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The Mandela Unity ritual must have tangibles

Since the dawn of a constitutional state and a consequent democratic order, South Africa has worked and believed in the sustainability of the Mandela national unity spirit for the past thirty years. The emerging government of national unity, the choice of the opening of Parliament on Nelson Mandela Day, and the rhetoric of the immediate post-1994 rainbow nation rituals are just a few of what is resurrected to reconnect to the Madiba Magic.  In the absence of a replica of Nelson Mandela's leadership, invoking him during a leadership crisis has given South Africans a sense of divine meaning and definition.

Mandela's leadership was transformative, inspiring South Africans in various ways. His definition was flexible but contextual and a convenient narrative depending on who controlled the platform. He remained a leader who defined himself through conduct and character, consistently placing himself below those he led. His leadership was centred on a better life for all and the imagination of RSA beyond his lifetime. To ensure this vision is irrevocable, Mandela and his generation bequeathed to RSA a constitution that aims to pursue social justice, human dignity, human rights, and the rule of law. They made conduct inconsistent with the constitution invalid.

Although appropriate, this shift from a state-centred to a people-centred democratic order affected much more than the political order; it affected the entire edifice of being South African. Mandela's people-centred order, the 'we the people' governance model, grew into a larger worldview, which changed how South Africans related to their newfound freedom. Rather than being part of the political system, South Africans placed themselves at the centre of the unfolding democratic order. 

 

In defining themselves as a society, South Africans demoted the political economy and economics as the centre of their being. For some reason, economic emancipation became insignificant in the context that defines the iconic Mandela, who, by real or otherwise standards of leadership, RSA invokes to recalibrate its true north. Since his passing on to another life, the country started to realise how far it could go if it were to rethink itself. Given the current state of democratisation, constitutional development, and equalisation through fracturing templates of economic domination programs beyond Mandela, the country must urgently rethink what it is in the broader scheme of human co-existence. 

 

In our reinterpretation as a society, with the Nelson Mandela generation as a leadership scaffolding and a background of permanence, we should make such invocations reflect the narrative of economic emancipation as a precondition of human co-existence in RSA. Being indigenous to the reigning constitutional order, our democratic culture should see us as South Africans defined therein. Like the land that makes up RSA, the legacy of Nelson Mandela must not only belong to the people, but the people must also belong to it. Apportioning aspects of his legacy to narrow and sectarian interests will not only dismember national ownership of it but might fracture loyalty to what it represents. 

 

In Nelson Mandela, we have learnt that "our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity's belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul and sustain all our hopes for glorious life for all". To the extent that the GNU opens its Parliament on Nelson Mandela Day, it is starting its social compact on the Mandela instructs when inaugurating a post-1994 South Africa. Nelson Mandela said, "let there be work, bread, water and salt for all". 


As we will be listening to Cyril Ramaphosa’s opening of the 7th Parliament speech on Nelson Mandela Day, the nation will be evaluating what are the tangible plans of the GNU to ensure that "never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression (this time this oppression should find an economic dominance expression) of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. Let freedom reign". This phase of freedom must now be economic. It is not enough for GNU partners to not support economic exclusion and dominance; it’s essential to oppose these and demonstrate such opposition in their words, deeds, programs and actions. The new enemy is economic dominance and exclusion. Whatever new efficiencies the new coalition has, they should demonstrably deal with all templates of the economic dominance of ‘one by another’. CUT!!!

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