The loss that returned sanity and decency to SA's public life

21 August 2016 - 02:00 By Barney Mthombothi
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It may be germane, I suppose, to haul out all the buzz words, the clichés and the tired phrases as we try to understand the turbulence in our politics. We're in uncharted waters.

Jacob Zuma is the elephant in the room. Chickens have come home to roost for the ANC. The election result has left them high and dry. Throw in a watershed or two - we're deploying them with gay abandon.

Clichés are often taboo. Don't touch them with a bargepole, and avoid them like a plague. We're told to be original.

But I'm all for clichés. I think they get a bum rap. After all, what is digestible language if not a string of well-worn clichés?

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It's only natural to resort to familiar language when confronted by slightly unnerving circumstances. So that we're all on the same page, as it were. The landscape thrown up by the election can seem daunting.

But we're in a better place than we were before the elections. We still don't know how the future will pan out - whether the opposition parties will be able to undertake the huge responsibility of collecting our refuse, or whether they will squabble and collapse like a pack of cards.

We won't know until they do it. We're in for some interesting times. But as they say, change is the only constant.

There's nothing more alluring or seductive than power. But that's being cynical. The more adult stance to take is to be grateful that these parties are able to come together despite the huge ideological gulf that exists between some of them.

That shows maturity. They will know, too, that the public will be watching them. Any disorderly conduct or mischief will be punished at the ballot box.

It is good, even critical, that this co-operation is anchored by the DA and the EFF, who represent the extremes of the political spectrum. Co-operation will breed compromise, drawing both parties to the middle, which is where the majority of the population is.

It is, however, a co-operation that seems to have rattled the tender sensibilities of the SACP, which has accused the EFF and DA of lending a black face to white supremacy.

One would have thought such language to be beneath the SACP. Class, not race, used to be its litmus test. But then, too often prejudice tends to trump principle.

One can't recall the SACP complaining when the ANC some years ago eagerly swallowed a totally discredited National Party. The ANC couldn't be faulted. It was political brinksmanship. Parties will do what is in their own best interest.

block_quotes_start But powerlessness will change the ANC, just as access to power and privilege transformed the party from a benign big tent into a rapacious monster block_quotes_end

What the SACP seems to forget, though, is that the EFF has a mandate and it does not, because it has consistently refused to subject itself to the will of the people.

It is the metaphorical dog barking at the moon. What purpose does it serve? What keeps it going is the odd crumb from the ANC's ample table.

It's incumbent upon leadership of all stripes and every persuasion to seek not to divide, but to unite the people of this country across race, culture, gender and religion. That should be the starting point, an absolute requirement.

Unity is the rock on which ultimately a prosperous future will be built. Only the lowlife should be left to swim in the sewer.

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It is therefore encouraging that Zuma's incendiary language during the campaign did not bear any fruit. The ANC fared badly despite his appeal to racial sentiments. The party was judged purely on its performance in power, and it was found wanting.

Losing support must obviously have been painful for the ANC, but even more heartbreaking must have been the discovery this week of the extent of the visceral hatred felt by opposition parties.

Their universal hostility towards the ANC seemed to be the only thing that united them.

The party deserves the animus it's getting. Its arrogance has become unbearable and is, in fact, at the core of the incompetence and corruption that have reduced the government to a laughing stock.

It has stopped listening to those who put it in power. To refuse, as the national executive committee did this week, to confront the calamity that is Zuma means the party has its head firmly stuck in the sand. It will reap its just rewards in 2019.

But powerlessness will change the ANC, just as access to power and privilege transformed the party from a benign big tent into a rapacious monster that has arrogantly and blatantly used state resources to look after its own.

There won't be enough perks to go around or to lure new recruits. Also, power is the glue that has held this fractious rabble together.

The ANC deserved to lose, not only for its own sake, but so that sanity and decency may be restored in our public life.

Parties should know there are consequences if they misbehave, and voters should not be shy to punish those who step out of line.

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