On hope and the death of nostalgia

This is partly because of the fact that the ouster of his predecessor was seen as a function of the popular will. As a result, Ramaphosa has been able to cast himself as a new broom who has arrived to sweep clean.

The problem is, of course, that Ramaphosa served as deputy president for the second half of Zuma’s years in office. Before that, he was already the embodiment of the grotesque. The rapid and enormous rise in his wealth was largely a result of his position as a lead mediator for the ANC during the negotiations for democracy, where he won the trust of the white businesspeople who controlled the economy in 1994 and continue to do so today.

His role in the events that led to the 2012 Marikana mineworkers’ massacre showed him to be callously out of touch with the interests of workers, and predictably and cruelly supportive of the interests of the mining company on whose board he sat.

Ramaphosa was elected as deputy president of the ANC within months of the massacre. Zuma was returned to office. The police involved in the killings were never properly sanctioned. Ramaphosa’s role in using his ANC networks to ratchet up the police response was waved away.

These insults against the memories of the dead were all of a piece — emblematic of how even the most monstrous acts can be rewarded when they are perpetrated by those who possess power. The old South Africa seemed not so old; the new, not so new.

Since Marikana there have been more scandals involving a callous disregard for life and basic decency.

In 2014, there was a shocking discovery at the farm of Thandi Modise, then speaker of the National Council of Provinces and an executive member of the ANC. Fifty dead pigs, and other dead animals, including goats, sheep, geese and ducks were found on her Modderfontein property. There were almost 90 surviving animals, but they were on the brink of death and many were found eating the carcasses of those that had already died.

Although Modise is still facing private prosecution for animal abuse, she has just been appointed as the new speaker of the National Assembly — the third in line to take the position of president in the event of an emergency.

In 2016, 143 mentally ill patients died at psychiatric facilities in Gauteng after the province precipitously cancelled its contract with service-provider Life Esidimeni and transferred patients to unlicensed nongovernmental organisations. The causes of death included starvation and neglect.

The provincial MEC for health, Qedani Mahlangu, behaved atrociously. She was arrogant and evasive and refused to accept responsibility for her role in making decisions that led to the deaths. None of this affected her electability. A year later, her cadres voted her into a position on the provincial executive council.

It was only as elections approached that the ANC at national level asked her to step down. After the public outcry that led to her stepping down, Ramaphosa publicly embraced her and indicated that, regardless of what she had done, she should not be treated with “total disdain”. Mahlangu still has not expressed regret for her actions.

I chose these examples deliberately to look past the scandals linked to corruption. They focus instead on the culture of impunity that has set in regarding the value of life — of poor black life in particular. There is little reason to believe that Ramaphosa, with his rhetoric of a new dawn, will be able to introduce the kind of moral integrity the governing party so desperately needs.

His history in the last two decades — alongside that of his comrades — indicates that, at best, he will be able to promote incremental improvements to the economy. But where it matters the most, he will lack the courage and authority to rein in the worst impulses of a party that rewards the arrogant, the cruel and the callous.

Ramaphosa and those who have accompanied him to power lack moral authority. This problem is endemic to South African politics: there are no leaders of any party who can claim moral authority. This makes the situation all the more dire and all the more unacceptable.

Perhaps this is a bleak place to end. Forgive me, but it would be a lie to suggest I am hopeful. I am not cynical either, nor am I wont to insist that we have reached a tragic dead end. Instead, I am sober and firm in my conviction that nothing is predetermined about our future. Just as there is no reason to believe things will get better, there is no cause for wholesale despair. The present is what it is.

I understand the need for hope, though, and if you are looking for some, you might be heartened by the words of my coffee companion. He is right. Old people are nostalgic. But South Africa is a young country and so this habit of looking back towards better times must be replaced by the clear-eyed actions of the young. The future belongs to those who have no memories of Mandela, and no illusions about the cravenness that national pomp and pageantry seek to hide.

If there is hope, it lies in the generation we have reared to accept that they have no need for nostalgia.

Sisonke Msimang writes about justice, politics and democracy. This article was published with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The views in this article are hers alone