Once upon a time, the ANC leaders fought tirelessly for equality and freedom. But now, they are living it up in fancy villas, while the people they fought for are still struggling to make ends meet in poverty’s murky waters.
In an ironic twist of fate, these former freedom fighters against apartheid are now trapped in corruption’s grasp — something they bravely battled against before.
Meanwhile, ordinary people like us are still trying to scrape by.
Former president Thabo Mbeki cannot help but point out this absurdity as he proposes a national dialogue to re-evaluate where our country is headed post-election on May 29.
He presented the idea in a speech on Tuesday at Freedom Park in Tshwane, titled Observations by Thabo Mbeki to Mark the 30th Anniversary of South Africa’s Democracy.
Plan to sabotage the ANC
He cautions that even back when we first got democracy in ’94, there were sneaky apartheid lovers scheming behind the scenes to sabotage progress made under the ANC government through what he calls a “counter-revolution”.
Apparently, part of their master plan involved making sure that things went wrong so that everyone would blame the ANC and get fed up with all the good work done thus far, which would ultimately lead to evil forces successfully toppling the governing party from power.
Mbeki then talks about how said counter-revolutionaries continued messing stuff up along the lines of revenue services falling apart, Eskom putting us into darkness via loadshedding, and law-enforcement agencies caving left, right, and centre, especially during his successor, former president Jacob Zuma’s term.
Well, South Africa did not quite hit the mark on what we were hoping for after all that ANC-led liberation effort.
Did Mbeki play a part in this mess?
You would think that with Mbeki at the helm and his shiny “African Renaissance” idea, things would be a breeze by now.
But now he’s got to steer us back onto the course … again?
Back in the day, Mbeki was all about pushing our country forward. So it is kind of a big deal that even he sees how off track we have gone from our freedom dreams.
But let us not forget — could Mbeki have possibly played a part in this mess too? Is Ol’ Thabo being real, and has he done some deep introspection?
At first glance, this whole call for reflection by the former president seems legitimate and caring, right?
Well, except when you remember that he and his fancy politician friends are living large while most of us are not so lucky.
How can they tell everyone else to reassess their fight for freedom when they are reaping benefits from keeping others down? Talk about tone-deaf!
Inclusive national dialogue
So yeah, basically, Mbeki wants South Africa as a nation to take a long, hard look at ourselves using him as an example, because if anyone knows where we went wrong, it is probably going to be someone close to action like him.
And so, naturally, Mr Ex-President reckons getting everybody together again could be an awesome idea.
So yeah, that whole thing about one big inclusive national dialogue hosted after the elections this month could be a good thing.
Because, obviously, we have not fully achieved our freedom goals yet.
