RANT REVISITED
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My rant below, first published in the book ‘Stepping Stones’ in 2010, has largely gone unheeded and many of the problems enunciated then still persist six years later. The voting public is in a worse position today than it was then, the country is poorer by billions and our standing in the world community has been denigrated. Our soccer, rugby and cricket teams are a joke and the one true hope of revitalisation – a vibrant |
education sector – is in turmoil. Our economy stands on the brink of junk status and the rural poor are still poor despite religiously voting the ANC power over the past twenty-two years.
At what point do ordinary South African citizens draw a line in the sand and demand their dignity back?
Looking back to 2010……….
‘The report card, since Mr Mandela’s inauguration 16 years ago, is abysmal. Despite favourable worldwide economic conditions throughout this period and vastly improved collections by the Fiscus (through more of the country’s emerging economically active population contributing) progress on the above key issues has at best been pedestrian, and at worst extremely regressive.
Our Parliament has been responsible for a litany of corrupt, self-serving and dubious decisions including the Travel Scandal, the HIV/Aids Debacle, the Arms Deal cover up, cover up of the Police Commissioner’s shady dealings, silent support of a neighbouring tyrant, with the blood of his opponents still on his hands, turning of a blind eye on the illegal immigration problem and the soaring incidence of crime, which takes its lead from Parliament and infiltrates South African society, not only as an evil, but also as an arrogant entitlement.
The audit trail also reveals crime, fraud and corruption amongst the new officers in national and provincial spheres of government and serious insolvency and bankruptcy in local government spheres. The legal system, as a result, is creaking under the strain of trying to maintain justice. A Constitutional Court aspirant is currently under suspicion of favouring a contender and of accepting pecuniary inducement to favour a commercial enterprise. The jury is still out on this one but the last bastion of democracy, fair play and ‘good’ is about to be subverted. Watch this space.
In this regard, the moral stalwarts of the struggle, Madiba and Tutu, must be cringing at the behaviour of some of their fellow countrymen. The newly appointed group of leaders are not listening to their moral mentors, and should be setting the moral example for the youth of South Africa.
These are the challenges that you young Democrats, of whatever colour and persuasion, face in the not so new South Africa. Your challenge is not only to become productive taxpayers, but also to ensure that state funds are honestly allocated and used for upliftment of the poor, support of the infirm and aged, creation of self-sufficiency in the country, creation of a stable business environment, honest administration and so on. In pursuit of these moral objectives the perpetrators of elitism, sloth, greed and the rest of that ugly family of vices, should be rooted out, and voted out.
Icons of the struggle on the African continent against colonialism, racism, white domination and cultural oppression are to be admired and revered – and then committed to history. Their victories have been celebrated. The freedom that some died for has been attained. Now the surviving heroes must graciously bow out and hand over the spoils of war to the communities that they served.
They did not suffer for their own glorification and edification.
They fought so that their sons and daughters could grow up in a non-racial, democratic environment which would ensure a new and economically viable South Africa within Africa and the world.
The history of Africa shows that when the oppressor leaves, he is replaced by an even greater oppressor. In South Africa, colonialism was replaced by apartheid, which has been replaced by African nationalism. Sadly, African nationalism does not mean devolution of power to the lowest common denominator, you the voting South African citizen. African nationalism has shown itself in other African countries to be the worst of the previous white regimes, merely dressed in an elite black face. Our closest neighbour boasts a narrow, super-rich, black class that, whilst blaming former white regimes, has plundered the coffers of the country to leave the once rich and fertile country of Zimbabwe starving, bankrupt and bereft of hope.
Before our all partying, all singing, all dancing former struggle heroes, now elite black rulers, bask too long in the sun with their snouts in the trough, you ordinary voting citizens of South Africa should point north and remind them of Africa’s shameful record of black on black oppression.
Remind them, instead of swapping war stories at the country club over claret and grilled partridge wings, to enjoin the new struggle against African elitism, against illiteracy, disease, ignorance, starvation, corruption and the moral decline amongst the youth of this country. If they do not, the next oppressor may well be from Beijing.
