Let’s get glimpse of ‘new dawn’ again

I t was inevitable that, after yesterday’s announcement that a government of national unity (GNU) is to be formed and that President Cyril Ramaphosa was re-elected as head of state, there would be talk of a “new dawn” in South African history.

Certainly, what happened yesterday, inside and outside the first sitting of the country’s seventh parliament, was a watershed moment.

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Today is, literally, the first day of the rest of our lives. Yet, there is nowhere near the optimism and euphoria there was when Nelson Mandela was elected as our first democratic president.

The rainbow of the “rainbow nation” has been swallowed by the stormy clouds of corruption, collapse and resurgent racism. In 1994, there was a spirit of cooperation and reconciliation as a nation sought to rebuild on the ashes of apartheid.

In 2024, the talk sounds similar but the reality is different. In forming a GNU with the DA, IFP, Patriotic Alliance and National Freedom Party, the ANC has acted in a mature manner, apparently putting the country ahead of the party for once.

DA leader John Steenhuisen has promised that the time for “finger-pointing” is over and that that the new GNU will be marked by “collaboration” in a joint effort to solve South Africa’s myriad problems.

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That message will quiet the markets and encourage those who wish to see service delivery around the country brought back to the level it is in many DA-run areas.

But, the whole GNU concept will not sit well with the “coalition of the wounded” – those parties like MK and the EFF, who claim any alliance with the DA will be akin to a return to apartheid.

The only way to cut the ground from under those extremist groups is to make the country visibly better in all aspects. That’s the mountain we must climb to glimpse any “new dawn…”