An official meeting between Cyril Ramaphosa and King Charles III, announced this week and scheduled for next month, seems an incongruous coming together of two fairly different men: one, after all, spent years being mentored as the heir of an iconic and beloved aristocrat before he ascended a throne teetering atop a pile of dubiously acquired wealth, while the other is King Charles III.
Still, Ramaphosa will feel faintly flattered that he has been chosen as the first foreign leader to be hosted at Buckingham Palace by the new king, even if it’s only because Charles wanted to pick the brains of someone with lots of experience of being a figurehead who’s not in charge of anything except smiling and waving.
Certainly, Charles will find Ramaphosa a charming and urbane guest, and will happily overlook the South African switching the palace lights on and off over and over again while murmuring “Mmm...electriiicityyy...”
Besides, the UK is subsiding into its own energy crisis, and it would be hypocritical of Charles to cast aspersions even as his staff start ranking the Vermeers according to how dry the frames are and how easily they’ll fit into the old cast-iron stove down in the scullery.
Ramaphosa, meanwhile, will be comforting himself by rereading the dramatic report in the Sunday Times, in which Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter is said to have found a “sophisticated bug” in his car.
This, of course, implies the existence of unsophisticated bugs — perhaps an old Nokia duct-taped to the steering wheel — which would have been a depressing thing to find: if you’re going to be stymied by saboteurs, you at least want to be able to say they’re the sophisticated sort and not the kind of meat-headed accidental wreckers you have in your cabinet.
To be clear, I remain deliberately sceptical about the entire thing, mostly because that’s how one should be when reading any news report involving alleged dirty tricks by people with links to state security agencies. (I also find it extremely implausible that a wealthy South African is driving a Volvo rather than a Range Rover, but I’m not sure that counts as a legal argument, so I should probably let that one slide.)
If the story is true, however, then next month’s state visit will be a welcome opportunity for Ramaphosa to get away to a simpler, kinder place. Even the load-shedding in the UK will have a gentler feel, caused, as it will be, by the ANC’s long-time friend and a man Ramaphosa has refused to condemn, Vladimir Putin.
Being plunged into darkness by a rival faction or by the mafia is very upsetting, but darkness is somehow far less dark when it’s an act of defiance by an innocent little underdog like Russia, sticking it to the man by hinting it might use nuclear weapons in self-defence on a country that doesn’t have nuclear weapons.
Yes, that kind of darkness is downright cosy.
It is extremely unlikely that Ramaphosa and Charles will discuss these nuances. Political conversations with royals are apparently safely superficial things, especially, I imagine, when the politician in question helps his local communist party limp along and the royal is directly related to the Romanovs.
But, jokes aside, the two men do have one other, essential, existential duty in common: both have found themselves head of their respective firms just as history starts clearing its throat and politely offering those firms their hat and coat.
This is not to say that the British monarchy is about to pawn the silverware and hightail it to the Caribbean. There will be more coronations. But, now that their landmark of a queen is gone, I’m not sure that new generations of Brits will care very much, especially not about an institution that keeps shrinking and therefore losing the all-important, all-sustaining lustre of immensity and permanence. After all, take away the divine right of kings and real political power, and what is a royal family but an extremely well-paid group of curators who live in the museum where they work?
The ANC is dying much more quickly, and largely by its own hand, but it, too, is a victim of the passage of time. Its relationship with Putin is particularly telling in this regard, as it ties itself in ideological knots, convincing itself that Russia is still a beloved grandfather who puts you on his lap and tells you about the great war against fascism, and not a spray-tanned gangster in a shiny suit, getting rich off crony capitalism and high off imperialism before he toddles down to the church-cum-recruitment centre on the corner to be absolved and enabled by the sort of Christian nationalism that makes Hendrik Verwoerd look like a Buddhist.
Again, the ANC will linger. Even if it loses a majority in 2024, it will stay with us, the floater that won’t flush, for years, possibly decades. But the country that needed a liberation movement to save it is gone. Today, what we need most is a government that will quietly help the only people who were ever going to save us: ourselves.
• Eaton is an Arena Holdings columnist.
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