Respect elders, Julius

THANK you Cape Times. You made my day, and my year… (today is my birthday).

I only read the headline in today’s The New Age.

But my problem is simply this – how can Malema be a political leader who is asking our masses to take him seriously if he tramples on the most basic golden rule of our black culture, i.e. respect for the elders?

Mr Malema, if the late former president Nelson Mandela had not wisely made compromises to reach a win-win, De Klerk would not have been allowed to proceed.

The white right-wing and General Viljoen would have staged a military coup.

Simple as that. I rest my case. Francois Joubert with him something special and something spectacular in politics.

His work was very admirably and honourably done. It was done with great clarity of vision and high moral integrity. Ours is still in the process of doing. Unfortunately, there is such sordidness and greed in present-day politics that most of what is being done is shorn of any nobility of purpose.

Mandela invested goodness in the political sphere. His most remarkable feat was the accuracy with which he communicated his ideals. On the 90th birthday celebration of Walter Sisulu in 2002, Mandela shared this pearl of wisdom: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

In 2003, Mandela bemoaned the fact that “South Africans have no concept of time and this is also why we can’t solve poverty and social problems… It’s now 10 years since the fall of the apartheid government and we cannot blame apartheid for being tardy”.

Each year, when we reflect on the passing of Mandela, we should check on what progress the nation has made to relieve poverty and to find lasting solutions to our many social problems. Mosiuoa Lekota