared norms and ideas; it is, rather, a social formation still bound by need and greed and held together by new regulatory social institutions,” said Sitas.

“The factual scales will have to decide on a more nuanced judgment, but they will have to weigh too the feeling that, alongside a remarkable transition, the Mandela decade left behind a profound sense of failure felt by the very people who struggled to create a nonracial and diverse nation.”

Since 2013, little has changed ...

Mandela gave us a platform through which to communicate with our leaders. We did so badly all we do when we engage is just amplify our differences as a society. We are the ones who have betrayed Mandela’s legacy.

Ralph Mathekga Political analyst