After an initial hesitation, lots of toing and froing, as the bargaining dance behind closed doors among political parties unfolded, the government of national unity (GNU), is finally up and running. To the relief of the citizens of this country, the governance show is on the road.
The population will now sit, watch and learn how this new animal will perform.
Bantu Biko once said that while black people have never lived in a socialist society, they would have to learn to live in one.
He was talking about an -envisioned society that could exist after the vanquishing of white-settler colonialism in the country.
In the same vein, it appears the people of South Africa will have to learn to live in a country governed by a potpourri of political parties with apparently diverse ideological positions.
Kudos to this parties that declared to all and sundry that they achieved this monumental feat to save the country from the crisis of a hung election.
The crucial question is whether the GNU could cure South Africa of its fundamental fault line, which is the poverty of the majority black people, who were at the receiving end of -dispossession over many -centuries, on the one hand, and the immense wealth of the white minority, on the other hand.
The few scattered pronouncements we have heard from the new sheriffs in town have not hinted at the tackling of the fundamental problem of our society.
This country can never be viable and sustainable in circumstances where the vast majority of the population is reduced to urchins in the country of their forebears.
In the last 30 years of democracy, the majority have been given bandages in the form of civil rights to bandage the deep wounds of dispossession and oppression that had lasted centuries. We have the rights to vote, association, to form trade -unions, free speech, etc, which do nothing to restore our economic power.
The result is that in the last 30 years of democracy, the black African population has become poorer and the country has become the most unequal in the universe.
Instead of healing this deep wound on the body of our -society, the governing elites in charge of the running of the country, have been pursuing conspicuous consumption of the most vulgar variety. To do this they had to steal public resources like there is no tomorrow. The Zondo commission laid that bare.
The reading of the Tshifhiwa Matodzi affidavit witness statement relating to the VBS saga and other reports that went before it, makes you sick to the stomach.
The GNU, cobbled as it is from disparate parties, might help in mitigating some of these excesses of the governing elites. Their affiliation to different parties might reduce the ease of collaboration among them in the malfeasance enterprise.
This coming together of parties might also produce a creative tension in the work space that is conducive to efficient and effective delivery of services.
Although effective and efficient delivery of services is welcome, it is just a better bandage than the sloppy one we have witnessed for the greater part of the last 30 years. Although it might dull the pain of the majority for a while, it will not fundamentally cure the deep fault line. It might postpone strife and unrest that would inevitably come.
Oppression is just as long as the endurance of the oppressed. We should never imagine that the black majority have endless patience with their state of deprivation, poverty and suffering.
At this stage, it is not apparent the GNU is the vehicle to long-term stability of South Africa.
- Mangena is a former cabinet minister and ex-president of Azapo
