LAEL BETHLEHEM: Make the most of Thuma Mina 2.0 — we won’t get a third chance

One of the great pleasures of visiting an SA game reserve is the sight of a herd of wildebeest. The wildebeest, also known as the gnu, is an unlikely looking creature. Known as one of the ugly five, it in fact possesses an ungainly beauty. More than that, it is a highly functional animal.

Like other antelope, the gnu must work as a team to survive. Lacking the power of the cats, the height of the giraffe or the size of the elephant, the gnu must co-operate to detect dangers and counter them. There are sometimes brutal battles for leadership, but once stability is attained it is used to protect the vulnerable and enable the herd to thrive. All members of the herd are expected to make their contribution.

So it is with our GNU, the government of national unity. It may seem an ungainly creature, but it fills us with hope. We hope it will be functional and effective. We hope it will detect dangers and manage them. We hope it will protect the vulnerable. We hope it will allow us all to thrive.

Like the herds of antelopes on the plains, so much will depend on whether we are able to work together. The big fights have taken place. The contenders for leadership have locked horns. Decisions have been made. Now we must settle into building the future of the herd.

This election was deeply significant. It has shown us that despite our fractures we can hold a peaceful election and challenge the poor performance of the state. The GNU has given us the opportunity to rebuild society. Working together, we can overcome the long-term effects of apartheid and the effects of state capture. We can build a nonracial society in which everyone makes a contribution.

This feeling is not entirely new. We felt it in 1994. Perhaps more importantly, we felt it in 2018. For me, this déjà vu hopeful feeling reminds me most of Cyril Ramaphosa’s “Thuma Mina” speech: the visceral sense that we were at a turning point; the sense that when our president said we must work together to rebuild our country each one of us raised our hands and said “send me”.

Broken promises

Organised business came to the fore with skills and resources. Community organisations and NGOs redoubled their efforts. Workers contributed at many levels. We managed Covid-19 together with remarkable contributions from many parts of society.

Yet Thuma Mina fell flat. After Covid-19 we began to drift. Disappointed in each other and in our leaders, we fell back on the divisions of the past, and new ones too. We endured the KwaZulu-Natal violence of July 2021 and endless new rounds of corruption. We endured load-shedding, water-shedding, poor housing, broken ports, broken trains, broken municipalities, broken promises.

We no longer felt like we had a common identity or a common project. We could see that while the state had many good policies it was not committed to implementing them, or did not know how to do so. We became cynical and hopeless in the face of indecision, delay and self-enrichment. We lost faith in our government.

But now we have the GNU. We must seize this moment to forge a shared, national project and inject some dynamism into our economy. What are our common objectives? To grow the economy and create jobs. To educate our children properly and build their skills. To rebuild our infrastructure. To fight crime. To deliver access to healthcare without destroying what we have. To reject corruption. To recreate a commitment to nonracialism. To stamp out gender-based violence.   

We have a second chance, a Thuma Mina 2.0. We will not get a third.

• Bethlehem is chief ESG officer at Sedibelo Platinum. She has worked in the forestry, renewable energy, housing and property sectors as well as in local and national government, and is a director of the Industrial Development Corporation.