BROUGHT BACK DOWN TO EARTH

Once upon a time, SA was a darling on the world stage and people valued our opinions. Today, we’ve squandered that grand legacy

Years ago, in 2001 to be exact, I bumped into Cyril Ramaphosa at Heathrow Airport. He looked a bit sheepish when he saw me — he knew I’d got him. I’d heard he was part of the negotiations to find a peace settlement to “the troubles” of Northern Ireland. But I hadn’t been able to get confirmation of this. Now, here he was, transiting through Heathrow from Belfast. I smiled like a Cheshire cat. Journalist that I am, I knew I had a story.

Those were the days! People actually wanted to hear what we South Africans had to say. They asked us to resolve conflicts. Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer’s phones rang off the hook. We were serious players on the global stage.

I remember visiting Belfast and people there wanting to hear how SA had overcome its terrible apartheid past.

Later, in the late 2000s, I saw Trevor Manuel and Thabo Mbeki addressing world leaders on economic growth. The Independent

Once, people hung onto our every word. Now we have President Jacob Zuma, the Guptas and their Twitter bots. What a comedown