by Alex Tabisher
We all agree that 2020 was the most humungous annus mirabilis possible.
Everything that could possibly go wrong, did.
Leading the charge in the catalogue of ignominy was the Covid-19 pandemic.
The president – God bless his troubled soul – tried valiantly to galvanise a nation into a cohesive effort to counter this demoniac invasion.
Sadly, the health issues were slowly overtaken by other perspectives, which included educational, economic and social imperatives.
The result was vacillation and hesitant reversals and near draconian strategies that turned a simple issue into a mangled mess.
We also had to contend with local implosion in terms of bad governance, including a fractured and truncated school year which will cast a murky shadow over the accreditations conferred.
Angie and Blade diddled hither, thither and yon to find a workable model.
Various voices became putative fathers of silver bullets that would save the people.
Among these voices were protagonists on schooling, economics, morality, drinking patterns, issues of gender violence.
Let me leave my tirade just there.
Allow the monumentally patient Justice Zondo to trundle on in the hope of snaring the slithery ex-prez Zuma.
Bail out more failed SOE’s.
Make repair where repair is needed, and hope that the coffers don’t run dry before we admit that we are lost.
Solutions to our problems demand that we shift the norm. Change the perspectives and attitudes.
Do not hang on to the old platitudes that function on tradition and dubious loyalty.
Redefine what it relevant.
The upcoming elections must change the dictum that we are electing new members of the ANC.
That shift should be as definitive as the injunction to wear a mask or go to jail.
We should be voting for a government of national unity that is not manipulated by issues of race, gender, social status, educational levels or any of the hackneyed, droll categories that have clouded our thinking for centuries.
Start by treating each person as an enfranchised, free and valuable citizen of South Africa.
In schools the child should receive as much love as possible because it might be the only love he gets that day.
The same applies to feeding.
The universities must not turn out theorists who have no class-room techniques.
The universities are not preparing students for life in the real world.
Thornton Wilder in his book The Ides of March asserts: “The crown of life is the exercise of choice.”
Can we all agree that improved literacy will increase productivity.
If we vibrate higher, the universe will meet us there.
Can we agree that cooking and cleaning, caring for children and the frail, are life skills and not gender-based roles.
Can we agree that you do not know your own strength until being strong is the only option you have left.
As Alexander Pope moots: “True skill in writing comes from Art, not chance/As they move easiest who have learnt to dance.”
Let us not become covidiots.
Let us become South Africans united in a concerted effort to improve our quality of life.
My appeal is not cerebral or academic.
It calls for fairness, a willingness to change bad behavioural patterns, and the all-important dictum that we are all equal before the law.
Let us march into the new decade with a collective will to improve our lives.
* Literally Yours is a weekly column from Cape Argus reader Alex Tabisher. He can be contacted on email by [email protected]
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
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