A time for introspection
The challenges facing our country must be tackled by the government and civil society
AFTER more than 25 years as a democratic state, we are confronted by a challenge like nothing we’ve seen before. The present life and death crisis that confronts our land, and indeed the world, in the form of the Convid-19 pandemic, personal and national introspection is profoundly necessary.
This will allow us to emerge from this crisis with an invigorated spirit of determination to address the endemic maladies that blight our society and its long-suffering people.
Although, since the advent of the interim Constitution in 1994, as a nation we have made some remarkable progress as a body politic and in the material improvement of the living conditions of millions of our people, and statistics can be used to demonstrate this.
However, such statistical information does not tell the whole truth. Unfortunately, we remain a deeply divided nation and these divisions have their genesis in our traumatic and tragic history. This painful exercise must be confronted openly and honestly.
The consequences of institutionalised racism in many forms continues to blight our society, which is characterised by inordinate economic and social inequality in our nation. About 30000000 people, more than half the population, live in debilitating poverty. Many of them do not have adequate water and sanitation.
This has become demonstrably clear, where hand-washing and personal sanitation have become essential for combating the virus.
Others live in overcrowded townships and informal settlements where social distancing is essential but virtually impossible.
Innumerable people live with little or no food and beg on the streets, where they have no shelter at all,subject to the elements of heat, rain and the cold. The crisis has forced the authorities to find temporary shelter and food for them. Before the crisis, they were virtually ignored by the state.
Unfortunately, there is no basic income grant in South Africa and only meagre social grants for the disabled, the aged and children. Besides, poverty, unemployment and homelessness blight our society.
Health and educational services available to our society are fractured and highly problematic. Those who have access to private health care receive state-of-the-art treatment in comparison with those who depend on public health, which in many cases is dysfunctional and lacking in basic resources, and as a result, in many cases they receive woefully inadequate medical attention.
What the present crisis has demonstrated is that during the democratic era since 1994, the government has been manifestly inadequate in many respects. As a result of this, when the present crisis is over, it cannot be, metaphorically, business as usual. It is submitted that our endemic problems have to be confronted in a much more determined and energetic way.
These problems are not merely political, economic and social, but also of an emotional and psychological nature. Our country is desperately in need of healing and this must, of necessity, be addressed.
Unfortunately, the challenges we face must be tackled not only by government, but by, inter alia, civil society and religious and faith-based organisations. However, President Ramaphosa has indeed risen to the occasion and has emerged as a dispassionate and powerful leader with statesmanlike qualities by the way he, along with Health Minister Zwelini Mhkize, has handled the measures and organisation to deal with the pandemic.
The president’s eloquent and cogent addresses to the public are comparable to those of Queen Elizabeth in her messages of solidarity and encouragement to the British people and Commonwealth. This augurs well for the future.
It is fervently hoped and solemnly prayed that the present crisis will have a cathartic effect and that our leaders and people will act courageously in addressing both the immediate situation as well as the future formidable political challenges, which must of necessity occur and which will confront our great nation that has infinite potential which can be realised by the combined endeavours of the leaders and people of South Africa.