Vision and resolve to fix SA sorely lacking
As we approach the end of yet another tumultuous and dispiriting year in our beloved country, I ask myself: What are we trying to be? What is our vision for this country and what is our plan to achieve that vision in 10, 20 and 30 years?
We began 2022 in tears and we end it in division and in disarray. As we celebrated the new year, the parliament building in Cape Town was set on fire.
Some people who claim to love this country — from “Public Protector” Busisiwe Mkhwebane to the leaders of the Economic Freedom Fighters — celebrated this senseless act of arson.
We started the year with tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu denouncing the constitution she serves and insulting the judiciary. It has been downhill all the way since those dispiriting first weeks of the year.
Our perilous situation would not matter too much if we were clear about what it is we want to achieve with this country.
If, for example, we wanted to strengthen our constitutional democracy and the institutions and structures of that democracy, we would not tolerate a Sisulu in our cabinet.
The fact that she continues to draw a salary from the structures of that constitution illustrates what a hypocrite she is.
It also illustrates what hypocrites we are by letting her continue in cabinet instead of stepping out and fighting to bring down the constitution that she so detests.
The truth is that we are rudderless. We lack the vision, the resolve, the plan, to actually fix SA. We are a country adrift.
We are a country that, despite the freedom we enjoy, has not exploited the immense opportunities we have to make the great leap forward into a successful, rules-based, safe, and prosperous country.
Our rudderlessness explains why we are failing.
Unemployment is getting worse by the day. Inequality widens daily. Violence against women, children and other law-abiding citizens is worse than it has ever been.
Murder and rape have worsened. The country’s infrastructure is collapsing. Corruption — in the public and the private sector — is rampant.
Worse still is what we are doing to our children. Public education infrastructure remains woeful. Children still use pit latrines. More kids drop out of school than actually finish with a decent school-leaving certificate or a technical skill such as plumbing or similar.
Is it any wonder that so many find themselves taking part in dangerous activities and being despondent about the future?
Our rudderlessness as a nation takes place as it becomes clearer than ever that the world is not a happy or optimistic place right now — and will not be coming to our rescue.
We are not sexy anymore. We are on our own. An increasingly irrational and humiliated Russia, taking a beating from the relatively puny Ukraine (its soldiers ran away from Kherson on
Friday, tails between their legs), is threatening to unleash nuclear weapons.
The US and China are sending each other, and the world, increasingly hostile signals in an increasingly bitter technological and economic contest and over the independence of Taiwan.
North Korea baits the West with intimations of conflict. The Middle East is uneasy. Europe goes into winter unsure how it will keep its people warm — and fearful of what Russia may do.
On the African continent our leaders have largely been spectators as the Americans, the Chinese and the Russians have swooped in trying to win (or buy) friends and influence leaders.
As a continent we seem to lack a core organising principle.
For example, rising food prices brought on by Russia’s war on Ukraine — together with climate change and armed conflict, of course — are driving high levels of acute food insecurity in East Africa, with an estimated 82-million people now acutely food insecure.
Who will solve this problem? Not African leaders. They are too busy cheering the Russians on while their own people fall into starvation. All wars, including Russia’s war on Ukraine, are ultimately wars on Africa and its people.
The ANC will not help. Just listen to the noises coming out of the party’s national executive committee meeting this weekend. These are people who are fiddling while Rome burns.
It is quite extraordinary to see people who defended the Nkandla debacle, who oversaw the collapse of SAA and Eskom, who watched as billions of rands were stolen from the fiscus, being so vocal about monies allegedly stolen at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s farm.
When their meeting concludes, ask this question: how much time was devoted to unemployment, inequality, economic growth, investment and social cohesion?
The answer is easy. Not much, if any. Truth is, the ANC’S troubles mean that even its most well-meaning leaders are consumed by the mediocrity that infected it in December 2007 at its Polokwane conference.
This year has proven one thing. We are rudderless. We are going nowhere. We need a change.