The unspoken spoken idiocy of Sona

While the EFF ensured an entertaining evening for anybody alcoholic enough to make a drinking game out of the State of the Nation Address (Sona), there were serious hints of real threats to our democracy above members boasting of their knowledge and fine pronunciation of the words’ “point”, “of” and “order”.

Firstly, the State of the Nation Address is a silly tradition that serves little democratic value and has been turned into a harmful party of ridiculousness that would shame any tax base paying each member more than R80,000 a month. It should be scrapped along with half the capacity of parliament. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s actually feel ashamed about our lack of leadership.

In this instance, I’m not talking about any lack of leadership from Cyril (that the country seems worse off now than it did under Zuma should already tell you that). I’m speaking of the lack of leadership within our parliament.

Dearest speaker Thandi went out of her way to show us that she has no conceptualisation of her power, roles nor responsibilities. Worse off, she seemed to have no idea about the functioning of the state. In what world would justices of the courts be considered to be members of the legislature? Not in any democratic country I’m aware of, but according to Thandi Modise, they’re “members”, or at least she referred to them as such when referring to their rulings.

To a layman this may not seem like a serious issue but it actually strikes deep at the core of democracy; the separation of powers … the accountability metric. To even have the capacity to refer to justices as members is a worry.

If I think of recent great speakers from around the world, the like of John Bercow comes to mind. While our democracy is vastly different to that of the United Kingdom, the role of the speaker is near identical. That is that the speaker is to facilitate the business of parliament and do so fearlessly.

Therefore this begging of members causing disruption to leave with 60 minutes of “please” proceeding phrases is shameful, weak and an indication of the speaker’s inability to fully take hold of her powers. It is also a far cry from Bercow’s, “Get out man! You will not be missed.”

It just feels as though parliament’s leadership is tired, which is probably a strategic move on the part of the Fighters but it’s distressing to witness. One senses that they are going about the motions and have no clue.

Both leading national parties got a whipping from the EFF in the previous election and that was, for a large part, based on the youth. Understandably, when the youth felt less empowered some 20 years ago, lines referring to the “children” in the EFF who need to be taught lessons would have worked. Today though, they are isolating and favour the reds, who are seen by the youth as their alternative to an ANC of ageing and conservative ideas. The reds were even able to back the ANC into a corner and compel them to defend De Klerk. Sure, to the learned, it was less about defending De Klerk and more about defending free expression, but the kids don’t see it that way and that’s really all the reds care about.

But even on that front, it just seems to convenient that the EFF lash out at De Klerk now on the strength of views he’s clearly held since 1994 but has been to previous Sonas with the EFF in the house. 

Of course, I vent. I understand why Thandi took nearly 90 minutes to eject the EFF. I understand why the EFF took on Gordhan and De Klerk and I understand why Cyril loved every moment of it (since attention was diverted from a seriously sombre Sona). I even understand why a member of the ANC wanted to take the fight “outside” and why, despite often rehashing the previous person’s comments, members of various political parties wanted to get their say in.

I understand that parliament is barely a representation of the will of the people but rather 400 people with inflated perks and salaries who would just do what they must to please the people enough to put them back there every five years so that they may eat off the sweet nectar of a shrinking tax base, in a failing economy, with a dying education system and a bloated staff contingent; a system that suits them to the tee as long as that tax base does not shrink beyond the 400 x salary.

Perhaps then, we could really get what the people want: a YouTube channel that pumps out videos titled *Person A* destroys *Person B* in hilarious Point of Order.

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