History Waiting To Be Written

David McKay sat down with former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas to discuss his book, After Dawn: Hope after State Capture – and the immediate challenges facing President Cyril Ramaphosa and the governing party.

- David McKay

Mcebisi Jonas looks a tad frazzled by the media regimen his publisher is putting him through. He’s already done the rounds on radio and TV to publicise his book, After Dawn. Now it’s the turn of the press.

Naturally, the attention is on Jonas’ much poured-over narrative from 2016 when he finally spilled the beans on the R600m bribe offered to him by the Gupta brothers. The book, though, hardly touches on the matter: It dispenses with the fact in its very first sentence as if to rouse the reader from the nightmare.

Hence the title, which recognises the passing of the moment while turning to the latent future; the history waiting to be written. After Dawn takes its cue from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s New Dawn declaration following his appointment as ANC president, later given the imprimatur of the nation in the May national elections the ANC won.

It wasn’t a comfortable victory though, and as pointed out by Jonas in his book, the continued failure to address the fault lines in the ANC will lead to a realignment of politics in the next election, currently presaged by the wave of populism, as well as an apathy among the youth.

The antidote to the populist voice, Jonas argues, is to be clear about the problem, and articulate about its solutions. “I guess that’s just one of the reasons I was thinking of when I was writing.”

The other idea that comes through is that South Africa is running short of options.

“I’m cautiously optimistic because in one part I think the ANC has no choice. If the ANC fails to deal with some of these issues in the next five years, we’re getting into a complete political realignment. Look at all the political parties now: They are actually racially based at the moment and historical as a movement.”