Mac Maharaj is described by many as a former spin-doctor for President Jacob Zuma and the trusted-confidant of the late President Nelson Mandela. Maharaj has sacrificed much for the South Africa we call home today but the last line in his biography will be that he was Zuma’s spokesman and was responsible for scolding the fourth estate from time to time.

There was some buzz this week around a wide-ranging interview Maharaj gave to the Financial Times. The 20-page transcript of this interview makes for an interesting read and highlights interesting comments on issues ranging from Thabo Mbeki, Zuma, Mandela, communism, China, Cyril Ramaphosa and the US, to the future of Africa.

Predictably, the focus was on the comments Maharaj made about Zuma and Nkandla. These comments have not been the hot political football Maharaj alluded to but perhaps it has been a busy news cycle.

My underlying concern is that South Africa is a country that is still trying to define the nature of its democracy and decide how best to confront the issues at hand.

There is much talk about the fight for freedom, the role that many freedom fighters played in that liberation, apartheid and the personalities that have captured our hearts and imaginations for so many years.

However, there is a risk in so much sentimentality and nostalgia as it clouds our thinking and often provides great distraction. This nostalgia blinds us to the need to get on with the business of running the country and provide leadership.

Time and time again, we will either be reminded of the role someone played in the fight for freedom or, as we have seen more recently, their lack of involvement in that struggle.

There is an urgency amongst some to buy into the South African dream that is couched in the fight for liberation and the honour that is bestowed on people like Abram Tiro, Steve Biko, Mbeki, Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, and Chris Hani.

These credentials are essential in crafting a message. I am sure this helps prove to potential voters and supporters that your party best reflects the days of struggle that rightly toppled the Apartheid regime. However, the thrust and risk of this focus is that it is layered in nostalgia and sentimentality that does not serve the interests of South Africa today.

Maharaj rightly comments in the Financial Times interview that “nothing is being addressed in a fundamental (and) sustainable manner”. Instead, all the political players offer us are platitudes, empty rhetoric and high theatrics. The dialogue is devoid of understanding, depth and meaningful solutions. However, we are told that we must trust those who fought for freedom.

Our political environment is no longer about the best policies or the best people but rather about how best to spin the story. Criticism of the governing party is not based on policy or thought but rather on the leadership of one man.

The thrust of this criticism is that the African National Congress (ANC) has strayed from the legacy of giants (and nostalgia) and that somehow it has devolved into some mutant creation that is simply dismissed as the “ANC of Zuma” or the “South African Communist Party of Blade (Nzimande)”.

It would be tempting to simply define the organisation’s history and legacy through the men and women who were perceived to be at the forefront, but in doing so we ignore the individuals who believed in something and fought for those beliefs.

The sentimentality that many of us indulge in is dangerous because it does not reflect today’s realities to define the future of our country.

The danger of this mind-set is playing out across South Africa, reflected in our politics, in our business community and in the lack of ethical, courageous and responsive leadership. As Maharaj put it, we are “living in mental ghettos and we (need) to get out of the mental ghettos”.

The next chapter of South Africa cannot surely be defined solely by the sentimentality and nostalgia so many feel about the fight for freedom. It was indeed a momentous time in our history and reflects the power people have when they rise up and take their destiny into their hands. However, we must be more careful about how we reflect that history.

The history of the struggle is not simply a reminder of that pivotal time in our history, it it should provide us with encouragement and the knowledge that we can rise above the temptation of relying on our past because we can shape the future.

Speaking about Mandela, Maharaj said: “People do not take into account in South Africa … that the form in which oppression took place here was to deny us history, was to treat us as inferior people … it was so persistently driven into us that it affected our psychology terribly”.

This is appropriate for the struggle that we must all take up. However, we have a great deal of work to do before we can even begin defining that future and we have some way to go still before we are out of those ‘mental ghettos’. DM