These days I find myself almost constantly urged to “get behind President Ramaphosa”. This strikes me as a bad idea as he is not very large and will provide almost no cover whatsoever.
The people doing the urging, on social media and in op-eds, don’t mean it that way, of course. What they mean is that I should make enthusiastic comments about the president before I go away and vote for the DA and pray that Ramaphosa’s party doesn’t win control of my metro.
What is less clear, however, is why they think the president needs my support. The struggle he’s currently embroiled in exists precisely because the ANC isn’t interested in the views or skills or morality of anyone outside it, and while I’d obviously prefer his faction to prevail, I’m pretty sure that outcome won’t be determined by how much love and light I tweet to Ramaphosa.
It’s possible I might have felt differently if many of the president’s colleagues hadn’t spent the last 30 years rejecting valid criticism as racist counterrevolution while rolling over for European arms dealers and the Guptas, but I’m afraid this party has made it supremely clear that the only input it values from outsiders is wads of unmarked dollar bills.
Admittedly, there is some solace to be found in picking sides and gaining that false but soothing sense that simply having taken a position on a vast and inexorable crisis will somehow alter its outcome; that saying “Yay Cyril!” will, in some small but very real way, help the collapsing ecosystem of the ANC to collapse in a way that allows the shops to stay open with only one or two on fire.
In reality, however, Ramaphosa needs my support about as much as he needs Bheki Cele. Which brings me back to my first response to that cry to “get behind” the president, and why I think it might be more about taking cover than its adherents might want to admit.
In the first half of last year an image began to circulate in the more patriotic corners of social media showing Ramaphosa transformed into a superhero; broad of shoulder and determined of face, adorned in the colours of our flag.
It was clear that some care and skill had gone into making the image, but this week, as it floated past me on Facebook accompanied by cries of “Get behind Cyril!”, what struck me again wasn’t the quality of the PhotoShop but the choice of superhero.
To be fair, it could never have been Superman: nobody wants to be led by a mopey alien who can see you naked under your clothes. Black Panther is sexy, but he’s also a prince in a monarchy, and heads that wear crowns often have a complicated relationship with the necks that hold them up. Iron Man might be a potent force, but under all that shiny armour there’s just a rich white guy pushing all the buttons and pulling all the strings.
No, there was only one choice: plain-talking, doggedly optimistic Captain America or, as he is described in this particular image, Captain SA, holding up his battle-scarred shield. At first glance it feels a bit corny, but it’s a pretty perfect analogy when you get right down to it.
Like Ramaphosa, Captain America was manufactured out of necessity and enormous amounts of money by a government eager to keep its foes at bay. Like Ramaphosa, he is easily shocked, whether by coarse language, defeatism or simply the unfolding of events.
Two things protect and sustain him: a shield made of vibranium, a rare metal mined in Wakanda; and his star-crossed love for British secret agent Peggy Carter. In other words, like Ramaphosa he owes more or less everything to African minerals and technology, and keeps getting nothing but silence from the spies he so desperately wants to hear from.
Here the similarities start to fade. For example, Captain America’s opponents include the Red Skull, a charismatic schemer who started life as a supporter of fascism and fake socialism but then flip-flopped and went to get rich in the US. I can’t quite imagine who this might represent in SA politics, but if you can think of someone who likes wearing red and keeps changing his mind about what he believes, feel free to — oh, wait, there it is.
Yes, there are many good reasons for ardent patriots and pop culture afficionados to depict Ramaphosa as Captain SA. But I think that first decision — to choose a hero wielding not X-ray vision or bat-themed gadgets or Lassos of Truth but rather an enormous shield — is the one that says it all.
I understand the urge to see Ramaphosa as a lone barrier between us and the forces of chaos. Certainly, if he goes soon we’re in deep trouble. But what comes after Ramaphosa isn’t an alien armada or a blue sky-beam or an intergalactic warlord. Instead, it’s negotiation, compromise, perhaps a coalition government or even a government of national unity; not comic-book fiction but dull, necessary reality.
There are no superheroes. There are no magic shields. At some point, very soon, we will have to start thinking about what comes next, and how we step out from behind Ramaphosa and his faction to see what can be saved; to see what can be done.
• Eaton is an Arena Holdings columnist.
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