South Africa is a nation mired in deceit and decadence
IT TOOK courage and guts for a senior member of the ruling ANC to issue the most profound statement regarding corruption. Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula’s warning to the nation that state capture destroyed the entrails of our beloved nation must be taken seriously.
Twenty years of endemic corruption have decimated and fatally impoverished a once firstworld economy. The insidious practice of corruption cripples institutions, consumes communities and cuts deeply into the very structure of people’s lives.
Rampant corruption is invasive and unforgiving, degrading governance, distorting and criminalising national priorities, and privileging acquisitive rent-seeking, patrimonial theft, and personal gains over concern for the commonweal.
It destroys nations and saps their moral fibre. Insidious corruption is a systematic malady, emerging from the top rather than bottom-up. That is, the stain of corruption spreads from the attitudes and permissive policies of persons at the top of political and corporate entities downward. Leaders set the tone, misconduct at one level of authority implicitly authorises the next.
History will record for posterity that it was the National Executive Committee of the ANC that betrayed and destroyed the legacy of beloved icon Nelson Mandela, the only person who guided South Africa away from its sordid past and on the road to democracy. A president whose moral timber and courageous administration has more to say to today’s political hyenas than perhaps any other leader in our history. The freedom we take for granted, he paid for in blood, tears and an anguished heart, only to have it squandered by the current inept leadership.
South Africa is today occupied territory run by a cabal. Our politicians keep re-inventing themselves as champions of the masses. The country has deteriorated into an evil and demonic society. Our culture is marked by wicked selfindulgence and moral decay.
We live in a decadent society, where moral values have atrophied. The decadence of the Roman Empire, exemplified by the devotion of its rulers to sensual pleasure rather than governance, eventually caused its downfall.
Our veterans have fearlessly spoken out against state capture. They paid the price for our freedom.
We, as a nation, have an incredible number of true, unselfish stalwarts, both acclaimed and those whose value is unappreciated. If we are not willing to do everything to defend our democracy, then who will?
We are a nation mired in deceit. A nation that manipulates truth for its own ends will one day discover that it has lost control over those desired ends.
FAROUK ARAIE | Benoni