EDITOR – We South Africans are sitting like unsuspecting people on top of an active volcano waiting for it to erupt, while we quibble over petty issues mostly consumed with negativity, litigation, a deep sense of dissatisfaction, back-stabbing, in-fighting and endless conspiracy theories.
It's been a long 22 years into our young democracy, which was launched with all the pomp and ceremony. The ANC rose to power under the most favourable conditions, having the world's most celebrated icon as the very first president of the new South Africa, the moral and political high-ground and the support of the international community, who hailed this peaceful transition as an epoch making miracle. The cards were stacked in the ANC's favour.
The first 20 years could be considered as the honeymoon period and it has just been the last few years that the wheels have come off and one has to consider the reasons for what has gone wrong. We have genuinely a robust extremely dynamic democracy that's not suffering from political paralysis. A plethora of new legislation has passed into law during this period and much tangible and visible positive changes have taken place in social services, health and education.
The dichotomy between the haves and have-nots is baggage that will haunt this young fragile democracy for decades to come and no welfare state government can resolve this issue in a short term. We also have a very robust opposition but they have spent the last 22 years fighting the ANC and more recently the last few years consumed with the obsessive hatred of the President. I could only guess what they spend on litigation and what the ANC has to spend from the fiscus to defend itself in courts of law. If only all this wasted money could have been directed at our biggest demon, ie. poverty alleviation, can one only imagine how productive this would have been in attempting to bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots.
Our democracy cannot feel right in the context of this dichotomy of the gap between the haves and have-nots so for as long as this gap remains the have-nots will not allow the haves to enjoy the fruits of freedom. Both the government and the opposition parties must remember that there is a higher court than the courts of justice and the court of public opinion and that is the court of conscience, and it supersedes all other courts.
To our political leaders – they need to accept that when they took up public office by virtue of the vote they tacitly accepted that they would be accountable to the people and will constantly be under the spotlight and under the scrutiny of 27 million voters. Given our political transparency, all politicians have to be reminded that they are like goldfish in a glass bowl and goldfish have no hiding place. What we have witnessed in the past week bears testament to the goldfish analogy with the Minister of Finance being charged, the former Finance Minster implicated in some or other shady deal and the list goes on and on and on.
The only way a goldfish escapes scrutiny is when it has to be removed from the glass bowl.
Sicario
Durban
