South Africans must make their peace with the fact that the ANC has become a liability to this country.
Perhaps, more than anything, we need to cut our loses and make a clean break with this era of our history in order to realise a new future.
It may not be an easy task, seeing that it is our future that is feeble and unclear right now. However, this is the time to show bravery, by getting rid of the proverbial albatross around our necks.
The ANC has failed to deal with itself and likewise its president.
It is now in a tailspin towards complete destruction.
However, the party has been too successful in intertwining itself in the very fabric of our society. As a result, we are at risk of going down with an ANC which has morphed into a Mafia-style organisation.
In his article, “You have been warned,” published by City Press this weekend, ANC stalwart Frank Chikane traced the scourge of corruption all the way back to the ANC’s first term in power.
President Nelson Mandela warned against the debilitating effects of corruption.
But we are aware that even this was not the beginning of corruption; the ANC struggled with issues of moral conduct even while in exile.
It is therefore, a welcome development that some in the ANC now realise the value of honestly tackling the glaring shortfalls of the ANC in the past decades.
At least we can take some lessons from this honesty.
It must be clear though that honestly pointing out these shortfalls does not suggest in any way that the preceding apartheid government was better.
That government remains an abomination, the type of which should never ever be allowed to rear its ugly head again.
What is very disturbing, though, is that this government can now be compared and mentioned in the same sentence as the apartheid government.
In his article, Chikane also invokes the words of Mandela: “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world”.
I agree with Reverend Chikane, South Africa has become the skunk of the world once again – this time due to a government we call our own.
The images of the “festival of chairs” – the ANC Eastern Cape elective conference in East London on the weekend of October 1 – were beamed across the world.
These shocking images demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the degeneration and decay which has overtaken the ruling party cannot be arrested.
There is no hiding it and no way to spin it. The narrative of politics being a dirty game is no longer enough to pacify citizens while the ANC wreaks havoc in the country.
We dare not sit and stare in shock.
We need to act, each in our own way. This situation is intolerable.
It is beyond a betrayal and beyond enmity between former comrades, such as the former provincial ANC president Phumulo Masualle and the new one, Oscar Mabuyane.
These are manifestations of a party in deep dysfunctionality.
They point to a party which seemingly neither understands democracy nor subscribes to ethical conduct.
They point to a party which has no ability to manage succession or to exercise proper governmental power.
They point to a party which waited to root out corruption rather than dealing with it at the outset.
The ANC has entirely lost sight of ethics in its pursuit of absolute dominance in the South African political scene.
In that blind pursuit it has lost sight of the very reason for its existence.
But the demise of the ANC need not be the end of our nation – if we act. Indeed, we dare not allow it to be the end of us all.
The ball is now firmly in the hands of all South Africans across every possible divide. If we do not take the opportunity to free ourselves from the ANC, emotionally and/or otherwise, we will seal our fate as one more African country which chose to fear a new future so much that we hung onto a liberation movement that has long ago lost itself. If we do, we, too, will lose ourselves.
Unfortunately, any new leadership of the ANC is a leadership which has been complicit in the long downward spiral into the present morass.
Neither their sweet words nor possible intentions may ever be tested because the trust necessary from citizens may finally have been exhausted.
The ship that such leaders hope they will take over has already taken on too much water.
South Africans must realise that this ship has already sunk.
Time to act bravely as ANC has become albatross around SA’s neck
Perhaps, more than anything, we need to cut our loses and make a clean break with this era of our history in order to realise a new future.
It may not be an easy task, seeing that it is our future that is feeble and unclear right now. However, this is the time to show bravery, by getting rid of the proverbial albatross around our necks.
The ANC has failed to deal with itself and likewise its president.
It is now in a tailspin towards complete destruction.
However, the party has been too successful in intertwining itself in the very fabric of our society. As a result, we are at risk of going down with an ANC which has morphed into a Mafia-style organisation.
In his article, “You have been warned,” published by City Press this weekend, ANC stalwart Frank Chikane traced the scourge of corruption all the way back to the ANC’s first term in power.
President Nelson Mandela warned against the debilitating effects of corruption.
But we are aware that even this was not the beginning of corruption; the ANC struggled with issues of moral conduct even while in exile.
It is therefore, a welcome development that some in the ANC now realise the value of honestly tackling the glaring shortfalls of the ANC in the past decades.
At least we can take some lessons from this honesty.
It must be clear though that honestly pointing out these shortfalls does not suggest in any way that the preceding apartheid government was better.
That government remains an abomination, the type of which should never ever be allowed to rear its ugly head again.
What is very disturbing, though, is that this government can now be compared and mentioned in the same sentence as the apartheid government.
In his article, Chikane also invokes the words of Mandela: “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world”.
I agree with Reverend Chikane, South Africa has become the skunk of the world once again – this time due to a government we call our own.
The images of the “festival of chairs” – the ANC Eastern Cape elective conference in East London on the weekend of October 1 – were beamed across the world.
These shocking images demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the degeneration and decay which has overtaken the ruling party cannot be arrested.
There is no hiding it and no way to spin it. The narrative of politics being a dirty game is no longer enough to pacify citizens while the ANC wreaks havoc in the country.
We dare not sit and stare in shock.
We need to act, each in our own way. This situation is intolerable.
It is beyond a betrayal and beyond enmity between former comrades, such as the former provincial ANC president Phumulo Masualle and the new one, Oscar Mabuyane.
These are manifestations of a party in deep dysfunctionality.
They point to a party which seemingly neither understands democracy nor subscribes to ethical conduct.
They point to a party which has no ability to manage succession or to exercise proper governmental power.
They point to a party which waited to root out corruption rather than dealing with it at the outset.
The ANC has entirely lost sight of ethics in its pursuit of absolute dominance in the South African political scene.
In that blind pursuit it has lost sight of the very reason for its existence.
But the demise of the ANC need not be the end of our nation – if we act. Indeed, we dare not allow it to be the end of us all.
The ball is now firmly in the hands of all South Africans across every possible divide. If we do not take the opportunity to free ourselves from the ANC, emotionally and/or otherwise, we will seal our fate as one more African country which chose to fear a new future so much that we hung onto a liberation movement that has long ago lost itself. If we do, we, too, will lose ourselves.
Unfortunately, any new leadership of the ANC is a leadership which has been complicit in the long downward spiral into the present morass.
Neither their sweet words nor possible intentions may ever be tested because the trust necessary from citizens may finally have been exhausted.
The ship that such leaders hope they will take over has already taken on too much water.
South Africans must realise that this ship has already sunk.
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