The Cyril Ramaphosa Phenomenon

Cyril Ramaphosa started his term as South Africa’s President in 2008. He came with new ideas, and created an enormous vibe about renewal and improvement.

I have always said to anyone that wants to listen that I don’t expect much of Cyril Ramaphosa; I didn’t, for a moment, believed that he will be the savior of South Africa. It’s not that I am that brilliant, or ever has been, but I am also not stupid.

In order to understand my logic, you must also understand my point of view, my reference point. The so-called New South Africa did not work out for me. Even during the time when I actually made a lot of money as a management consultant, I became increasingly aware of an annoying feeling of second-class treatment and status.

In every speech imaginable, the thieving, looting big shots of the governing party blamed me and mine for everything that ever went wrong in South Africa. I actually wasn’t, simply because I was born too late to enjoy the benefits of Apartheid, but late enough to be punished for it.

I noted the increasingly archaic framework for discrimination that closed out around me and mine; the legislation that barred us from equal participation in the economy and from enjoyment of our language and culture. First was the Employment Equity Act, promulgated in 1998. Contrary to what the racist regime of the country preached with such devilish self-confidence, potential employers in the country reacted with a lot of eagerness to comply with the Act, and with a lot of risk advertence to the threat posed to a company’s base-line by non-compliance. Ironically enough, it wasn’t really a White person’s employment prospect that suffered most at the time, but rather career progression prospects. White people simply stagnated in their careers.

After that, the discriminatory laws started flowing freely from the pens of a government that has proven itself to be corruption personified: Legislation that introduce unequal opportunities when competing for tenders, legislation forcing White South Africans to give away large parts of their businesses, simply because of their race, and even legislation that de-prioritize poor White South Africans in the allocation of government social aid.

The Mandela and Mbeki governments were praised for its excellent economic policies and the growth in the country during their rule. Indeed, it was primarily during this phase of the country’s history that access to water, sanitation, housing and other basic services were massively rolled out to all South Africans. It was, however, also during this time that the stealing and looting started. RDP houses were provided, yes, but almost always of poor quality, because BBBEE-compliant service providers, often politically connected, wanted to pocket as much of the money as possible. That, and experienced, qualified providers were dumped for inexperienced, poorly qualified ones in the name of a racist theory called “transformation.”

Simultaneously, municipal governance and administration started collapsing, driven by a political need to get rid of everything and everyone associated with the pre-1994 dispensation and replaced them with what has been labelled at the time as “potential”. Institutional memory and decades of learning and experienced were replaced with “potential” in the space of less than five years, and gradually expanded and intensified in the scope of ten years. Thereafter, very little of the experienced old guard, excellent at their jobs, were left.

Thereafter the ANC stopped even pretending that a systemic, organized and non-racial process was followed with the so-called renewal of local government. Municipalities were loaded with utterly unqualified councilors and loyal cadres were massively deployed in municipal administration. Outside of, perhaps, the Western Cape, the entire system just collapsed.

Over the next ten years, the same process, purpose and ideology were followed in the rest of the public services. One-by-one government services started collapsing.

The thing is this: There may have been relatively good economic growth during the Mbeki and Manual administration, but there was also increasingly draconic racial discrimination against White South Africans. The prospects of the majority Black people also did not improve; in fact, in certain cases, it declined. Power and privileged were monopolized by a small group of the governing elite.

There was a sharp and progressive growth in the black middle class, but this was, from the perspective of my lenses on the world, offset by the discrimination against persons in the White middle class. In short: I didn’t feel the advantages of the benefits produced by the Mbeki governance era, because I was discriminated against. There is no massive resistance on the side of White businesses against transformation, the risks are too great. The reality is that the country, on the mismanagement of the ANC, did not produced enough economic opportunities to provide opportunities to the masses of the people; in spite of the transfer opportunities and jobs of White to other races, and not because of the lack of transformation.

I always have been a keen observer of politics. During the years, I have listened to, and watch, leading figures in the ANC, which included Cyril Ramaphosa. Which brings me to my conclusions in 2007 and 2008 about Ramaphosa’s rise to the crown: In his public utterances and speeches, he never was a moderate, non-racial person striving to the equal treatment of all persons, regardless of race. Cyril Ramaphosa always was, and, I believe, still is, a fundamentalist, never letting slip of an opportunity to emphases his believe in what can only be regarded as the sins of colonialism, and the legitimate right of those that have suffered from it to now punish they who, in his mind, were the perpetrators thereof. Never; Ramaphosa’s speeches are almost always referring to that issue in a matter mirroring what can only described as a strong believe in the Classical Race Theory.

So, actually, in 2008, my own internal debate, with myself, came to the conclusion that, regardless of how much good Ramaphosa may do the country, I will continue suffering racial discrimination against me and mine. Kind of “same old, same old.”

Also, I just couldn’t see were the narrative of “Cyril, the Great Businessman” that “understands how business operates” come from. Cyril Ramaphosa got his enormous wealth from the shares and assets handed over to him after the 1994 political settlement by some of the country’s largest companies, basically as a form of “lobbying”, or, to put plainly, as a method “buying favor.” That, and, in later years, through the Shanduka Group, a company established for the purposes of pursuing black economic empowerment deals; that is, to reap the benefits of companies being forced, by law, to give away part of its shares and assets to black owned entities. In the case of Ramaphosa, the Shanduka Group was that entity.

Actually, Ramaphosa’s real experience is in the labour unions. In the early 1980s he became the first secretary general of the newly-founded National Union of Mineworkers. As NUM secretary general, he was instrumental in establishing the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and played a prominent role in the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) when COSATU joined forces with the United Democratic Front (UDF).

So, I argued, he was not the racially more moderate person implied by the media, and neither is he the excellent businessman that understand the economy he was made out to be.

But, I very definitely preferred him to Jacob Zuma, which must be seen as a sign of the position of desperation I imagine for myself at the time: The leader I regard as probably extremely destructive to my interest and my life, was preferred, because the alternative was even worse.

Jacon Zuma spued blatant racism, and made no secret of his animosity towards White people. He didn’t even try to pretend anything else, especially as the resistant against him and his blatant corruption keep growing. More than that; he was an unsophisticated state capturer, who did not hesitate to put the state and its assets to the disposal of his family and friends. Zuma was an embarrassment to the country.

From this perspective, Ramaphosa was indeed better for the country. At least his behavior as head of state was dignified; at least he could properly read and understand numbers.

Did he stop state capture? Aikona, that will never happen under the rule of the Comrades (which include all formations originating from that cluster of political institutions). Under Ramaphosa’s rule, the racial discrimination in the country was tightened, through the revisions to both the Employment Equity, - as well as the BBBEE Acts. Under his rule, South Africa made an enemy of the dominant superpower in the world. Under his rule, South Africa’s economy, for all practical purposes, stagnated.

Was Ramaphosa a disappointment for me? Honestly, no; one cannot really be disappointed in another person where there were never any positive expectations. Look at Cyril Ramaphosa’s history, and you will find exactly what you got in South Africa since 2008. It’s not his fault; it’s the fault of those so desperately wanting to believe he will make their world a better place. Ramaphosa was always a revolutionary freedom fighter, a labour unionist, and an opportunistic ideological politician using his access to state – and institutional power to satisfy another of his ambitions, which was to became super-rich.

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Picture source: Wikimedia Commons, through Google Images (Creative Commons)