What Trump vs Musk makes us appreciate about South Africa

The Citizen

5 hours ago

You just can't imagine that kind of behaviour among real South African leaders.
This combination of pictures created on 12 August 2024 shows, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, left, and former US president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Picture: Frederic J Brown and Brendan Smialowski/ AFP
Can you imagine Johan Rupert, Oppenheimer or Motsepe publicly feuding with the president of the nation?
Could you imagine them going at it and stopping just short of calling the president a sex predator?
Probably not. That's because it's pretty unbecoming for business people to try to sway public opinion against a sitting president.
Then again, it's pretty unbecoming of a president to do the same to some important economic drivers.
You just can't imagine that kind of behaviour among real South African leaders.
Sure, you'd expect it to come from the 'small boys', but those really driving the national agenda, for all their flaws, actually behave respectably.
Just try to imagine the anger between the parties during the now-forgotten spat over the budget.
Fixing our problems
For all of that anger, all we got were a few matter-of-fact statements from various sides, but nothing along the lines of name-calling and bashing, at least nothing to the American extent.
We might not have the economy and infrastructure, but we can still look one another in the eye when having a disagreement.
It seems our leadership, with all its flaws, is still capable of picking up a phone and sorting issues out rather than committing the public to our battles.
We vote for politicians so they can do that battling of our interests for us, not to abuse us as their useful idiots to drive their own agendas.
And we've been pretty solid of late on holding them to account on that.
They may not be incredibly good at hearing us holding them to account, but we'll take it in baby steps.
For now, we can be grateful that poor form can swing more than 10% of an electorate.
That would never happen in the USA because no matter how bad things get, they still have their guy.
Their democracy has a personality cult bent to it.
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Petty politics
While we do love a bit of our Fikiles, Jacbobs and Cyrils, the faith is personality is not that strong. Ask your boys Ace and Carl, but you won't because they're no longer your boys.
It's that level of decorum that may seem mundane and a non-issue but is really driving some of what is right in South Africa.
Obviously, you'd want political leaders who are firm and robust in stature, and that does involve a significant amount of disagreement.
Goodness gracious, though. The world's most powerful man taking on the world's richest man to gain the popular support of the rest of the country's men does seem so…petty.
Fighting for a debate
Americans should ask themselves why these two dudes are so invested in making this spat public. Surely, if they disagree, they could pick up the phone and discuss it.
One has a whole satellite constellation, and the other has a whole military. You can't tell me that they don't have the equipment to have a call.
It's because the point isn't to win the debate. It's for the debate, if you can call it that, to go on.
That way, they get a platform to continue building their cults, which will eventually battle it out. It's already so powerful that it inspired an insurrection years ago. What would this, much bigger, fight yield?
There's so much we can be upset about in our country. There's a lot going wrong, but a fundamental to fixing the issues is that we're still able to talk directly without turning the public into ammunition for personal interests.
You can be upset with Cyril's lack of action, silly actions when he takes them, and insistence on pursuing inept policy. You can even be upset with him for the poor economy.
You cannot be upset with him for rude, dictatorial and abrasive behaviour because, unlike his US counterpart, he still has the fundamentals of democratic leadership in place.
Anyway, sterke daar Suid-Afrikaanse refugees.
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