Friday May 10 2024
The Democratic Alliance’s symbolic desecration of a national symbol is not the most disturbing aspect of the recent flag-burning advertisement. Granted, as most commentators have said, it is a crude effort to garner votes at the expense of that which binds all South Africans. Helen Zille believes if the DA does not form a national government after May 29th, we are going to die. Be rescued or die, is the extraordinary message.
What disturbs most is the desecration of the country’s truth. A country that was plundered and stolen, its people herded out of the way into Bantustans, millions displaced from the land. We in Cape Town know only too well that land and homes in Harfield Village and Constantia, for example, were stolen from their owners.
The first formal act of thievery took place here in the Cape in 1658, when the Dutch Queen signed over the most fertile pockets of land in what is now Bishopscourt. With the Khoisan forcibly pushed out of the way, the workers from Holland who came on the boats in 1652 were granted farms on the foothills of the Cape mountains. With the stroke of a signature, they took ownership of the most luscious pieces of property at the tip of Africa without paying a cent. And this is the truth of our beautiful country: for more than 300 years, the occupiers plundered, brought in slaves to build their homes, and work their fields and treated the rest of us as other.
Look a little deeper and find the families today who own mountains in the Cape. They boast about this without any sense of shame. Access to a magnificent waterfall in Somerset East, the inspiration of artist Walter Battiss, continues to be controlled by a local farmer. Not only does one have to pay but there is a gate that is locked against the local community whose elders remember how they enjoyed the waterfall as children.
The country is replete in stories of resistance to this plunder. In the last hundred years before democracy, organizational efforts intensified. With stops and starts, there finally emerged an African leadership that would turn the tide and bring democracy.
It’s almost impossible to list the many who stood up and led in dignity over a long period of time bringing the country to 27th April, 1994 and then to 10thMay 1994. 10th May 1994 was the day Nelson Mandela was inaugurated. It was a day on which South Africa paraded its new flag in all its glory.
All the contestation about the design of the flag came to an end on that day. Very few liked it when they first saw it and there were great arguments. Nelson Mandela intervened and asked that the design and colours be accepted and changed in future if the people insisted.
It moved the country away from the old apartheid flag which represented white unity against the rest of the country. Many had paid with their lives to get this flag that symbolized for the first time the unity in diversity of all who live in our land.
When the helicopters flew the flags across the union building at the inauguration of Mandela on 10 May 1994, a roar arose from the gathered crowd present. Never did something so beautiful flutter so proudly and graciously in the wind above our heads binding us together and not breaking us apart.
There was not even a whisper about the possibility of ever changing the flag again. It wrapped itself around our hearts and burst onto rugby fields, music concerts and dominated the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Today it is not only owned by us. It is honoured by millions across the world.
The truth is that our flag is not under siege as the advert suggests. It is held high both here and abroad.
At this moment that marks the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration and 30 years of democracy, it can truthfully be said that the past 30 years represent a chequered experience. The first 15 years largely saw enormous progress and then the second 15 years showed considerable upheaval and decline.
Facing a country divided into racial pockets 30 years ago, the new government carried on its shoulders the mission to create a system to serve all the people and not just some. It has done so successfully in some regards and failed dismally in others. The truth nevertheless is that these 30 years represent the first time in over 300 years that South Africa has crafted a government obliged to serve everyone and not just a minority.
In the last 15 years, the challenges were enormous starting with the 2008 financial crisis that was a result of mismanagement and corruption in the leading institutions in the world. This manifested here after the 2010 World Cup that momentarily staved off the financial crunch for us. From 2011, the decline edged its way into our lives slowly moving us to further difficulty with the emergence of Covid-19 effectively wiping out economic gains made. Through this period came load-shedding, State Capture and all its attendant shame. And then came the shocking July 2021 mayhem in KZN. Not a pretty picture.
Did South Africa bemoan its fate and give up? No. Many from different backgrounds once again put their shoulders to the wheel and started fixing the damage. The first call of those determined to destabilize the country had been the weakening of National Treasury and SARS. Thankfully as the next 15-year cycle looms large, this important institution has been fixed and is fully functional again. SARS, set up 26 years ago, can now proudly claim that compared to a low base of 4,7 million individuals registered to pay tax in 2007, the number has grown to 25.9m by March 2023. Company registration in the same period grew from 1.2m companies to 3.9 m. The most important institution for healthy country functionality has been brought back to full operation. Study the 2023 SARS Tax Statistics.
Similarly with Eskom. As I write, Eskom has marked 40 or more consecutive days of no loadshedding. It has for 12 months between April 2023 and March 2024, recorded a 9 percent year-on-year reduction in planned losses. It has also had a 19 percent decrease in unit trips. In the same year, diesel spend averaged 50 percent lower compared with the same time last year. Since November 2023, loadshedding is 61 percent lower than the same period last year. While loadshedding is not at an end and is expected to accost us in the winter months, it is expected to be at a reduced level. Thankfully, there are also more that 140 criminal cases against staff at Eskom.
With rail and freight challenges are at last being steadily dealt with, alongside other institutions, the inflows of international investment confirm that progress is constant. By all accounts South Africa remains an important investment destination. In 2023 alone, the country attracted almost ZAR100 billion in FDI inflows. At the same time, reports show that many who have moved to other countries are steadily returning as they come to understand that other countries are not challenge-free.
South Africa is not creating enough jobs even though our figures now are back to pre-Covid levels and improving. At the end of last year, the facts are that Kwa-Zulu Natal created 315,000 jobs, Limpopo, 181,000 and the Western Cape 161,000. As with the matriculation scores, the Western Cape lags. Study the Stats SA’s quarterly labour force survey for the fourth quarter of 2023.
Instead of desecrating the flag and discarding the deep truths about South Africa, Helen Zille should be helping her constituency to understand the nuances of their reality. Instead, she insists on a narrative that emboldens her constituency with a notion of superiority of certain people. The world is standing up against this attitude. It is standing up against the constant desecration of the truth. It is standing up to call for a more just and fair world order, and South Africa is taking its rightful place in this powerful forward surge of humanity.
I dedicate this article to National Poet Laureate, Dr Mongane Wally Serote, who celebrated his 80th birthday this week.