This have had some notable deaths which were turned into media circuses, other deaths were lessons in morality about teenage drinking and nightclub deaths, others were supposedly ignominious deaths of ordinary proles who go through a lifetime without anybody even noticing they were there.
It might appear I have an agenda of attrition. Not so. This is just a calm assessment of some truths which will again sink into the morass of twisted and flawed polemic and deceit that is our national gruel.
Basically, the cry is: “Keep Cyril where he is. He represents that last possible vestige of dignity and recompense that the eager investors are seeking, while holding back the investments we all need so sadly. He represents, just barely, some sense of vraisemblance that is needed for us to be seen for who we are.”
And indeed, who are we? We are a vital, vibrant and varied nation. Few countries can compete with us in terms of natural resources, food production, inventions and tertiary education.
We have had the attention and respect of the world for a long time, even during the residence of the toxic and narrow-minded Calvinists of the previous regime.
Through all of this, we have produced thinkers, writers, entrepreneurs, indeed, a respectable phalanx of talent which sadly, depended for veracity and significance purely on the even-more hegemonic and manic ANC.
Try to envisage the country with ANC-only members.
But put clever ones in government, ones whom the president might not like because they question his pathetic vacillations, but who know what they are doing.
Hamlet is a rational being next to Cyril in his present position of vacillator and denialist extraordinaire.
The president needs to state that he prefers to be called the president of the country, and only then the leader of the ANC.
As such, we needn’t depend on the goodwill of gangsters like the various ministers who castrate him with their monopolistic choke-hold as share-holders in SOEs.
Discard the parasitic labour and communist partners and construe a government of the people, for the people and by the people. Involve the nation where it counts.
If government can’t catch up with the housing problem, look at the informal home-builders who start a new structure even as the older one is burning.
Provide basic materials and achieve ownership. One tends to look after that which one owns. It’s the freebies that sap the fiscus.
Make the populace shareholders in our cornucopia in every sense of the word, and watch societies flourish.
Do the maths, for God’s sake. And while they go about these reparations, temporary though they might be, construct a moral template for a nation who has included insecticide as part of the salvation of the soul!
Or bishops who have substituted light beers as better than the symbolic blood of Christ.
I exit on this note. Do not rail against the darkness. Light a candle. And if going into the night is inevitable, do so with courage and dignity.
And if we cannot keep up with infant mortality, consider national birth control. Then we might just make the pathetic present accommodation in schools a more feasible reality.
I am not asking for a miracle. I demand one. Let’s go into the new year with a resolve to repair the shambles the present government has so effectively created.
Let’s start living, South Africa. We are already three decades behind.
* Alex Tabisher.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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