I Didn’t Know

Mastering the I didn’t know technique, little did I know that was the epitome of the new dawn – a trick by someone who should be in tune with the plight of South Africans. Quite a signature move from our President; pity for the rest of us it feels like dusk, one that’s been hovering over us for a couple of years with no sign of light in sight.

It’s almost as if the President is learning about South Africa for the first time, like a tourist being briefed on a complicated destination, rather than the man running the place. Mind you, he moved the intelligence department to the President’s office,
collapsing the Ministry of State Security after it failed to deal with the July 2021 unrest. The thing is, the Ministry of State Security also didn’t know an uprising was on the horizon. It just hadn’t dawned on them yet.

Now called the State Security Agency, this unit costs about R4 billion per annum to operate, part of a broader R61 billion yearly budget allocation for defence and state security. No doubt South Africa has money; we just never get the value for it and we can’t claim we didn’t know.

The cash-stuffed couch scandal made global headlines at his farm, Phala Phala – guess who didn’t know? Johannesburg, the country’s economic heart, is filthy and crumbling, and it has been for the past two decades. Guess who didn’t know? The last time I checked, Luthuli House was stationed in Johannesburg. He must be chauffeured through Joburg
with both his hands on his face – black mampatile.

The new dawn’s been a leadership style of dialogue, consultations and summits. We’re trapped in an endless dusk of delays. Pity, I didn’t know that the I didn’t know technique works so well, bizarrely, when leading a fragile country like South Africa. What I know for sure is, Azanians are the most resilient and forgiving people in the world, constantly juggling pandemonium like participants in a sadistic game of survival – like Squid Game. You can test South Africans’ patience to the limit with no accountability. Talk about being slapped on both cheeks all the time, with no response.