THE “NEW DAWN” WITH A GRIM PROMISE

Selby Vusimusi Moyo Activist

By Selby Vusimusi Moyo
Activist

It is intriguing how metaphors are being used in everyday life. Usually, metaphors are applied in situations that give hope, new beginnings, everlasting rewards.

Sometimes they become a reality, while other times — and somewhat rarely — they bring bad omens.

All societies use metaphors. In this territory, we have come to cherish them because we hold on to them with the hope of seeing good fortunes.

Politicians use them to woo the masses, to declare a new start, a different period than they are experiencing or emerging from.

The last such usage was by the current leader of the republic, President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa.

Everybody would remember that he announced his tenure in office as the “new dawn”! This was accompanied by elation and joy because people thought they will be redeemed from what has become known as “the wasted nine years”.

This period is associated with Ramaphosa’s predecessor and former boss, now former President Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, who appears to be wearing that association like a badge of honour.

Nothing has moved him to take a moment to say to the citizens, “I am sorry to disappoint you and take you for a ride”, or something to that effect. Rather, he laughs proudly for the excellent job he has done, sending everyone to the doldrums. Some may prefer to say, “he threw us to the dogs…”

But here we are about Ramaphosa.

Though it wouldn’t make sense to just proceed without indicating where he came from talk about learning from the best! And the excitement with which he was received you could swear people had taken him to the river to cleanse him off the rot he had been swimming in.

As if he had been born anew. Perhaps they remembered his Student Christian Movement (SCM) days, that maybe he recalled he was once a reliable, ethical Christian, whose morality would guide the country he was chosen to lead.

Of course, a few people will forget that excitement, the idea that even some who were not members of the African National Congress (ANC) betrayed their various parties to elevate Ramaphosa to the highest seat in the land.

Just so Zuma does not return to the leadership in the person of his former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as some were suspecting was trying “to pull a fast one”, thusly.

We can say we know now that it couldn’t work, if that were the plot! And whether the rumour is true that Ramaphosa bought the votes to offset Zuma’s trick, is still hazy with no one coming forth to confess how big money exchanged hands. Although the smoke will always tell whether there is fire.

Anyway, Cyril Ramaphosa’s “New Dawn” is still held hostage in the darkness of the night.

It has become so horrendous.

Today the whole citizenry (probably including the very loyals of his ANC faction) are holding fast to the ends of their seats, for once they had thought were at the end of the precipice but are now at the mouth of the abyss! The darkness is so unbearable that they wish they could turn back the clock, but that’s just an impossible wish…

And the “new dawn” of which the guy from Chiawelo spoke does not seem to emerge, nor is there any flicker of light that it is nigh. All other people are ask is: ‘What might have gone wrong?’ Well, this has become rhetorical since we now know where he came from. These people should have known even before they put their ‘X’ against the face of this man that it was a risk they were preparex to live with.

Why?

Because no one has the luxury of thinking that they could separate a clean part of a rotting egg infested with bacteria.

I mean, the man was not only in a cabinet led by someone who led the “nine wasted years”, but is a member of an organisation now doubtlessly synonymous with corruption.

How could people separate him from those “nine wasted years”? He might not have been directly involved in the corruption of that period, but why was he quiet about it? How does that make him clean? Why did his party leave things to deteriorate if they are so morally upright, singing from the sheet that says, ‘Together we shall work for a better life for all’! As what, fellow corrupt citizens?

That is probably what it means, considering we never got angry but watched gleefully corruption happening before our eyes, and many joining in the corruption.

To think that the “New Dawn” was to come with an anti-corruption vehicle which was Ramaphosa’s ticket! Something must have told us “Be careful what you wish for”! To think that it us the “New Dawn” anti-corruption man who is now found wanting! It is nauseating to think that it is the same fellow at whose farm US dollars were inexplicably found stashed in furniture items.

At dawn, I suppose! And the Reserve Bank said there was nothing wrong with that? For a person who left business to lead government, and not found to be odd when he said the dollars are from a business transaction.

A shady transaction at that! And the majority of parliamentarians saw nothing wrong in that…

To think that this anti-corruption man’s name comes up at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Corruption (I hope I git ut right!) is gut wrenching , to say the least. And we should be eager to see how it turns out because he seems to be playing tricks to avoid appearing before the Impeachment Committee.

Well, it should not be surprising; he got the Stalingrad lesson from the best.

The “New Dawn” metaphor now represents another “nine wasted years”. Now we have 18 wasted years. Unless there’s someone who can argue convincingly that there is a difference.

I would only agree when they say the latest nine years is highly polished. Whereas the first “nine wasted years” was wasted on ‘Mshini wam’ and dance, this current one has been the ‘Jerusalema’ dance, which had to be transmogrified into the Phala Phala corruption dance.

The same dance under different names.

We cannot wait for the “New Dawn” anymore. It is never coming.

Whatever glimmer of light it promised was only reserved for was being done in the darkness.

Now gradually exposed through the Inquiry.

The “New Dawn”! A beautiful metaphor that only exposed a grim promise.

What a shame…