Mamphela Ramphele | The hope for the future we desire rests within us

Now is the opportunity for us as citizens to free ourselves from dependence on those claiming to be our liberators. We must reclaim our agency as we did in the 1970s and 1980s to free ourselves from a much more organised and brutal regime, argues Mamphela Ramphele.

The search for hope amid the dire situation of our country should not distract us from reclaiming our agency to liberate ourselves from the self-styled liberators who have captured the state. The ANC has betrayed the dream that many freedom fighters sacrificed their youth for, and too many died for.

Let us draw strength from Frederick Douglas, the African American abolitionist, who reminded his fellow enslaved citizens in 1857 that:

South Africans have an unenviable track record of tolerance for impunity in government, both during and post-apartheid. Only when young people stood up in 1976 was impunity challenged by a generation that had liberated themselves from the inferiority complexes nurtured by colonial conquest and oppression. Self-liberation is the most powerful tool to free people from oppressors and shape a future of abundance for all.

Preoccupied with the ANC

The doom and gloom in our beloved country is a reflection of our preoccupation with the disappointment in the ANC. We should have known better than to entrust our future to the ANC. By all accounts, especially reading The Lusaka Years by Hugh Macmillan, that detail how the leadership of the ANC in Lusaka had embraced corruption and criminality.

The corruption in the successive ANC governments reflects a culture that puts the ANC above the country and the people of South Africa. How else can one explain that of all the dire needs in the country in the immediate post-1994: education, health care and housing needs for those excluded for centuries, the first major procurement would be the arms deal? Once procurement processes were undermined, state capture became the modus operandi for successive ANC governments. 

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It is a mistake to single out the Zuma years as wasted years – we have had 29 wasted years under successive governments. Our country has considerable potential to become a place where every citizen has not only access to resources that ensures their basic rights but creates opportunities for everyone to thrive. There is no other reason why we have not yet been able to end poverty and inequalities other than the criminal incompetence of many in successive post-1994 governments.  The unwillingness of Parliament to hold the executive accountable is also criminal – many a child has died for lack of basic necessities due to the impunity enabled by successive Parliaments.

Acknowledging the betrayal of our freedom by the ANC, as confirmed by its President, Cyril Ramaphosa, is an essential step to freeing ourselves from the abusive relationship that we, the people, have with the ANC. Like abused women, we have to love and respect ourselves enough to step out of this abusive relationship. We have endured enough abuse and should heed Frederick Douglas' words and put limits on the ANC tyranny.  

We must reclaim our agency

Now is the opportunity for us as citizens to free ourselves from dependence on those claiming to be our liberators. We, the people, must reclaim our agency as we did in the 1970s and 1980s to free ourselves from a much more organised and brutal regime. We, the people, self-liberated ourselves from the fear of the unknown to confront the then-apartheid regime as a proud people. As President Mandela reminded us ever so often, no one individual nor one organisation, could claim sole credit for the liberation of our country from apartheid. It was a collective effort of all freedom-loving people inside and outside South Africa.  

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It will take the same determination to mobilise freedom-loving people: family networks; street by street; community by community; institutions – in both the private sector and civil society, including the good people inside our public services who continue to do right against all odds.  

South Africa is blessed to have a substantial youthful population segment. Young people who have been at the receiving end of a brutal exclusionary corrupt system represent the most powerful force for change. You must use your connectivity in the age of the internet to connect, mobilise, register to vote, and vote with your mind and soul for those who will not betray you. Your future is worth more than the shameful food parcels and T-shirts your betrayers will give you that are bought with your parents' stolen taxes! Your vote is the most powerful tool to shape your desired future.   

Hope as faith in the unseen only has meaning if one applies oneself to efforts to build the momentum for change. Talk about things not being that bad is a delusion. Abusive relationships end only when the abused calls time and moves off to new beginnings.   

We, the people, have done this before. We called time on apartheid. Let us now call time on the current abusers of our beloved country.  This country is destined for greatness only if we, the people, stand up and reclaim the initiative to shape the future we want.

- Mamphela Ramphele is co-founder of ReimagineSA.