I believe the definition of the word legacy is the leaving behind the results of one’s labour and industry.
These active ingredients are usually based on how one applies oneself to institute improvements and positive developments to a given situation or state of affairs.
To be clear, the general idea is to leave something behind, once one has joined the choir invisible, that illustrates one’s dedication on earth to bring about positive change in a practical or concrete way.
The generally accepted result is that one is saluted after death, for having brought about this positive action.
What comes to mind, for example, is the intrepid entrepreneur who thought to test whether sugar cane would grow in the KwaZulu-Natal region.
Or the fellow who searched for traces of gold in the area which now makes up the Witwatersrand – and from his fossiking Johannesburg was spawned, resting on the backs of the thousands of employees who wrested gold-bearing rock from deep in the earth.
Those are positive legacies.
I wonder what legacies our present political leaders will be remembered by?
Remember, this is the something that people will look back on from our future and measure the success or failure of those who have gone before.
SAA is no longer a free flying entity. Eskom no longer lights our fires. Transnet has run itself off the tracks and is a derailed image of its glory days.
UIF and Unisa are both apparently in financial straits.
Our ever friendly and quietly efficient post office is no longer to be found in every dorp in South Africa.
Our border security situation has become such a liability that a special department is now created to dedicate its strengths to closing the holes in the fences.
This is another department which swells our bloated civil service even more and increases spending of funds we do not have.
So, this present legacy we are being presented with will be judged in the years to come and the truth will be told that we were left up the creek without a paddle.
And unfortunately, we only have ourselves to blame for being hoodwinked into complacency.
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