IF YOU HESITATE,
YOU WILL STUMBLE
For purposes hereof, that is just another version of ‘he who hesitates is lost’. For each of us there is a lesson in current events.
According to news reports, the President’s performance ratings grew from 64 percent in the first quarter of 2018, to 68 percent in the second quarter and then dropped to 54 percent in the third quarter. It is alleged that the EFF’s support has increased over this period.
It was king Solomon who said that he who is confused, as far as two roads are concerned, will stumble. My view is that it is the President’s flirting with EFF policies, in the hope that it will erode EFF support, which is causing this decline in ratings. In fact, the President’s attempt to somehow match the EFF’s populist agenda in some of his public utterances, is contributing to the decline in support.
The ambiguous messages on land reform is seen as a weakness by those both to the left and to the right of the President. In typical hyena style the populist leaders are becoming bolder, and to the right it is causing uncertainty and political alienation among moderates.
No person can defeat his foe by imitating him. To the contrary, what is required is to simply do what you believe is right and then let the results speak for themselves. If you don’t have the courage of your conviction to say unambiguously what you believe and then execute exactly that, you are simply playing for time, delaying the inevitable. That is not leadership.
‘When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter’. That is according to Winston Churchill. It is in the environment of political compromise and confusion on a critical issue such as land reform, but not only that, perhaps for purposes of political survival, that the Malemas of this world find fertile ground.
There is no compromise between light and darkness. You can’t walk in opposite directions simultaneously. Unless you make a deliberate decision to go ‘up’, and then execute that in everything you do and say, you will automatically be drawn downward; at first slowly and then rapidly.
If then, by being honest, transparent and unambiguous, you lose your head, at least you do that with honour – and live to fight another day.
Kind Regards
Privileged and challenged to be South African.
We are all in this together.