Somehow, we always pull back from the precipice
WHY does South Africa not fall off the precipice? Economists are clear that if this economy does not grow soon, the prospects of new jobs are dismal. Educationists are clear that if the decline in education quality and the high drop-out rates continue, schools and universities will fail to produce the expertise required to rebuild the economy.
Political scientists warn that the social unrest and lawlessness, coupled with the loss of trust in public institutions, threaten our long-term stability. Again, it seems we are at the edge of the precipice – and yet, we never go over.
So what holds South Africa together? Firstly – our remarkable capacity for self-correction. There were about a dozen books in the late 1980s with frightful titles that warned of a racial bloodbath because of an intransigent white government and widespread black resistance to apartheid. John Brewer’s book, for example, put everyone on edge with its subtitle Can South Africa Survive – Five Minutes to Midnight.
And then February 2 happened with the unbanning of liberation movements and Nelson Mandela walked out of prison. With every crisis, including the imminent collapse of the economy under Zuma, we self-correct. And now we have a new president set on the task of reconstruction and development.
The second thing is that we have this ability to laugh at ourselves in a crisis.
In the heat of the anti-apartheid struggle the most popular comedian was Pieter Dirk-Uys, whose satire somehow eased the pain by demonstrating the utter farce of apartheid. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was also a master in this genre of political comedy.
More recently, I saw how distraught Capetonians were about the potential name change to an airport that brings more tourists to the country than any other. Black nationalists were on a roll and everything had to carry the brand.
Until someone posted on social media: “The airport should be called Joe Masepus international airport. The locals will love it.” You could feel the tension dissipate as locals laughed at this.
Another reason we do not fall off the edge is our incredible capacity for forgiveness. “I have sinned against the Lord, and against you,” said the face of police violence and killing of activists, Adriaan Vlok. Whether he was on his knees with the Mamelodi mothers who lost their sons on his watch, or pleading with Frank Chikane, whose clothes were poisoned, in each of those cases black South Africans forgave. He in turn would wash their feet with both parties overcome by tears. There is something deep within us, as South Africans, to both ask and accept forgiveness. When the socalled Reitz 4, those white boys who abused five black workers at my former university, asked for forgiveness, the response was instant: of course we do.
I know of no other nation with this deep, spiritual capacity to forgive.
There is another reason we pull back from the (precipice) and that is our openness to ground-moving social and political gestures.
Mandela understood the power of gestures when he put on the No 6 jersey at the Rugby World Cup, and when he visited Betsie Verwoerd in Orania.
I teared up a few weeks ago when I was invited to the Wynberg Synagogue here in Cape Town, whose leaders had invited a Muslim community to break their fast in this Jewish house of prayer.
Then the Muslim brothers and sisters joined the Jewish worshippers for their Friday night Kiddush.
In other parts of the world, churches are set alight and mosques destroyed by mortal enemies but here, Muslims and Jews break bread together and, in the process, keep us all together. There is something else about us: we avert disaster by our tenacity, our determination to take on the long odds. Nowhere was this tenacity more evident than in two major games on Saturday. After 18 minutes South Africa was 3-24 down in the first test against the much better-ranked England.
By this time I was talking to the ref in all our official languages. It was over. And then, against the odds, this team – led by the first black African captain of the national rugby squad – fought back and won 34-29. On the other side of the world, in Paris, everybody expected Fiji to win the Sevens Rugby series that consists of 10 legs in 10 cities. They had won the last four legs and to lose the series to South Africa, they had to lose in the quarter-finals and South Africa (who had only won the first leg in Dubai) had to win the finals. Guess what happened and now we are the World Champions, again.
Finally, what holds this nation together is a powerful “moral underground” – tens of thousands of people who work as volunteers, behind the scenes, to make South Africa work. I meet them every day, such as the gogo who does early childhood care in her backyard for the children of working mothers and who receives training and resources from a farmer’s wife to make this possible. There are countless examples.
So, yes, we are in trouble as a country. But we have reasons to hope that things will get better. After all, we have been at the precipice before and we still have all these reasons to dream.