Welcome back to SA’s politics of the gutter, sir

ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, who is struggling to rid himself of the corporate suits in exchange for political boxing gloves, has predictably sparked controversy with his “boer” remark.

While electioneering in Limpopo at the weekend, Ramaphosa urged black people to vote ANC, lest the boers take over the country again.

In areas such as Marikana, where Ramaphosa would dare not visit for obvious reasons, Malema’s fiery rhetoric is yielding political fruit.

Zuma, on the other hand, continues with his flip-flop rhetoric – from criticising clever blacks to blaming Verwoerd for making it difficult for the present government to deliver quality education and textbooks.

He continues to subject the country’s legal systems and governance institutions to unnecessary stress while those close to him run around to make him look like the statesman he is not.

For this, Zuma’s support base within the ruling party seems unshakeable. A strange reward.

With this in mind, what would you do if you were Ramaphosa trying to crack it back into politics, especially after many of your downtrodden comrades see you as a bourgeois who shares corporate boardrooms with white people?

Simple. If you can’t beat them, join the race to the bottom.

Those who thought Ramaphosa would bring a sense of soberness into our politics were merely fooling themselves.

Ramaphosa has probably realised that politics of exceptionality in the ANC won’t work. He must fit in with the new crowd – regardless of his standing. But those who expected better of him, like this young editor, had good reasons to believe he would be different.

Unlike Malema and Zuma, he is highly educated. Unlike Malema and Zuma, he has made a fortune in private business and he is unlikely to fiddle with taxpayers’ money. Unlike Malema and Zuma, he understands the law and fully appreciates the operation of the state.

He was, after all, the man who co-chaired the Constitutional Assembly that drafted the constitution that is hailed the world over.

It is this very same constitution that guarantees the political freedom and the rule of law.

It is this very same constitution upon which all laws of the land – including those that ensured the conviction of the Boeremag – are based.

By saying the kind of things Ramaphosa said about boers, he is suggesting our constitutional edifice is so weak we could slip back to the past.

This is despite the fact there is not one single political party that campaigns for the return of apartheid, which has long been declared a crime against humanity.

But Ramaphosa does not actually mean boers will come back to run the country apartheid-era-style. He said something he did not mean.

That’s why I believe his apology is sincere.

He knows what he said was not feasible in the light of the kind of constitutional order that he, himself, has helped create.

He knows that should the country be led by boers in future, those boers will more likely be ANC loyalists like Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Deputy Minister Andries Nel.

In typical South African style, when we pity someone, we say: “Shame, Ramaphosa, he is trying to fit into the politics of the gutter.”

Welcome back to politics, sir.

Mpumelelo Mkhabela is the editor of Sowetan