2 days Ago
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G) Let us not be like the 1980s song Little Lies by super group Fleetwood Mac. I can just about hear Christine McVie belting out on vocals, "Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies." South Africans may joke a lot but we prefer the cold, hard truth to sweet, convenient lies.
In the next few months the focus will be on the G20. We must expect sweet lies from Europe, especially the European Commission, promising us all sorts of help as US President Donald Trump ratchets up his disdain for South Africa. Others opposed to the West will also be telling us to join ourselves at the hip with China and Russia.
We need to be smarter than this. None of them — the Europeans, China, Russia or even if we capitulate to Trump, the US, will actually help us. Steve Biko's statement, "Black man, you are on your own," is so apt.
Their help will come at the cost of us losing more of our very little self-reliance and, in many ways, our dignity. I fear though, because many of us feel so lost and lack confidence, we may be guilty of grasping at straws and sweet little lies to soothe our broken hearts. As we know there was no outright winner in the 2024 elections.
A faux "government of national unity" was established. I refer to it as a faux, or false, GNU because it is, in reality, a coalition. Labelling the coalition a government of national unity is a trick to pull on our heartstrings and remind us of 1994 and the fanfare of the first democratic elections and the GNU established by Nelson Mandela.
Since the GNU we have no centre and confidence that there is genuine unity of purpose. It's like an uneasy truce, while political parties catch their breath and reload weapons. In the first six months of the GNU the political discourse was dominated by those commentators attacking the GNU as a sell-out and others defending as if it is a political miracle.
We also witnessed some of those new in government quick to latch on to inherited programmes and not only...
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