By Howard Feldman, Synthesis
I was chatting to my son who is in his mid-twenties. It was a lazy Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, and we were doing the wonderful lying around with not much to do.
“Dad,” he said, “when do you know that you are an adult?” “Hmm,” I answered, partly because I was deeply engrossed in yet another cosy crime novel set somewhere in Norfolk and that was about to be solved by the village priest, and partly because I didn’t have an answer. I wanted to say: “It’s when you stop blaming your parents for your choices,” but I didn’t because he wasn’t someone who did that, and also because some people live to a very old age still blaming their mom for her primary school lunches.
I put the question to listeners of my morning show and received a range of answers. “When you have to buy and make your own food.”; “When you pay for your insurance”; and “When your bedroom has been converted into a sewing room,” were some of them. Although all might be true, none gave me the answer I was looking for.
I remained convinced that an adult is a person who takes responsibility for their choices and who might recognise the challenge of their past, but who doesn’t rely on it as a reason for their daily choices.
It was in that context that I read that – according to President Ramaphosa – “South Africa’s democracy is young. What we’ve achieved in these short 30 years is something of which all of us should be proud.”
Where the statement and approach might have been appropriate for arguably 15 years from 1994, 30 years is a stretch. Thirty years is by no means a short period and although stating the obvious is the same period as during 1945 to 1975 where Western Europe and Japan had been fully rebuilt. Thirty years after the end of World War 2 it would have seemed absurd to blame roads, unemployment, crime, power shortages and pretty much anything else on the war. And yet, the ANC has adopted this as a policy and to provide “reasons” why South Africa is floundering.
The reality on the ground is that the country has a 32 percent unemployment rate and has been described by the World Bank as having the most unequal society on earth. Corruption is rife, infrastructure is in a dire state and in elections looming, polls predict the ANC could for the first time fall beneath 50 percent of the vote.
Under these conditions, it takes a real grown up to accept responsibility. An adult wouldn’t claim a defence of youth and, as difficult as it might be, would own their choices, their actions and their inactions.
The president’s choice to sign the NHI bill in the face of legitimate and rational concerns without taking those issues into account, is not reflective of an adult. It reflects a narcissistic world view that might be appropriate for a toddler and expected of a teenager, but unimpressive from the leader of a country. What is worse, is that he is well aware that the bill will never be implemented in the current form, but that he did so despite that. He was even taunting those who are desperately worried about their future by bragging that he has a “special pen” to use.
An adult would know that the uncertainty that follows his statement has the potential to impact lives … and not in a good way.
It’s time for the ANC to grow up. It is also time for South Africans to treat them as adults, which means holding them accountable. The only way that we can achieve this, is to stop enabling them and not to shrug off their “childish” behaviour.
I still don’t really have an answer for my son. But I suspect you know that you’re an adult when you admire a beautiful green lawn, when you find yourself purchasing plastic containers or when you are excited by kitchen ware and golf clubs and when you can’t believe that Beyonce thought it a good idea to sing “Jolene”.