Prince of Charm has magic of Madiba

WE, the people of Mzantsi, seem to have accepted our Valentine’s

Day gift bestowed by Msholozi when he recently exited the political arena.

We accepted this gift with the generosity of spirit of a jilted lover willing to recommit.

Let bygones be just that, we seemed to say, as the Prince of Charm power-walked into our hearts via Sea Point Promenade and then, equal opportunity lover that he is, from Gugs to the Salon.

There is no guile about our most recent suitor.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, referring to Marikana, deployed the royal “we” and conceded that the government had failed the people of South Africa with the Marikana tragedy and that it “was the darkest moment in our young democracy”.

Our president speaks with the heart of a pastor when he expresses not only his determination to be part of “the process of healing” but of his desire to atone. This is the language of contrition and vulnerability.

When one expresses the desire to “atone” you lay your chest bare to the spears of judgment and even of mockery.

Ramaphosa has some of the Madiba magic in his gracious playthe-ball-and-not-the-man comments in Parliament. There is also his easy engagement with a fascinated public.

There is a whiff of mystery, like L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme: “a new, woody oriental signature… with masculine vetiver, sandalwood and a sensual base of black vanilla.”

We also need some tough love and a recasting of The National Question given the furore on land redistribution in Parliament this week.

In his State of the Nation Address Ramaphosa committed to honour the December 2017 resolution by the ANC to expropriate land without compensation; to return it to “our people”.

We need parliamentarians to engage in the complexities of our history and the colonialism of power evident in the present.

The usual positions of “for” and “against” were assumed without any political imagination.

In the early days of a marriage, small tensions emerge around customs such as the toilet seat. Should it be left up or placed down after use?

Oscar Wilde defined marriage as “the triumph of imagination over intelligence”.

With our divorce from Number One, we are stepping over the threshold once again into a second marriage, which Wilde said, “is the triumph of hope over experience”.

The hope we seek came in the gallant, almost quixotic voice of dissent of Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota.

“Who is not our people in this country?” he thundered, undeterred by the challenges flung at him from members of the house.

Ramaphosa is adept at speaking almost all the official languages with a measure of enviable competency.

It is not a matter of how well he speaks it, but that he is able to engage, conversationally at best if not more, with all our people inspires as much it challenges those of us who speak either only English or Afrikaans.

This is not only the outcome of being Soweto born and raised, but is part of his conscious pursuit of the tenets of non-racialism that characterised his political and social life on the path to the presidency.

As one of Venda origin, Ramaphosa would be aware of where African chauvinists locate him and other communities in the ethnic hierarchy of our land. He is well placed to provide a clear expression of who “our people” are in our republic.

And on that point, Mr President, could I suggest you appoint Mme Lindiwe Sisulu as your deputy president?

Her qualifications are recorded in her footprints on the ongoing path of liberation.

I recommend her also because of her lineage on her father’s side. The KhoiSan, as you know, were represented by their DNA in that of Madiba.

Lindiwe would ensure that coloureds are also numbered in your cabinet.