ANC is sinking and taking us with it
IN 1912, the British passenger liner, the Titanic, hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage and sank with the loss of 1 490 lives. May their souls rest in peace.
Ironically in the same year, in the far distant land of South Africa, on January 8 at the Wesleyan School in Mangaung, hundreds of teachers, church ministers, lawyers and doctors responded to a call to form an organisation that would unite all our people from different tribes in their fight for freedom.
In that meeting, the titanic movement of the ANC was born.
Successive captains of the movement steered the ship through the turbulent waters of many years of banishment, imprisonment and life in exile under respective heavyhanded draconian white minority regimes.
Their unwavering commitment to a just cause and the moral ground from which their struggle was waged belied the insurmountable challenges they came across.
In the process, the ANC was acknowledged by all and sundry as the flagship worth following throughout the sail to a democratic order.
On his return from almost 30 years in exile, one of the most illustrious captains of our ship, the late OR Tambo, whose centenary birthday the ANC is celebrating this year, made a daring call that has never been more relevant than it is today.
He said: “I have devotedly watched over the organisation all these years. I now hand it back to you, bigger, stronger, intact. Guard our precious movement.”
As a captain after Tambo, Nelson Mandela steered the ship through the “Jordan river” into the promised land, through a resounding victory over apartheid rule.
Since 1994, respective ANC captains have also assumed the role of steering the entire South African ship forward in search of milk and honey.
To this end, building a strong and sustainable economy which creates equal opportunities for all citizens, is non-negotiable.
However, the sad reality today is that under Jacob Zuma, the ANC has now been made a safe haven for careerists, unscrupulous business people, tribal vengeance, utter savagery and downright “mafiatism”.
We have watered down our moral standards to a point where corruption, political patronage, the scramble for government resources, and rampant looting of state coffers have become synonymous with this sacred movement of Oliver Reginald Tambo.
Having survived the storm called apartheid, our ship is being eaten away by the termites called greed and self-centredness. The looting of state resources is done with unbelievable impunity.
All indications are that the flagship has lost its moral compass.
Captain Zuma, like Captain Hendrick van der Decken, the captain of the Flying Dutchman, has become a cruel, arrogant and paranoid man who is constantly making his crew sail into big storms.
Legend has it that one-day Van der Decken made his crew sail into the biggest storm they had ever seen, arrogantly declaring not even God could stop him. The crew all died.
We can only allow Zuma’s captaincy of our ship to continue at the peril of both the ANC and our country. Enough is enough! The titanic ANC is sinking and so is our beloved country. George Shumani Mukhwa Randima