Confrontation often gets a bad rap for being antagonistic and conflictual when in fact it can be positive. Confrontation can be about resolution and forging a better way forward from an impasse or wrongdoing. We should not shrink away from the uneasy or uncomfortable because, most times, that is how we learn life’s important lessons and our mettle is fortified.
Let us take the matter of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s farm burglary and Arthur Fraser’s criminal charges against him. By what are we being confronted here?
Fraser is hardly the most principled person and is clearly fighting for his own survival after being implicated in our neverending State Capture saga. But this does not mean that what he is accusing the President of is untrue.
Ramaphosa has been steadily losing his “Thuma mina” lustre with a stream of questionable behaviour, such as using state funds for his presidential campaign (which, by the way, he still needs to account for) and now this mysterious theft cover-up.
It is important that we remind ourselves that we are indeed able to chew gum and walk at the same time and we can scrutinise multiple incidents with multiple actors at the same time. These incidents of alleged crime and corruption do not cancel each other out. Both Fraser and Ramaphosa can be held to account for their actions.
What we are dealing with here are the consequences of having questionable leaders running the country without being challenged. We also are facing a situation where, because we were so desperate to get rid of our last president, Ramaphosa was beatified and now we don’t know how to handle his potential corruption.
How could it be that we didn’t question the credibility of the person ushered into leadership from the same political party as the previous president? Are we really surprised that some smallanyana skeletons are rattling out of the cupboard?
True leaders who respect their oath of office would by now have done the right thing: taken the nation into their confidence and told the truth about what happened. If guilty, they would fall on their sword. If not, they would dispel speculation so we can get on with the real business of running the country.
In his book, Manifesto, author and political analyst Songezo Zibi posits that it is time South Africans think about political party leadership beyond the three main options of the ANC, the DA and the EFF.
Zibi writes: “While the structural conditions that created the initial inequalities are a result of colonialism and apartheid, the worsening of this condition after 2010 is the result of political negligence, incompetence and rampant corruption borne out of a deep disconnection between the political elites and the real needs of the people. South Africa is in urgent need of a comprehensive overhaul of its political and state institutions, its social structures and institutions as well as its economy and policies.”
I’m not a member of a political party because their leadership offerings are disingenuous, out of touch and, at an extreme, corrupt. We deserve more than that. We must not fear confronting the uncomfortable and must demand more of our leaders. We shouldn’t accept a compromised leadership because it is seemingly the best of the worst. DM168
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.
