The year ends with a crisp summary: South Africans are gatvol of whiny, daft, disruptive and doomsday politicians. We have begun to win the battle over the voices of bellicose politicians.
We have a maturing and inclusive political firmament in South Africa. We have made room for the Freedom Front Plus and have fallen in and out of love with the EFF.
We have frowned at the DA, wondering what position it will take this week, and we have danced with the ANC as one does with a drunk partner on a dance floor.
All these twists and turns have built an amazing sense of political depth in the South African voter. Forget the political commentators, who always tend to come up with something they think the voters have not thought about. The public has lumped John Steenhuisen with Cyril Ramaphosa, Helen Zille with Fikile Mbalula, and Julius Malema with the prospect of empty stadiums.
At the heart of the South African narrative is a voter base tired of the prophesied imaginary great battles of political strife and the imminent demise of leader x and party y.
Only for the media to report that, despite the hell, fire, and brimstone (or should that be Bela), we have survived the prophesied horror that was to descend upon us.
Any seasoned voter will know that the ANC, Jacob Zuma, Helen Zille, Pieter Groenewald, and the other political party leaders all have friendly and cooperative hotlines to each other, despite the theatre we see in the media. Because they know there is no other way, other than political cooperation.
There is no South Africa without the ANC. There is no South Africa without the large DA and Freedom Front Plus voter base. There is no South Africa without the two-party member Jacob Zuma and his charismatic influence on his base. The latter, however, won’t last forever. It is, at best, a blimp linked to his personality.
The same goes for Julius Malema. Our exposure to extremists, beginning with the actions of the early colonisers through to the politics of the Afrikaner of the 1800s, the Nationalists of the 1940s, the arrival of the Gupta garrison in 1993, the Mbeki AIDS denialism of the early 2000s, and the Zuma years have led us to a political sense-making that does not scare easily.
Our ability to start again is legendary. Despite fanatical fears stoked before 1994, it remains a great moment in our history. Despite the disastrous AIDS policies of the Mbeki government, we started again.
Having experienced the corruption of the Zuma years, the voters decided to balance the scales a bit better and gave South Africa a government of national unity. We’re still uncertain if the voters or the donors secured the 2024 election outcome, but that’s a matter for another day.
Restarts are part of the South African political DNA. The Afrikaners had a restart in their politics in 1835/1838, then in 1902 again, then in 1910 again, and then in 1948 again. Despite all these restarts, they still failed to build a just political structure for Africa’s southernmost nation.
The democratically elected government had its start in 1994. 2024 is its fourth restart. The South Africans of 2024 are a lot less tolerant of political mistakes and political threats.
Mistakes are punished, and threats are stared down. In some instances, the mistakes should have tougher sanctions, and the threats dismissed more loudly. Hate speech, threats, and corruption should have December 2024 as its expiry date.
Despite our many restarts, we are deepening our democratic tracks, while fixing a corrupted State and a destroyed infrastructure.
South Africans have arrived at a political platform where we see each other more clearly, both the bloodline and the stranger, as necessary for our peace and our prosperity.
There is room in South Africa for all.
* Lorenzo A. Davids is a leader and veteran in the social development space who has worked for decades to address SA’s stark inequities.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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