Since Cyril is borrowing from FDR, there is another line he could use … about fear
President Cyril Ramaphosa concluded his tepid and muchlambasted speech two weeks ago by quoting Nelson Mandela and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Leaning on Mandela’s stature was no surprise; ANC honchos always fall back on him as a crutch when in a spot of bother. But appropriating the words of Roosevelt, who died 75 years ago, was left field. Also intriguing was that Ramaphosa didn’t put the words in context or explain to his befuddled audience why they were relevant to our situation. He plonked them at the end. Then it was goodnight, almost as though he was in a rush to avoid another mask-fiddling moment.
“The state of this nation is good. The heart of this nation is sound. The spirit of this nation is strong. The faith of this nation is eternal,” he quoted Roosevelt. They were the concluding remarks of Roosevelt’s state of the union address in January 1943. Fourteen months earlier, on December 7 1941, the Japanese navy had launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, sinking four US battleships, destroying 188 US aircraft and killing 2,403 Americans.
Up to that point, the US had avoided joining what was becoming a world war. A day after the attack, the US declared war on Japan. Three days later, Adolf Hitler made another strategic mistake by declaring war on the US. The isolationistinclined US was pitched into World War 2.
Roosevelt’s 1943 address, therefore, was the first comprehensive account of what had transpired in 1942, the first full year of the US involvement. The entire country and the economy had been mobilised to serve the effort and about one and a half million troops were fighting in different parts of the world. Roosevelt told Congress that 1942 had been a pivotal year and the war was as good as won.
“The Axis powers [Germany, Italy and Japan] knew that they must win the war in 1942, or eventually lose everything,” he said. “I do not need to tell you that our enemies did not win the war in 1942.”
While 1942 was probably the most crucial year “for modern civilisation”, he warned of more conflict ahead, but was hopeful the US and its allies would prevail.
“A tremendous, costly, long-enduring task in peace as well as in war is still ahead of us. But, as we face that continuing task, we may know that the state of this nation is good, the heart of this nation is sound, the spirit of this nation is strong, the faith of this nation is eternal.”
It was a rallying cry. The US and its allies went on to win the war. In February 1945, Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in Yalta in the Crimea to set the terms for the surrender of Nazi Germany, shape the postwar peace and to divide among themselves the spoils of victory. By early May 1945, all German forces had surrendered, and the war in Europe was over. But Roosevelt was not around to witness probably his greatest achievement. He had died a month earlier.
If the Americans had stayed out of the war, we would all probably be speaking German. But Roosevelt is regarded as more than just a war president. Apart from being the only president to have been elected four times, he ranks alongside George Washington, the country’s founding father and first president, and Abraham Lincoln, who preserved the union and abolished slavery, as one of the US’s most consequential presidents.
When Roosevelt became president in 1933, the country was in the throes of the Great Depression, with extreme deprivations — hunger, joblessness, homelessness — abroad in the land. The Great Depression not only preceded his presidency, it propelled him to office. In the same year, Hitler was putting in place his grand plan for world domination.
To respond to the destitution at home, Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, a series of public works programmes to help farmers, the poor and the unemployed, reform the financial system and get the economy off the ground. He also came up with the GI Bill that provided for returning soldiers benefits such as tertiary education, medical care and unemployment insurance. The veterans acquired skills that helped to power the economy. The New Deal increased the role of government many times over.
Although the New Deal was often frustrated and undermined by the Republican Party and conservative members of his own Democratic Party and the judiciary, it redefined and recast the role of government in American society. It set the benchmark and a dividing line between Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative. For the Republicans, especially since Ronald Reagan, their policies have focused on dismantling the New Deal and reducing the role of government.
Ramaphosa is no FDR, but it’s gratifying that he takes an interest in a leader of such great accomplishments. It is probably a sign of where his thinking is headed. Not a bad model to follow. Like Ramaphosa, Roosevelt was a man of means, but his wealthy background did not deter him from pursuing policies that benefited the poor and marginalised. And like Roosevelt, who came into office in the Great Depression and with the spectre of war in Europe, Ramaphosa also took the reins amid the ruins of state capture and is now confronted by an awful pandemic.
Roosevelt confronted his foes head-on, at home and abroad, and triumphed. Ramaphosa is still dithering. He seems paralysed by fear. Maybe he should instead have chosen Roosevelt’s oft-quoted remark at his inauguration in March 1933: “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing to fear is fear itself.”