When things fall apart

“History teaches us, and invariably we disregard her lesson, that coalitions begin to disintegrate from the moment that the common danger is removed.” That was penned by Sir Harold Nicolson in his seminal 1946 work on the Congress of Vienna, referring to how the changing interests of the three great European powers tore the continent apart slowly after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars.

This was also a timeous warning about what was bound to happen again after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

But these words also apply to the fate of our tripartite coalition government, in power since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Though relatively unnoticed during the halcyon days of the Nelson Mandela presidency, the process of SA’s disintegration is now apparent.

Just as the straitjacket of the Vienna Treaties impeded change in a dynamically industrialising Europe, so the irreconcilable differences between the ANC, Cosatu and SACP, stuck as they are in discredited ideologies, are driving our country towards a future of violent change.

As we are slowly realising, replacing a president is worthless if the system itself is dysfunctional.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s herculean efforts can never surpass those of poor Sisyphus.

Only when the machine is turned off, and nature takes its course with the decaying body of the ANC, can something new emerge to give us a modicum of hope. James Cunningham Camps Bay