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.
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“the initial inequalities are a result of colonialism and apartheid”
No mention of the population explosion in only one of South Africa’s racial groups? Tsk tsk, Zibi, you’re conveniently telling only half the story here.
As for the rest of this article I must ask the same question as the plethora of others written in the same vein. Will this paltry sum change the trajectory of the country? No? Then why are the news media spending so much time on it when there are others who have for decades stolen away this country’s future. Why are those people not constantly in the spotlight where they deserve to be?
Get your priorities straight DM.
Agreed. Lets get on with it! CR is the only one in the ANC right now who can.
There was no need for us to question CR’s integrity. The man is part of the ANC. That tells us everything we need to know.
The theft at Phala Phala should not have come as a surprise, as the very act itself is part of the restitution that so many are looking for and still remain without as only a small elite band – taught by the “Shoalin Masters” themselves. Importantly though is the fact that it points to a number of muted points we are so afraid of airing in public at the risk of being labelled counter-revolutionary or an apartheid apologist.
The fact that the First Citizen failed to report the matter himself to the SAPS and be reliant on his VIP Protectors, is based on exactly the same principle Msholozi have maintain that he did nothing wrong.
Sis Zukiswa you are right, South Africans had been looking for a savour after the trepid days Zupta Days. It is about time that ordinary South Africans regardless of race raise up and take to the streets in their own names as we have done at the height of the Total Onslaught and PW Botha Days. These politicians do not care about the ordinary citizens, as they have their wealth offshore and can buy Golden VISA’s like Russian Oligarchs.
Let’s not be fooled, there is very few political parties and individuals that really have the best interest of ordinary citizens at heart.