Time for all of us to do what we can to help

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on Thursday night. This time it wasn’t about the latest lockdown regulations or Covid-19 infection rates, but the pandemic in all its malignance overshadowed everything he said.

For many commentators – public and political – the president’s State of the Nation Address offered nothing new. Many thought it was tedious and boring. Others say the same promises made this week were those made in previous years.

They’re only half-right. The fact that the promises remain the same is because the mountain of work that has to be completed to set this country aright remains immense. We are dealing with the legacies of decades of structural and institutional inequality from apartheid and a decade of kleptocracy that is probably unmatched on the African continent, as well as the greatest global public health crisis in living memory.

The struggle to address this is as gruelling as it is painstaking. There are no shortcuts – only everincreasing needs. The president and his administration recognised this on Thursday; first and foremost, by extending the critically important relief grants, that have done so much to stave off disaster, for another three months; secondly by tabulating the critical tasks that still have to be done.

He is not blind to the challenges we face. The same cannot be said for his critics, who often wilfully ignore the tools and resources that the president has: a creaking, sometimes corrupt, often unskilled and mostly over-staffed and overpaid public service and a political support structure that appears to be built on sand.

As citizens of this country, we need to stop thinking in terms of superheroes and supervillains because South Africa is not a comic book – despite appearances.

Instead, we need to start asking what we can do, and then do it, if the fynbos is indeed ultimately to grow back better, stronger and more beautiful than ever before.