A new and credible leadership must emerge from the chaos
Periods of turmoil such as ours can only be resolved by civic efforts
South Africa is going through political turmoil. And many South Africans are wondering when and how it will end.
When countries experience upheavals, the human spirit feels throttled, and there is intense hunger for hope. This is how millions of South Africans feel today.
The history of our species is a tale of strife, peppered with deceptive interludes of peace and tranquillity that don’t last long.
The pre-modern chaos of European wars among kingdoms came to a close with the birth of the Westphalian state system in 1648. But intermittent interstate strife persisted as various European nation states vied for colonial dominance.
Other traditional entities elsewhere in the world battled it out in their own rudimentary processes of state formation. The Mfecane is a well-known brutal affair in our part of the world.
When World War 1 came to an end, idealistic statesmen across the world were convinced the League of Nations marked the highest point of reason. They convinced themselves that, finally, mankind had seen the folly of war and the wisdom of peace.
It was not to be. World War 2 came and shattered the pretence of wisdom. Man was exposed as a strange and complex being that embodies both good and evil.
The hope sparked by the end of World War 2 was extinguished by the advent of the Cold War. Religious fanaticism poured cold water on the triumphalism of capitalism and liberal democracy that followed the end of the Cold War.
Our current age of science and technology, interpreted by exuberant philosophers as the age of reason, is already marred by the use of smart phones by Isis to post YouTube videos that celebrate human slaughter.
It turns out that technology does not only facilitate the communication of barbarism; it also quickens the pace of man’s own re-barbarisation. The fruits of reason are poisonous to reason itself.
Such is the global light in which events in our country must be viewed. The triumphalism of Mandelaism has lulled most South
‘‘ We are seeing the death of innocence, a ‘rediscovery of the ordinary’
Africans into a slumber induced by a deceptive sense of exceptionalism.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu may not have been aware of the pregnancy of his rainbow nation metaphor. He seems to have been seduced by the idea of a nation united in diversity – just as a rainbow projects a harmonious diversity of colours.
A more realistic interpretation of the rainbow is that of ephemerality, a thing that comes and goes. The bright sky promised by the rainbow is a seductive temporariness. A rainbow is as sudden in its appearance as it is quick to fade away.
Nobody knows when and how South Africa’s current political storm will end. What we know from history is that stability is not permanent. We know, too, that disorder is not eternal.
Even the blind can see that our society is undergoing the end of a historic political chapter. We are witnessing the death of innocence – what Prof Njabulo Ndebele would call a “rediscovery of the ordinary”.
The time when politicians were viewed as saints is gone. We are now rediscovering their ordinariness. Due to an entrenched heroic idea of politics, our rediscovery of ordinariness is as shattering as the news of Zwelinzima Vavi stealing love in a Cosatu office.
The most irritating thing is that the silent majority knows what is supposed to happen. We know South Africa needs coherent and visionary politics, an educated and skilled citizenry and a constantly modernising economy. Yet, an element of madness seems to have seized complete hold of the soul of our nation.
It is in chaotic times like these that societies show their capacity for self-renewal by revealing their hidden treasures of leadership.
This may be the point when ordinary people in ordinary communities stand up in the interests of the future of their children. Otherwise, disorder might capture our society for aeons to come.