To hear the talk, in the darkest corners of KwaZulu-Natal, there is a great wailing and a gnashing of teeth going on that we urbanites don't yet know about.
Perhaps the Zulu nation is in mourning as it prepares to receive its defeated, demoralised and disgraced hero, Jacob Zuma, back into the fold. Thousands await his arrival, to hear of his great betrayal by the devil Cyril Ramaphosa.
Erm ... actually not. The Zulu nation is way too smart to be taken in by what will no doubt be Zuma's final, and possibly most schmaltzy, exhibition of martyrdom yet. People have been stealing from the Zulus for centuries. They know a rogue when they see one. So what we will see when he goes home to Nkandla will be a carefully arranged affair in no way representative of the mood of the region or the country.The fact is South Africa is almost beside itself with relief at Zuma's departure and Ramaphosa's elevation. It has been barely a week but the country is suddenly bursting with hope and ideas. No one wants a return to apartheid. Everyone wants to make sure we never have a Jacob Zuma in office again. We can, the mood seems to be, start again. We have another chance. A last chance. How lucky can you get?
The people I have felt most emotional about are those ministers and deputy ministers and officials who emerge from the Zuma reign with their souls and reputations intact. I might not always have agreed with them, but think about the relief people like Ebrahim Patel, Rob Davies, Angie Motshekga, Naledi Pandor and many others must be feeling.
They were part of what turned out to be a deeply unscrupulous regime but remain somehow entire, standing tall.
Ramaphosa stands tallest, although I still find people who niggle away at the fact that he stood by Zuma so quietly for so long. What on earth did people expect? We have hope today because he kept his mouth shut.Ramaphosa will reshuffle the cabinet he inherited from Zuma in a matter of days and the great thing about the president (I think) is that he already knows he doesn't have all the answers. If I have to live under another ANC leader who already knows everything I think I shall go mad.
The South African opportunity right now is clear. It is to build an economy driven by the profit motive and upon which the majority of people are agreed. Put another way, we need a deep and thorough reform that future-proofs the market economy from populist rubbish. Put yet another way, we need an economy that poor people would want to protect.
There's so much to do and so much low-hanging fruit. Ideally, Ramaphosa will not only cut the size of the cabinet (bearing in mind that Zuma made it big because patronage matters) but he'll feel confident enough to create an economic super ministry under a strong and reformist leader.
The current arrangement of the National Treasury and separate portfolios for economic development, trade and industry, tourism and labour is just crazy. They should all be under one roof chasing two targets - jobs and exports.
An economy super minister would be given the task of reform and growth. Ramaphosa's job would be to make sure nothing got in his or her way. It's the only way to go. You can't pussyfoot around with official unemployment nearing 30% and most probably closer to 40%.
Ramaphosa doesn't have a lot of time; many evil people swirl around him. He needs to quickly create a uniquely South African economy, a new way of creating wealth and of distributing it. To do that he needs the wholehearted support of business.The way we make money here needs to change radically. The free market will not survive another populist onslaught and must self-correct. It must offer every South African a stake in the future. Not a single citizen should be left behind.
We can and must design an economy in which everyone has a stake. A sovereign wealth fund would be a good idea for future generations, but probably not now. If we follow the right examples, however, we'll find dozens of democracies that are growing and inclusive.
We had a budget surplus before Zuma destroyed it. Singapore also has one and is currently distributing the surplus among its citizens! That's the reward of good policy.
Ramaphosa will proceed cautiously on the political front. That is his way. But on economic policy he can move more quickly. The road to prosperity has already been paved in many other countries similar to ours. We are not special. We should take the lessons of others and learn from them. It will make our reform less painful...