No tolerance for mediocrity

One wonders when we as a country will actually have a honest and candid conversation with ourselves about the things we do and say. Indeed one only needs to look at the apologists and the denialists who hold public office to see that some of our countrymen believe that the people want their leaders to mislead them, but with benign intentions which supposedly protect the people from the devastating truth.

However, I am not such a member of the public who wants to be misled and wants to be told the official story so that those in power can continue to hide the real story. I am unfortunately not a gullible South African who believes that those who hold public office do actually wield authority and power simply as a result of that public office. No-one in my mind is above the critique of the people, for even if we were to have philosopher monarchs, they would still in my mind be subject to the reality of peer review and critical inquiry.

I will never cede the right and power to represent my family or me, in any manner, to any person whose competences as a representative are less than those of my family’s or mine. I will never abrogate my obligation to defend and protect the welfare of the lives with which I have been entrusted and most certainly I will never accept second-rate leadership when my peers and I are capable of first-rate leadership ourselves.

Having ranted thus, it must be said that the fortunes of the brave and the tides of the courageous citizenry cannot and will not be stifled in order to appease and satiate the objects of the leaders alone, so propped up by the people’s own aspirations. For these aspirations are borne of the desire to enact such change and happenstance as will uplift and improve the lives of all of the people and therefore cannot be misrepresented as being the objects of a few at the expense of the many.

One is left to ponder then as to why it should come at all to be that a few would determine the way and the path of the many without first ensuring that such a path was consistent with the objects of the many, in and by itself. That is to say that for instance if the people wanted universal healthcare and if instead the state provided qualified healthcare that the state should be aware from the first instance that such provision was not in line with the expected objects.

Such as it is we have a president who has called for the eradication of corruption in government and the public sphere and I for one have answered. I have issued and donated the rights to operate constituency offices without donations, thus ensuring political solvency and autonomy, while maintaining perpetual campaigning and increasing civic participation to all and sundry.

Therefore there is no longer the excuse of the grey money that’s “needed for the election campaigns” and the insider tendering which is important for “building unity in the ruling party”. There is no longer the excuse that we have no other way and I for one am ecstatic. Because from now onwards we as the people of South Africa have every right not to forgive and not to overlook transgressions and misdemeanours of our public officials in the course of doing their work.

We no longer need to tolerate the cover-ups and the collusion to conceal the truth. We can and indeed must demand that public officials who are “on the take” get fired and that we as the people are not to be burdened with ineffectual and self-serving leaders. And we no longer have to tolerate this second-class quality of leadership which — being devoid of public support needs to be raised up and appointed by their peers rather than the people — is fabulously able to make excuses, evade responsibility and to demand that the state spend more tax money to “solve the problem”.

No more, no more
There are no more excuses
Fire everyone who steals
Fire everyone who bribes and extorts
Prosecute them all
The people will no longer tolerate
This thievery and corruption as wrought
I say all of this knowing one thing
That those who oppose this plan are guilty as sin
That those who deny the very essence of this solution’s being
Are themselves engaged as thieves
That alas we have come to see
That the tithes to the party aren’t paid in full
That people who contribute bugger all
Get covered in golden straw
That insider tendering and donation wallahring
Are foremost in the minds of the tinpot kings

But I see a South Africa which is beyond measure, one that prospers rather than despairs and this can only be a reality if our polity becomes corruption-free.