SA like a bolshie, immature adolescent

Geoff Sifrin

Taking Issue

President Jacob Zuma told a Tembisa rally, for example, that the Democratic Alliance – a legitimate party with a black leader and mainly black candidates which has won support through free elections – was the “brainchild” of the white oppressors and blacks should unite against the oppressor.

“Where does a black person get the guts to associate with the oppressor,” Zuma asked.

Such statements coming from the country’s head of state about the largest opposition party is a sad indication of how far our political discourse has strayed from the reconciliatory days of Nelson Mandela.

Has South Africa’s bold nonracial project failed – the “rainbow nation”? Pessimists will say it has, that the country is exhausted and the ANC will remain in power under Zuma, discarding the nonracial idealism it embodied as a liberation movement and pursuing power just for the sake of power and personal benefit.

The optimists, however – there are many, but their voices are being drowned out by the pervasive negativity – will say the current crisis, the declining of ANC dominance and the strengthening of opposition parties, is a positive sign of the emergence of a genuine multiparty democracy.

It is a young democracy, only two decades old, and we should be celebrating this much-needed restructuring of our political landscape, even though the road is rocky and scary at times and there are many villains trying to derail it.

The tensions are part of the political maturing of this country – like an awkward adolescent behaving badly trying to sort out his identity, who will become more sensible as he goes along.

The sobering thing is that our political discourse today is not that much different from one of the world’s most mature democracies, the United States, where a dangerous buffoon like Donald Trump, whose crude language seems to come from the gutter, has become the Republican candidate for American president. Hard to believe.

South African Jews are part of the process of this country’s political maturing. Many are as confused as other citizens about where it is all going.  

What should the Jewish leadership be telling the ordinary community members? In a controversial gesture in November 2013, Israeli MK Avigdor Lieberman, then chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, told South African Jews that they should get out of the country before it is too late, warning them of a looming “pogrom” and accusing Pretoria of being “anti-Semitic”.

Newspaper posters on street poles along major Johannesburg roads blared out: “Call for Jews to leave SA”.

His statement was greeted with outrage by the South African Jewish leadership. This was our country, we were proud of it, and who the hell was he to tell us what to do? Jews were embarrassed by the whole incident.

But Jewish leaders do face a difficult personal dilemma. How to encourage the community to believe in the new South Africa, to grasp the incredible opportunities here to do something special and make a difference. Are they also saying this to their own children, however? What do they say when their loved ones who have emigrated call them from Canada, the UK, Australia and other places and ask how things are going in South Africa? Do they say: “Come back and help us build the country”?

Being South African is not for sissies, but it is a worthy challenge.

Read Geoff Sifrin’s regular columns on his blog sifrintakingissue.wordpress.com