President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday July 18, 2024, convened a joint sitting of the newly established two Houses of Parliament to deliver the Opening of Parliament Address (OPA) for the Seventh Administration. Picture: Leon Lestrade / Independent Newspapers.
By Phatse Justice Piitso
The sphere of human history will venerate the President of the Republic of South Africa, Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, an esteemed man of the hour of honour, to have walked our nation, into the coming age of our fourth republic.
The offspring of the human race will revere him, to have ratcheted our newly born nation, to the tasks posed by history.
The formation of the Government of National Unity is a litmus test, that in the birth of a new nation, there will be no glimpse of a light, without walking the path. It is itself a protracted site of a struggle, of the complex realities of our historical period, emanating from the lessons and experiences, of the past thirty years of our democratic dispensation.
Our attempt to find answers to the questions posed by the material circumstances, require of us, a deeper philosophical and ideological synthesis, of the political and socio-economic relations, of both the domestic and international balance of forces.
Historical moments take of the best of our intellectual human capital and not haulers of history.
The theoretical conception of the Government of National Unity has sparked a period of a great intellectual ferment, as revolutionary moments always become voluble affairs, characterised by the best of orators on the podiums, who some because of grandeur populism, do not even recognise, that they are not just talking to the audience, but to posterity.
We find ourselves having to persecute our struggles, during interesting times, defined by the parallels of misconceptions of philosophical rhetoric and conspiracies. Ours is to liberate ourselves, from the realms of the fathom forces of history, which in the deeper scale of things, have just become personalities of the scene of history, with no essence, of what the future holds for humanity.
They stand to be who they are, for they are who they are, like Napoleon Bonaparte, the gravedigger of the French revolution, who in his opulence to gain respectability, without apprehending the demands of the day, to give the people their full freedom, resorted to the old way of doing things, copying the outward forms of the old ancient feudal regime, revoking aristocratic titles, ranks and uniforms.
Even the most fatigued by the historical and dialectical polemics of the laws of nature, cannot grapple with the far reaching insights, as accentuated by Frederick Engels, in his memorial farewell speech, on the occasion of the death of his dear friend, Karl Marx, when he said “that the simple fact hitherto concealed by an outgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art etc.
In his famous aphorism, the Eleventh Thesis of Feuerbach, which is part of the notes he wrote together with Frederick Engels, in preparation for the writing of The German Ideology, the materialistic conception of history, Karl Marx, writes
“History does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, it is man, real living man who does all that, who possesses and fights, history is not as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its aims, history is nothing, but the activity of man pursuing his aims”.
This is the fundamental reason why political actors of our day, I refer to political parties and leaders of acumen, across the spectra of the philosophical and the ideological divide, has to be reminded that history begins to change, only when the basic means of providing food, shelter and other necessities begin to change. This is the message from the overwhelming majority of the people of our country.
This self-serving attitude of political inclinations by some quarters of our leaders and political organisations amongst our folk, based on abstract theoretical postulates, not consistent with the realities of the situation we find ourselves, is a worrisome phenomenon. We cannot afford to polarise society into tribal divisions and racial chauvinism.
The futile attempts by some of the philosophical and ideological marauders within our political milieu, to elevate the false view, that to be black in general and African in particular, is to be inherently revolutionary, is a complete distortion, of our world theoretical outlook. It is a false thesis of the true genesis of the history of the struggles of the people of our country.
The whole complex equation we find ourselves, of the Government of National Unity, which is in fact not of our own choice, was never about being black or being white, but about nation building and formation. It is about the common struggles of our people towards the achievement of a democratic society.
The immediate task is how do we confront the mounting philosophical and ideological onslaught, by the forces of the antithesis, which seek to plunge the theory of the South African revolution, into a perpetuation of narrow Pan African nationalism. In Africa we speak of Pan African nationalism and in Latin America we speak of Pan Latin American nationalism, which is simply about the achievement of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society.
Our first Republic was declared in 1910, with the formation of the Union of South Africa, a British dominion, which excluded the majority of the people of our country, from the political and socio-economic mainstream.
Our second Republic in 1948, with the declaration of the apartheid state. A political conjuncture which saw the institutionalisation of racial laws as the official policy of the racist apartheid regime.
Our third republic was in 1994, with the formation of the first democratic government, established on the basis of the wishes and the aspirations, of the overwhelming majority of the people of our country.
The fourth Republic 2024, the recently held elections, which culminated with the formation of the GNU, the second in the contours of our history. The political epoch founded from the lessons and experiences, of the past thirty years of our democratic breakthrough.
Many may argue that the political milieu of the 1994 democratic breakthrough and the political milieu of the recently held elections are vastly in contrast and far apart from each other. But both are qualitative historical periods in our long march towards the achievement of our democratic society.
The formation of the GNU in 1994, was premised on the cornerstone of nation building and formation, on forgiveness and reconciliation, and the determination of our people to build a new nation based on the principles of freedom and equality. It was the tale of true triumph of the struggles of our people, to build the foundations of our country, from the ashes of the century’s old legacy of imperialism and colonialism.
The formation of the Government of National Unity of 2024 is based on the experiences and lessons of the past thirty years. The balancing act of the successes and failures of historical period.
It is about building a momentum towards the renewal and moral regeneration of our new society. It is about a sound and responsive society, guided by ethos of principles of moral and ethical leadership.
Despite the fact that the past thirty of our democracy, was a period of tremendous milestones of improvement of the living conditions of our people, it was also a period of ignominious challenges, threatening the moral foundations of our democratic government. A period of high-level perceptions and realities of corruption and malfeasance in the public and private sector, a period declining levels of patriotism and inability of leaders to serve in the best interest of the people.
A period of slow reforms, resulting in economic stagnation, leading to job losses and high unemployment rates. A period of high rates of crime and other social ills such as the abuse of women and children, drugs and other related substances.
It is in this context that we support the clarion call by the former President of the Republic, Thabo Mbeki, for a national dialogue, with the focus to resolve the pressing challenges facing our country and to reinvigorate the commitment to take our country to higher levels. The national dialogue is about bringing together the entire of the South African civil society and institutions, to set a new stage, for the reconstruction and development of our country.
We are presented by the gratitudes of history, to rekindle the prospects of our beautiful nation, to find new paths along the difficult journey, of building a better future, of the world of humanity. Generations will count us the most resilient, to have seized the moments of history, to build the fabric of our newly born democratic nation.
These are the fortitudes of a nation at work, a nation which seeks to renew itself, a nation which refuses to succumb to defeats, a nation which its head remains unbowed in adversity. We are a nation which has passed through the dark nights when everything seemed hopeless.
* Ambassador Phatse Justice Piitso writes this article in his personal capacity.
** The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the The African