We’ve heard the state of the nation address. We now ask ourselves if Cyril Ramaphosa really wants what we want & what he says he wants, i.e. does he really want to stop the raping and pillaging of our country’s coffers & to stimulate investment so that employers are keen to put their hard-earned capital where we need it. Does he really want the workers to work for a wage that is realistic & not just to have an excuse to stand in line for another hand-out to correct the ills of the past? Does he really want to rid the civil society of scoundrels? Does he want to bring our different nations & tribes together to build up this country again?
We see urban decay and we see rural neglect in this beautiful country as millions of people from north of the Limpopo compete with the unskilled local poor for scarce jobs & this leads to despondency & crime.
We see a population growing in the number of mouths that need to be fed, but not in dedicated teachers and disciplined learners (pupils to most of us older folk), not in caring nurses who value their jobs no matter how hard they have to work. We see the destitute hanging on for dear life, we see the previously disenfranchised recently enfranchised but not empowered economically, we see the rich not willing to share their capital with those who they regard as being undeserving, we see most believing that their lot is not improving & we see the politicians & the gangs & other hardened criminals getting richer so much faster than almost anyone else in this country, so many then end up looking to joining these skebenga’s to change the quality of their lives. This needs to be changed.
People with limited means (about 40million of us) must begin to believe that they have a chance of living a financially secure life through being solid, principled citizens who work hard & who contribute to the community around them.
Are the symptoms that we see in our society today simply signs of a radically changing world which is busy with a short term struggle to adapt to globalization, mechanization (high tech & AI) & urbanization like many other developing countries? Or are these the symptoms of a nation that is largely incapable of creativity, productivity & competitiveness due to factors that are virtually irreversible even if we have a miraculous turnaround in the quality of our teaching & education in general?
Do the majority of our peoples in South Africa have the moral fibre required to build a great nation such as Nelson Mandela dreamed of or are we fooling ourselves in still living that dream?
Is our latest president speaking from the heart when he utters the smooth rhetoric that he is known for when he’s speaking to potential global investors at international conventions such as the economic forum in Davos, or is he just saying what he knows they want to hear, while deep down he’s actually driven by taking from the rich & giving what they have to the poor?
Mr President, what are you really made of? We need to know, right now. That also goes for our cabinet ministers, our ministers of parliament, our civil servants & other leaders in civil society.
