Johannesburg - There are two remarkable images of South Africa’s liberation chapter which stand outside the National Assembly in Cape Town.
From time to time, tourists, schoolchildren, old men, women and many other curious citizens file past the gates of Parliament to catch a glimpse of these images.
One is a statue of Nelson Mandela, rightly portrayed as a dignified, grey-haired man bearing a cherubic smile. Not far from Mandela’s statue stands another imposing image. The statue of Walter Sisulu, holding the hand of his wife Albertina as they walk towards the parliamentary chambers, is equally poignant.
Mandela and Sisulu’s legacy is instructive of our past and present. In their quest for freedom, both suffered severe penalties at the hands of apartheid.
The two statues remain a stark reminder of how these leaders were taken away from their people and put behind bars while they were at the peak of their lives. They endured many years of suffering but refused to succumb to the most cruel measures that were designed to break their hunger for freedom.
And when they were finally freed, they still conducted themselves with great honour and integrity. Mandela and Sisulu showed no bitterness towards their tormentors.
At the twilight of their long journey to freedom, they unselfishly took a back seat, bequeathing unto all South Africans a Parliament that was meant to become a symbol of their heroic struggles.
They left the institution which they hoped was going to become the pride and the pillar from which South Africans could draw political inspiration for many generations to come.
Those who were there when Mandela delivered his first State of the Nation address on May 24, 1994 will recall how the statesman was quick to remind those occupying seats in the Chamber of their collective “commitment to the poor, the oppressed, the wretched and the despised”.
Mandela spoke not only of political freedoms. He spoke of a commitment to the creation of a people-centred society, one that must bind South Africans “to the pursuit of the goals of freedom from want, freedom from hunger, freedom from ignorance, freedom from suppression and freedom from fear”.
That is what Mandela urged them to do if they were to give meaning to their presence in the National Assembly and if they were to give purpose to their occupancy of the seat of government.
This worldly statesman has since died.
But his and Sisulu’s memory remain encapsulated in those poignant statues that stare down on parliamentarians as they make their way to the National Assembly.
One would have thought the democratic virtues enshrined in those statues constitute a powerful and compelling dream that is supposed to guide and drive our latter-day politicians’ collective objective of a better life for all.
But Mandela must now be turning in his grave with the national despair that unfolded in Parliament this week.
In just over a year since his passing, Mandela’s Republic has rapidly descended into the abyss of political anarchy.
Vibrant political discourse has been replaced by political frivolities unleashed in the most rowdy manner.
The greatest casualties are ordinary citizens who are still waiting for solutions to their day-to-day problems. Apart from losing their voice, ordinary citizens have been forgotten as Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema and President Jacob Zuma take centre stage.
The citizenry has been forgotten because it no longer matters. Citizens only matter when they are turned into voting fodder, only when lofty promises are made to them.
On Thursday, when they again waited patiently to hear what the year ahead held in store for them, the Chamber again turned into a personal Malema-Zuma battle.
It is perhaps worth reflecting on how political circumstances between the pair conspired to push South Africa down the current slippery slope.
It all began when former president Thabo Mbeki was hounded out of office in 2007.
There were accusations that Mbeki was behind the political woes of Zuma, his deputy at the time, triggered by fraud and corruption charges against him.
Opposition to Mbeki’s bid for a third term as ANC president also grew. It was seen as a bid to extend his rule beyond the country’s constitutional mandate that he serve only two terms.
“Zuma for president” became a rallying cry among his ANC supporters. Inevitably, Mbeki was ousted in dramatic fashion.
He and many of his allies, mostly cabinet ministers, were removed from the party’s highest decision-making bodies.
Most notable among the many beneficiaries of Mbeki’s ousting at the ANC’s 52nd national conference in Polokwane in 2007 were Zuma and Malema.
While Zuma became ANC president, Malema was soon to be propelled into a powerful position as ANC Youth League president.
In the wake of Zuma’s ascendancy in the ANC ranks, Malema was to be feted. At one stage, he stood alongside Zuma outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court and demanded that Mbeki, a sitting president, resign or otherwise he would personally remove him from office. Zuma remained silent as Malema made the outlandish threat.
In reckless terms, Malema attacked anything and anybody he perceived to be the enemy of the ANC, especially Zuma. At one stage, Western Cape Premier Helen Zille was described as a “Satanist”. On another, Malema likened her dance moves to that of a monkey. Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi did not escape Malema’s sharp tongue. Zuma did not object when Malema described him as a “factory fault”.
Zuma personally defended Malema’s political antics. In an interview, Zuma equated Malema’s militancy to that of Mandela. He told me that Malema was like a young Mandela when he was a youth league leader. With age, Zuma said, Malema would become a national asset. There can be no doubt Malema is a product of Zuma’s ANC presidency.
Clearly, the chickens are coming home to roost.
Malema thinks he knows Zuma’s weaknesses. One of Zuma’s weaknesses is his inability to act. He just keeps smiling and laughing as the crises continue to unfold before his eyes.
As Zuma fiddles, Malema embarks on political brinkmanship. The question is, how long is Malema prepared to sustain it?
And what will happen if Zuma refuses to blink? It now looks more and more likely that one of them will at some stage resort to extreme political options. All the signs are there if events in Parliament on Thursday are anything to go by.
Madiba’s dream stands on the verge of a precipice because of a fallout between two former political allies. We have degenerated. Cry, the beloved country.
The Sunday Independent