Whenever we celebrate a significant event, such as the birth of Nelson Mandela or as is the case now, National Women’s Month, there is a call not to only set a month aside for commemorations.

But, argue those who want more from society, let’s make the principles that underpinned the life of Mandela or Women’s Month a way of life, a set of ethics that will unite South Africans to do the right thing all the time.

I agree. As a society, we have been fragmented by apartheid and brainwashed by a political philosophy that wanted, as Hendrik Verwoerd said, to turn blacks into hewers of wood and drawers of water. Concomitantly whites, because of the benefits gifted to them by the Verwoerdian philosophy, would-be masters over blacks.

That warped thinking fell in 1994 with the first democratic elections to elect a new government ever held on South African soil. And while we embraced the results of those elections, we did not do the hard job of removing from our presence the stereotypes that apartheid had nailed into each group.

We also did not make a stand over what we felt are a set of ethics that would be embraced and advanced by all South Africans. It is fair to say that each language or colour group has continued on its own way, following its version of what is ethical, without giving a thought to a common set of ethics for all.

It is time to stop this ingrained way of following different ethics for different groups. We need to make every day a Mandela Day, as well as turn each day into one that is free of violence against women, children, the elderly and men. We need to change not only for the sake of our children but for our own sake as well.

Our country demands this of us: to choose an exemplary living, caring for others and to turn our back on a lifestyle that glitters with the rewards that a life of no ethics brings.

We should resist the temptation to fall in love with the vitriol and hate that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) want to introduce into our life. Our struggle, which the angry EFF fails to understand, was just, moral, and informed by values, beliefs and ethical behaviour.

We should choose the way of Mandela, Tambo and the men and women who gave their all to our struggle for freedom. This should not be too difficult because each of the world’s major religions and many people’s groups follows its own version of the Golden Rule that says, “do unto others”.

In our own country, we have the concept of Ubuntu: a person is a person through other people. Accepting a life filled with common South African ethics is a choice all South Africans have to make and follow. It’s not a choice that the government can make for us: it’s a personal one that if welcomed into our midst by the majority will change our country and government. In the ANC this approach is encapsulated in the document called Through the Eye of a Needle which states that:

“As a movement for fundamental change, the ANC regularly has to elect leaders at various levels who are equal to the challenge of each phase of struggle. Such leaders should represent the motive forces of the struggle. To become an ANC leader is not an entitlement. It should not be an easy process attached merely to status. It should be informed first and foremost by the desire and commitment to serve the people, and a track record appreciated by ANC members and communities alike.

“Those in leadership positions should unite and guide the movement to be at the head of the process of change. They should lead the movement in its mission to organise and inspire the masses to be their own liberators. They should lead the task of governance with diligence. And, together, they should reflect continuity of a revolutionary tradition and renewal which sustains the movement in the long term.”

We have not always been faithful to these dictates. Evidence delivered at the Zondo Commission into State Capture might have been riveting, salacious, disgusting to some. But to many of us they are distressing and a necessary process that shows how much we have wandered from the principles enunciated in Through the Eye of a Needle.

We have to return to what Nelson Mandela called the “RDP of the Soul” when he bemoaned the speed with which South Africans want to accumulate wealth instead of helping others.

He told University of Cape Town students when giving the Steve Biko Memorial Lecture 15 years ago: “The values of human solidarity that once drove our quest for a humane society seem to have been replaced, or are threatened, by crass materialism and pursuit of social goals of instant gratifications.”

In the new dawn, President Cyril Ramaphosa has described leadership for South Africa we want as embodying humility, good morals and ethics. We agree with Mandela and Ramaphosa about the characteristics of ethical leadership.

We also agree with Ramaphosa that we are committed to building an ethical state in which corruption, patronage, rent-seeking and the plundering of public money will not find a home.

Last Thursday, in Cape Town I spoke about ethical leadership as part of critical dialogue, and what came out clearly is that ethics is more than just confronting corruption. It is about staring down economic and structural inequalities, gender discrimination and gender-based violence.

Every day should be a new dawn day, a day on which we can harvest the joy of having overcome apartheid colonialism, slavery and exploitation. Each should also be dedicated to ending patriarchy. The time for real renewal is now. DM