I asked a man I barely know what his New Year’s resolutions were. Mutual far away friends asked that I give solace to this stranger, grieving the recent death of his mother, packing up her long and happy life in an unfamiliar town. Apparently I give good solace.
It’s not surprising since I have been (am) often in need of solace myself these days, given who we are, where we are and what we are at this very point in time.
Everyone needs comfort, we know that, but never more so than this year, an election year.
This is a year in which we are going to need large doses of good cheer, especially since we’re being told that it’s the most important election of our new democracy…
We will also need buckets of resilience and patience to stave off the urge to throw things at the television, to use unusual means to wipe the fake smile of the face of politicians trying to peddle policy.
This man I barely know said he’d long given up making resolutions because “they only get broken”.
It’s the problem with resolutions. People make them, expecting them to fail. I suppose that’s because they set the bar so high that sticking to the promises made on the first day of the New Year are impossible to sustain.
It’s the maxim I’m sticking to this year: choose simple, choose the most achievable agenda that you can (mostly) live with.
As I’ve already said, you will have heard and read and discussed how this election is the most important in our young post-apartheid democracy.
The ANC is fighting for its life. Like an addict, the ANC is in tentative recovery from Jacob Zuma’s reign of plunder and looting and theft and graft and venality — all held collectively under the heading State Capture.
This ruling political party is certainly not out of the woods yet. Considerable effort is being made by senior members of the party, to distance themselves from the rot, to promise change, to guarantee a different future outcome.
The charm offensive being undertaken by our president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is a thing to behold.
Poor Cyril, having to play the superhero. His is a gargantuan task: win over those who have lost faith in the party; win over those who still favour his predecessor Zuma; win over the angry masses reeling from having been forgotten in the area of service delivery; win over the needy business sector looking to him to introduce economic reform; win over the international investors and get them to put money into our flailing economy…
I watched him as the ANC celebrated its 107th birthday this week, shaking hands, slapping backs, kissing cheeks, smile smile smile.
He’s talked to taxi drivers at taxi ranks, listened to the complaints from university students, greeted ancients sitting on a rock outside their shack, laughed with women on their way to work. Pinetown, Port Shepstone. KwaZulu-Natal pavements. Pound. Pound. Pound.
I watched with trepidation as Cyril put on the “Everything’s OK” show, a song and dance number that was a little glassy-eyed, a little desperate.
It was reminiscent of a scene out of Greek mythology that has the Ephyran king, Sisyphus, punished for his self-promoting chicanery,
The ancient legend has Sisyphus being forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to see it roll down as it neared the top, forcing him to roll it all the way up again. Over and over and over again.
He is condemned to perform this Herculean task to the end of time with no relief in sight.
On Saturday, Cyril begins to roll that giant boulder up the hill again. He’s had to take a defensive stance when fending off questions about not being welcome in KwaZulu-Natal, ancestral Zulu home turf where his predecessor, Zuma, has a large support base.
Historically, he has not had a good time in KwaZulu-Natal, despite all his protestations of feeling at home there.
In every interview this week, Cyril has answered all questions of unity within the party, of there being a cohesive single voice with which all members of the ANC are expected to speak with these words: Wait till Saturday, you’ll see.
So we wait to see what tomorrow brings. Will the ANC launch of its manifesto at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban be greeted with cheers, or jeers?
And will the mood that the ANC is greeted with in Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal set the tone for what is to be expected in the rest of the country?
Whatever the outcome, I have resolved to…
OK, so I confess that I do have a few resolutions that I’m going to try to keep.
I resolve to have hope that things will be all right in the end, and that the start of us moving into a healing place in our country will begin in 2019. We owe it to Cyril to let him try and get us back on track.
I resolve to refrain from allowing a carping, critical, whining, angry, voice to find room in my head when it comes to everything to do with the way in which our country is run. Let’s give this new lot a chance, OK?
I resolve to try not to revisit these resolutions after we all go to the polls in May. Come on, y’all, I did use the word try…
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