A FEW weeks ago BMW South Africa managing director Bodo Donauer remarked about the lack of dynamism in the manner in which the country was being driven.
He said our leaders spent a lot of time looking in the rear-view mirror of South Africa.
“A rear-view mirror,” he said, “is not the best solution for dynamic driving or for steering a country forward.”
ANC deputy president and deputy chairman of the national planning commission, Cyril Ramaphosa, had a different view.
He said those who failed to look at the rear-view mirror were bad drivers.
Ramaphosa was surprised that the remark came from someone who makes cars fitted with rear-view mirrors.
For Ramaphosa, the rear-view mirror was important.
He got a round of applause for his dissenting view.
Donauer and Ramaphosa were speaking at a business dinner held in honour of top black achievers, including Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Kaizer Motaung.
On the face of it, Ramaphosa had a good point. It is hard to imagine driving a car without checking the rear-view mirror.
But a bit of analysis suggests Donauer’s analogy of dynamism could not have been made at a better time.
Since he made the remark, the tragedy of our uninspiring politics has turned into a farce.
The term “apartheid” dominates the political discourse among political leaders. It is the clearest indication yet that political leaders no longer have any vision to sell to the citizens.
This is indicative of the crisis of imagination on the part of the political elite.
Whereas past leaders envisioned a nonracial and nonsexist equal society, the current leaders seem clueless on how to take this vision beyond simply enjoying their high-profile offices and the trappings – mainly undeserved – that come with it.
Don’t be fooled into thinking the ANC alliance and the DA are different. They are depressingly the same on this matter.
What brings them together is their obsession with the past – the rear-view mirror to which Donauer referred. They focus less on the destination and how to get there than they do on the past.
The best our current political leaders can offer is petulant bickering about the past.
This preoccupation with the rear-view mirror has reached chronic stage.
The root cause is the failure to imagine a better future for our country.
Apartheid is the default reference. It is almost as if this ugly past serves as an inspiration.
It is nauseating to watch leaders of the ANC-led alliance fighting about whether or not the legacy of apartheid still exists.
Isn’t the wealth gap between blacks and whites not an obvious consequence of history? Is the spatial outlook of South Africa not indicative of the two nations that former president Thabo Mbeki once spoke about?
Equally annoying is to hear ruling party leaders argue about whether or not post-1994 service delivery failures should be blamed on apartheid.
Isn’t it obvious that apartheid cannot be blamed for the R30-billion that gets swallowed in the endless pit of incompetence and corruption annually?
Sad as it is, this politics of the rear- view mirror has been fully embraced by the opposition who often and opportunistically style themselves as better off than the ruling party.
The DA is trying hard to fight the ANC at its own game, digging up whatever it can to prove that it too was involved in the struggle against apartheid.
In addition to diverting attention from which road to take, and how to avoid the ubiquitous potholes, the rear-view mirror strategy has its own tricky hurdles.
DA leader Helen Zille knows, as we all do, how hard it is to find any South African who would admit to having supported apartheid.
You can’t even find a white person who would admit they benefited from apartheid policies. Notwithstanding evidence to the contrary, not even Zille can admit to benefiting by virtue of her skin colour.
So, why get bogged down by the images of the rear-view mirror?
I doubt if those interested in opposition politics care about whether Nelson Mandela once hugged Helen Suzman.
Our politics has reached depressing levels. None of our political leaders articulate a vision for the future.
Nor do they, in their being, represent something transcendental to the present socio-economic crises.
Our leaders are neither inspirational nor aspirational.
Ramaphosa chaired the constitutional assembly which drafted our constitution and is the deputy chairman of the national planning commission which produced the national development plan (NDP).
He must reconsider his views about rear-view mirror politics. What we need is leaders who can inspire the nation to give effect to the constitution and the vision contained in the NDP.
Rear-view mirror politics does not cut it.
Mpumelelo Mkhabela is the editor of the Sowetan
Rear-view mirror politics blinds vision for future
He said our leaders spent a lot of time looking in the rear-view mirror of South Africa.
“A rear-view mirror,” he said, “is not the best solution for dynamic driving or for steering a country forward.”
ANC deputy president and deputy chairman of the national planning commission, Cyril Ramaphosa, had a different view.
He said those who failed to look at the rear-view mirror were bad drivers.
Ramaphosa was surprised that the remark came from someone who makes cars fitted with rear-view mirrors.
For Ramaphosa, the rear-view mirror was important.
He got a round of applause for his dissenting view.
Donauer and Ramaphosa were speaking at a business dinner held in honour of top black achievers, including Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Kaizer Motaung.
On the face of it, Ramaphosa had a good point. It is hard to imagine driving a car without checking the rear-view mirror.
But a bit of analysis suggests Donauer’s analogy of dynamism could not have been made at a better time.
Since he made the remark, the tragedy of our uninspiring politics has turned into a farce.
The term “apartheid” dominates the political discourse among political leaders. It is the clearest indication yet that political leaders no longer have any vision to sell to the citizens.
This is indicative of the crisis of imagination on the part of the political elite.
Whereas past leaders envisioned a nonracial and nonsexist equal society, the current leaders seem clueless on how to take this vision beyond simply enjoying their high-profile offices and the trappings – mainly undeserved – that come with it.
Don’t be fooled into thinking the ANC alliance and the DA are different. They are depressingly the same on this matter.
What brings them together is their obsession with the past – the rear-view mirror to which Donauer referred. They focus less on the destination and how to get there than they do on the past.
The best our current political leaders can offer is petulant bickering about the past.
This preoccupation with the rear-view mirror has reached chronic stage.
The root cause is the failure to imagine a better future for our country.
Apartheid is the default reference. It is almost as if this ugly past serves as an inspiration.
It is nauseating to watch leaders of the ANC-led alliance fighting about whether or not the legacy of apartheid still exists.
Isn’t the wealth gap between blacks and whites not an obvious consequence of history? Is the spatial outlook of South Africa not indicative of the two nations that former president Thabo Mbeki once spoke about?
Equally annoying is to hear ruling party leaders argue about whether or not post-1994 service delivery failures should be blamed on apartheid.
Isn’t it obvious that apartheid cannot be blamed for the R30-billion that gets swallowed in the endless pit of incompetence and corruption annually?
Sad as it is, this politics of the rear- view mirror has been fully embraced by the opposition who often and opportunistically style themselves as better off than the ruling party.
The DA is trying hard to fight the ANC at its own game, digging up whatever it can to prove that it too was involved in the struggle against apartheid.
In addition to diverting attention from which road to take, and how to avoid the ubiquitous potholes, the rear-view mirror strategy has its own tricky hurdles.
DA leader Helen Zille knows, as we all do, how hard it is to find any South African who would admit to having supported apartheid.
You can’t even find a white person who would admit they benefited from apartheid policies. Notwithstanding evidence to the contrary, not even Zille can admit to benefiting by virtue of her skin colour.
So, why get bogged down by the images of the rear-view mirror?
I doubt if those interested in opposition politics care about whether Nelson Mandela once hugged Helen Suzman.
Our politics has reached depressing levels. None of our political leaders articulate a vision for the future.
Nor do they, in their being, represent something transcendental to the present socio-economic crises.
Our leaders are neither inspirational nor aspirational.
Ramaphosa chaired the constitutional assembly which drafted our constitution and is the deputy chairman of the national planning commission which produced the national development plan (NDP).
He must reconsider his views about rear-view mirror politics. What we need is leaders who can inspire the nation to give effect to the constitution and the vision contained in the NDP.
Rear-view mirror politics does not cut it.
Mpumelelo Mkhabela is the editor of the Sowetan
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