Opinion - I watched President Cyril Ramaphosa deliver the State of the Nation address from a distance, yet I never felt closer to being a South African since president Nelson Mandela addressed Parliament for the last time.
Perhaps I gradually distanced myself over the years because I didn’t necessarily agree with the way the country was going, but I now realise that I, like many South Africans, was being deliberately and consciously distanced by succeeding governments.
After watching and listening to Ramaphosa, I started to feel South African again simply because he acknowledged the importance of South Africanness.
Ramaphosa refocused the attention of South Africans on South Africa.
He reminded me of an expression that cautioned people about worrying about what’s going on in someone else’s backyard, while yours was a mess.
It’s a simple expression and it was my first thought when hearing Thabo Mbeki’s “I am an African” speech.
My heart sank because he seemed to have overlooked the simple fact that he was not voted to be the president of Africa.
Perhaps he didn’t intend his proclamation of continental identity to be disenfranchising, but it was to me. I felt as though I was being redefined without my permission or blessing.
It seemed my South Africanness was dependent on my Africanness rather than the other way round.
This distance grew with Jacob Zuma.
I felt that he was concerned only with his own backyard even though he claimed not to know what was going on in it.
Each report on corruption and collusion further increased my disenfranchisement and desolation.
I could offer no pride in or defence of the president.
I was beginning to think that the country was unredeemable and on a trajectory of self-destruction.
Things looked hopeless.
Even the ANC’s struggle with itself did not inspire confidence and calls for unity seemed to be directed at the organisation rather than the country.
It was as if the ANC believed that a unified organisation automatically translated into a united country.
Like everyone concerned about the country, I watched the ANC conference with great interest and trepidation.
I sincerely believed that a win for Nkosazana Dlamini- Zuma was a loss for the country - not because she was incapable of steering the country, but because of the nature of the people who surrounded and supported her candidacy.
From the moment Ramaphosa was elected, I felt it was a matter of time before Zuma resigned or was recalled.
It was the flicker of hope that the country would soon be rid of Zuma from the most powerful and influential office of the land.
It just couldn’t come soon enough, but I also knew that it needed a wily and confident Ramaphosa to outplay and out think Zuma.
This he did.
I’m not sure what happened behind the scenes, but it seemed Zuma was cleverly and gently prodded towards his eventual resignation. Ramaphosa proved himself to be the thinking person’s president.
It seemed that trap after trap was set for Zuma and, as much as he resisted, he was pushed into a corner from which there was no escape.
And, as a further distraction for Zuma to deal with, there were dramatic arrests that struck at the heart of the Gupta family and his own. There was really nothing Zuma could do.
There was no way that Zuma would face a vote of no confidence in Parliament, especially one that was now supported by his own party.
It would be the ultimate personal indignity for him and his cabinet to be unceremoniously ejected by a motion sponsored by Julius Malema.
The pace that Parliament moved to not only unseat Zuma, swear in Ramaphosa and let him deliver the State of the Nation address within a matter of three days, is heady as it is decisive.
If Zuma had called their bluff and played brinkmanship, as he was expected to do, the very real danger of facing a hostile vote of no confidence was not something he could gamble on.
I watched the live stream of the State of the Nation address and waited for just one admission: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
There was no continentalism or tribalism: It was all about South Africans.
For all that transpired in the lead-up to this State of the Nation address this is nothing short of a second miracle.
My expectations are simple: Assemble a team of capable, honest and passionate people at all levels of government and let them do their job with efficiency, efficacy, caring and accountability.
It’s easy and necessary to be cynical and distrusting of politicians. Former president Zuma made sure that we learnt this lesson the hard way.