We are a country in debt, despair, distress and discontented. It is no longer the South Africa we voted for in 1994.
Multiple events and decisions have taken us from our darling-of-the-world perch in 1994 to scraping the bottom of the well-being barrel, and by all accounts, it seems like we have not reached the bottom of that barrel.
Whether we start with the structure and content of the political negotiations for a political settlement, the arms deal, Travelgate, Aids denialism, the Browse Mole Report, Jackie Selebi’s arrest or the hordes of other wounds inflicted on our democracy, we are a wounded, staggering nation in ICU without a capable medical team to attend to our mortal injuries.
We no longer have a choice between a eureka or a eulogy. Our future is an obituary. The millions of citizens in debt, despair, distress and discontent with life under the current political leadership are testament to this state of affairs.
Some keep on inventing new political parties and coalition scenarios that promise the reversal of our political fortunes. What these proponents fail to realise is that introducing anything new and alternative into this system is neither innovative nor salvific.
We have fallen too far to be saved by a new political party or a coalition of political parties.
Over the past 30 years, about 40 opposition political parties have fed themselves from the treasury trough and have not been able to challenge the status quo and represent a leadership that could build a new South Africa for all.
They have all sought to only introduce their brand of party politics to their brand of voters. The tragic fact is they all spoke for less than 5 million people. They were not there for the 60 million people who wanted a new South Africa.
From the government’s multiple dubious claims to neutrality on major global conflicts to the decolonisation debates by opposition parties, South Africa became a platform for saying anything to please groups of people and at the same time do mortal damage to the face and fabric of the new South Africa.
We are unrecognisable from the country we were in the post-1994 glow of new nationhood. Soon the abuse, the beatings and the betrayals would come to destroy the hope we had that those in power and in the opposition had our best interests at heart. They did not. They were there for the portraits of power, not the people.
Today we are a people in debt, in despair, in distress and discontented, roaming a barren land. We allow our leaders to make silly decisions, like appoint an electricity minister, but we ignore the fact that schedules that include stage 16 load shedding are being prepared.
We are not going to recover from load shedding for the next five to 10 years. Show me where in the world this problem has been solved with this level of thinking and corruption.
Until South Africans arrive at the place where we tell political parties that they are not greater than the people and the country, we will suffer this foolery.
Until we refuse to bow down to their notions of empire and their monarchical tendencies, we will suffer under their lack of actual leadership to build a great country.
Until we the people build civic mechanisms that counteract the lies that political parties are more important than people, and until we oppose the monarchical syndrome, we will be partners to the destruction of the new South Africa.
We are in ICU. Our only choice is to stand up to this culture of political monarchism and reclaim the power of the people. We must not channel that power to another new political party.
Our power resides in building community-based civic mechanisms that represent the needs of the 60 million people who are in debt, despair, distress and discontented.
* Lorenzo A Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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