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By Edwin Naidu
Nelson Mandela would cringe in his resting place at Qunu in the Eastern Cape, given the current state of his beloved South Africa.
Mandela spent 27 years behind bars fighting for an end to apartheid.
Since stepping down in 1999 as a one-term president, his successors, except for a short-term appointment, acting President Kgalema Motlanthe, have consistently trampled on the ideals of the great man.
If Mandela was about human rights and an inclusive South Africa, former President Thabo Mbeki’s statesmanlike legacy is tainted by the signing of the R30 billion arms deal scandal in December 1999.
He further dented his credibility over his stubborn attitude to HIV/Aids at a time when South Africa had one of the world’s largest HIV epidemics. Mbeki questioned the mainstream scientific consensus that HIV causes AIDS. He gave attention to a small group of scientists and commentators who disputed the link between HIV and AIDS and raised concerns about the safety and effectiveness of antiretroviral (ARV) medicines
Critics argued that government policy delayed treatment and prevention programs while AIDS-related deaths rose. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) took the government to court, and in 2002, the Constitutional Court ordered the state to make nevirapine more widely available.
Can one forget how Mbeki, at a Youth Day rally in Soweto on 16 June 2001, pushed away Winnie Madikizela-Mandela when she joined him on the podium to greet him?
The television footage showed Mbeki pushing or brushing her away as she leaned in to greet or kiss him. In the process, her hat was knocked off, and the two appeared to exchange angry words. The former president striking the mother of the nation and its contribution to male chauvinism and the gender abuse prevalent in South Africa today is worth a study.
Mbeki was protected just as his successor, Jacob Zuma, had been by the ANC Women’s League despite his treatment of women, including the rape allegation of a comrade’s daughter on which he had been acquitted. The Nkandla scandal, unraveled by the then Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s Secure in Comfort report in 2014, found that several features installed at Nkandla were not legitimate security measures and provided undue benefit to President Zuma and his family. These included:
- A swimming pool (officially described as a “fire pool”)
- A cattle kraal
- A chicken run
- An amphitheatre
- A visitors’ centre and other facilities
The report concluded that Zuma and his family had unduly benefited from these measures. State capture with the fugitive Gupta brother, which Zuma has amnesia about, is another example of a politician putting his interests ahead of the country.
After Zuma, Motlanthe briefly held the reins before the arrival of Cyril Ramaphosa, whose tenure will be remembered for not doing much, sitting on his hands while South Africans suffered. The raft of scandals arising out of COVID-19 remains a stain on his Colgate smile. It would get worse with the Phala Phala scandal, a controversy about a large cash theft at Ramaphosa’s game farm, and allegations of a cover-up, raising questions about accountability, transparency, and the use of state resources. Like the Nkandla scandal, Ramaphosa saw no action against him.
With such strong bullies in charge of the ANC, you question whether its commitment to gender equality will ever see a woman at the helm? That’s for glossing over in August!
Coupled with the rising unemployment, increasing poverty, the inability then of Eskom to keep the lights on, and ongoing service delivery failures by the government, it is no surprise that voters turned on the ANC during the May 2024 elections.
Critics argue that the current President Cyril Ramaphosa has delivery failures. Although there has been some improvement in reducing load shedding and implementing economic reforms, many citizens believe these changes have been too slow to improve their daily lives. Ramaphosa has also faced criticism over the handling of corruption, with some arguing that accountability has not been strong enough despite promises to rebuild public trust.
The Phala Phala controversy further damaged public confidence by raising questions about transparency and leadership. It is important to acknowledge that supporters of Ramaphosa argue he inherited many of these challenges after years of state capture and institutional decline. They point to efforts to strengthen law enforcement, reform the electricity sector, and stabilize key state institutions. Even so, many South Africans remain disappointed because they expected faster and more visible progress.
As Mandela Day nears, perhaps the ANC should be questioning whether it has anyone in its midst with the selfless care of Madiba than the selfish presidents we have seen after he stepped down. Critics claim that the ANC is on borrowed time. The local government elections will be another test or a nail in the coffin of the world’s oldest liberation movement.
Mandela has had his critics, and many argue that his reconciliation allowed the haves to hold onto what they have and not open access to South Africans. Broad-based Black Empowerment beneficiaries like Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Patrice Motsepe, Saki Macozoma, and Cheryl Carolus minted money in the name of empowerment. Their families and friends benefited. South Africans got to marvel at the new rich Black people—and dream of one day emulating them.
If Mandela was about reconciliation, he too failed South Africa by retaining the apartheid tags, which continue to divide us 32 years after democracy.
The ANC fought against apartheid and strove for a non-racial society under one umbrella. Yet the ethos of apartheid, built on the definition of South Africans as whites, Indians, Coloureds, and Blacks, is pretty much alive. Three decades after democracy, the ethos of South African remains divided, as if they do not belong. It is time to change this if we want the Rainbow Nation to become more than a wonderful phrase coined by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
While Madiba will cringe, the apartheid masters should be laughing in their graves. Apartheid may be gone by law, but its grand creation to keep us separate lives on every day in a democratic South Africa when citizens are still depicted by the racist tags bestowed upon them. Let’s be serious about being proudly South African.
Mandela’s legacy will be celebrated by thousands doing their bit for 67 minutes on 18 July. Yet it remains a blemish on his selfless legacy—and the selfish men who followed in his footsteps made South Africa a pitiful welfare state, where people are used to handouts instead of hand-ups to do it for themselves.
When beneficiaries of handouts like Ramaphosa and co see nothing wrong, how do you expect a nation surviving on grants, even the miserly R350 a month, which shows how out of touch the goverstate where break the cycle of dependence? If he were alive, Mandela would probably tell you that it starts with looking at one’s own selfish behavior—and returning to the ideals on which the Bill of Rights was established, from which the ANC has moved as far as possible. Mandela would probably hang his head in shame and cry at our divided South Africa.
Edwin Naidu is head of Higher Education Media, publisher of www.ednews.africa
