Botched marriage offers us a peek into the nation's psyche

FOR the past week or so, South Africa has been talking about nothing but the naiveté and stupidity of two women who had the temerity to think they could change the world.

Mamphela Ramphele and Helen Zille fell flat on their faces, and the reaction has been swift and unforgiving.

We knew - didn't we? - that it would end in tears. We just knew.

Perhaps the reaction to the botched marriage tells us more about the critics - and dare I say, South Africa - than it does about the culprits. The debacle offered us a peek into the country's psyche. As an impromptu dipstick into the 1994 project, the diagnosis is that a lot still has to be done. Anger and mistrust continue to poison the well.

The two had hoped that their long-standing personal relationship could be transformed into a political partnership, like a friendship that mutates into a love affair. It doesn't always work out. Ramphele was in a weaker position politically. The Democratic Alliance was clearly the predator and Agang the vulnerable prey. Crucially, Ramphele didn't seem to have consulted her party. A day before the announcement, the party spokesman was rubbishing speculations of a merger. That was unforgivable.

The shambles in the Congress of the People has also done opposition politics no favours. Voters are now more suspicious of new entrants. But it is the formation of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters - loud, brash and in your face - and its clear and distinctive message that has taken the shine off Agang. Never has the phrase "new kids on the block" been so apt. Even the ANC has cause to look over its shoulder.

But it seems nothing could have prepared the DA and Agang for the frenzy that followed. They were damned for thinking up the deal in the first place and then damned again for messing it up.

But we should pipe down, I think. Nothing nefarious happened. Nobody was swindled. No one died. They messed up, that's all. We've got far bigger problems to worry about.

The deal collapsed because it seems Ramphele wanted to eat her cake and keep it. But the venom directed at her far outweighs her alleged misdemeanour. Patricia de Lille and her band of independents were gobbled up by the DA. That caused hardly a stir.

In politics, taking risks comes with the territory. Nelson Mandela initiated negotiations with the government long before the ANC knew about it, and in open defiance of his fellow prisoners. It was a huge gamble, but we're the better for it.

Later, Joe Slovo was to introduce the sunset clause, a mechanism that allowed for the formation of a government of national unity. It stabilised South Africa. Success, as they say, has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan.

But there's a sense of betrayal even among those who are not Ramphele's supporters. It is that, with her at the helm, the DA would have become a more powerful force.

That's a back-handed compliment for her from people who supposedly don't think much of her. Calling it a rent-a-black scheme was unworthy of the ANC. Instead of living up to its credo, it decided to lead a lynch mob.

Political vandalism is not the place for a ruling party. It's also hypocritical - the ANC has yet to properly digest the remnants of the National Party it swallowed years ago. The indigestion seems to have gone to its head. It is this sort of mentality that won't allow people to vote for Trevor Manuel, perhaps the best leader South Africa will never have. He's been a committed cadre all his life, but he's the wrong colour. That, in my humble opinion, is the biggest tragedy.

We're still caught up in the age-old straitjacket of "ownership" and "boundaries". People talk of "my people" or "in my culture ...".

It's a dividing line between privileged insiders and outcasts.

You become an expert or a spokesman for a particular group of people by the mere fact of belonging.

Culture, that nebulous concept that defies description, has no gendarmerie or police to enforce its edict. It rules by stealth. And so, when Ramphele decides to link up with the DA, she crosses that invincible boundary. She immediately becomes a sellout, a heretic. She has to be disowned.

I remember a conversation I had with a cabinet minister some years ago. I had stupidly suggested that perhaps the electoral system could be changed to make our democracy more accountable. "No!" he shot back. "Our people still need the guidance of our movement." Not being too sure myself about how voters, alone in the tranquility of the voting booth, are guided by the movement, I kept my own counsel.

Perhaps, 20 years after the advent of democracy, we should be asking that vital question: Who are "my people"? We're still stuck in our trenches. They're comfortable places. But, by holding on to the past, we're denying ourselves possibilities, some admittedly risky, that could take South Africa forward.

Apartheid has been expunged from the statute books, but we've yet to exorcise it from our souls.