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South Africa, post Marikana Report: Still waiting for leadership

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Judith February is executive officer: Freedom Under Law.

Speeches rarely change the world, but at moments of great tragedy or history, citizens look to leaders to help them make sense of senseless tragedy. On Thursday night, no such leadership was forthcoming.

It was no wonder that ‘Amazing Grace’ was trending on Twitter on Friday night after President Barack Obama’s searing eulogy delivered at the funeral service of Reverend Clementa Pinckney in Charleston, South Carolina. It has already been labelled Obama’s greatest speech yet.

Watch: Barack Obama’s eulogy for Rev Clementa Pinckney

Many were uncertain of what to expect – something too ‘political’ or rather partisan would have been quite out of place in the context of grief so raw. Yet, if politics is about every day life, it was bound to rear its head. And, Obama is, after all, a politician. Washington gridlock has doubtless tried and wearied him. At the annual White House correspondents’ dinner it is Obama himself who points to his increasingly greying hair. Yet, this time as he did in his seminal speech ‘A more perfect union’ in March 2008, Obama more than rose to the occasion as he spoke of the core principles of faith, grace and hope – but also of America’s indivisible freedoms.

Obama came to Charleston in what was a significant week for America and his presidency in particular. The Supreme Court of the United States, led by John Roberts had not only endorsed ‘Obamacare’, the healthcare reform programme which may well be Obama’s most important legacy, but also confirmed the right of equality by declaring gay marriage constitutional. But, issues of race and reform on gun control born of a stubborn understanding by many regarding the ‘right to bear arms’ remain stumbling blocks for Obama.

Speeches rarely change the world, but at moments of great tragedy or history, citizens look to leaders to help them make sense of senseless tragedy. In South Africa, it was Nelson Mandela who showed such leadership when Chris Hani was assassinated. It takes rare skill. Charleston was one such moment where leadership was needed. ‘We need to have a conversation about race’, is what people ask for repeatedly. Yet, as Obama rightly pointed out, enough conversations have been had. The problems and challenges are known, yet the ability to fully understand the history and modern day legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws in the South seem lacking somehow.

Obama certainly did not mince his words about the inappropriateness of the Confederate flag. The cynics might ask why this issue had not been raised and acted upon before. Yet, as Obama himself said, sometimes it takes a tragedy like Charleston to make us truly see the harm of the past. In a magnanimous gesture, Obama tipped his hat to South Carolina Republican governor, Nikki Hayley, who herself had spoken eloquently of the symbolic difficulty in the Confederate flag. At the same time, Obama was able to weave in his opposition to the current weak gun control legislation as well as the socio-economic plight of many who still face injustice, poverty and inequality in 2015 America. Gridlock Washington politics still fail many of America’s poor and marginalised.

But Obama’s searing speech resonated in South Africa as well – not only for its rhetorical brilliance but because it speaks to so much of what we as South Africans are grappling with and searching for.

On Thursday night, President Zuma released the finds of the Marikana report. Thirty-four miners lost their lives at the hand of police brutality in 2012. No matter how one seeks to dress it up, those are the cold hard facts. No member of the executive will be held political responsible and another enquiry into the fitness of Police Commissioner Riyah Phiyega will be held. In all likelihood Phiyega will fall on her sword, resign with a golden handshake or be shuffled off to some diplomatic posting. That’s how we do it in South Africa. Probably the saddest part of Thursday night’s announcement by Zuma was that the miners’ families had not been given due notice of the television address. Instead they had to scramble to find a radio or television to hear whether there would be any justice for them, three long years later. Such disrespect shown to the families must surely only aggravate their plight.

Thursday evening was an opportunity for Zuma to show leadership and to speak to a nation still reeling not only from Marikana.

But, Zuma is unable to ‘do an Obama’. He simply does not have the integrity or the ethical compass. He would be unable to deliver a speech that convinces us that his government is serious about putting the country and its citizens first. From the countless ways in which his government seems to undermine the Constitution, sanction corruption to the full frontal assault on the powers of the judiciary this week, we seem to be losing our direction pretty fast. Many have said that in comparison to Brazil, Turkey and Russia, South Africa is still doing relatively well. That argument might be technically true for investment bankers, but Russia as a comparator is hardly helpful, nor is Turkey’s Erdogan.

So on Thursday night, we waited in vain, really.

Watch: President Jacob Zuma releases the Marikana report

The only way in which Zuma might have been able to show leadership – or still is – is to resign. Yet we know that possibility is unlikely.

As Obama spoke about race in Charleston and about the symbolism of flags, we longed to hear such wisdom across party lines here in South Africa, as we grapple with our past and the meaning of symbols. In South Africa too, we talk about race a great deal. But do we listen to each other when we speak, do we hear each other’s stories and understand, the lived experiences of ‘the other’? Are we able to give an honest account of our own history and do we secretly sanction subliminal racism? These are the hard questions to which no one has the definitive answers. But they do lie within those ‘reservoirs of goodness’ Obama talked about – not only in the United States but here in South Africa.

Out of the tragedy of the past and the present, be it Marikana or the day-to-day indignity of poverty and inequality, there remains a reservoir of goodness and hope. But to harness it South Africa will need leadership of integrity across sectors and also to deal with the stalemate which has now become commonplace in our politics.

As Obama finished his eulogy with a soaring rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’, one could not help but to prefer it to our cheap and tawdry president asking for someone to ‘bring his machine gun’. DM

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