Ah, Chief Dwasaho! This past Sunday (27 April, 31st South Africa’s Freedom Day), my leader, your sidekick Acting President Gwede Mantashe and Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources rose in Ermelo, Mpumalanga, to mark the occasion. All bells and whistles accompanied the grand event, which was sold as a celebration of strides made since the 1994 Democratic Breakthrough.

Without fail, he paid homage to the ancestors on your behalf: those gallant men and women who came before us, who fought and fell in the wars of conquest, colonial dispossession, and apartheid’s blood-soaked years.

For dramatic effect, he paused, nodded, raised his right fist, and shouted Struggle slogans to summon Madiba's spirit to salvage what is left of the ANC. Then, with ruralitalian eloquence, Gwede recited a litany of so-called progress made since 1994, “yet challenges remain.” Luckily, he didn’t wave a bundle of cherry-picked statistics: water here, electricity there, a farm redistributed yonder; all would have been in vain to breathe life into the hollow phrase, “A Better Life for All."

But my leader, you know as well as I do that this speech was crafted for the converted. The rest of us? We’re nowhere near the Promised Land.

I understand, my leader, that I may have come across as a bit harsh last week when I called your tenure a false dawn. However, it had to be said. Someone needed to jolt public discourse back to life.

The national conversation has long been held hostage by those who are too timid to speak truth to power, fearing they will be categorised as so-called rented analysts masquerading as objective observers of our political theatre.

Let me be clear: I will not be standing for public office any time soon. If it still exists, my ANC membership card is now a nostalgic relic rather than a badge of honour. In fact, my very first ANC membership card bears your signature, and I must find and sell it at an auction.

Post-Ramaphosa scenarios

I wish to pause and invite every citizen, from tavern philosophers to conservative podcasters, progressive YouTubers and TikTok pundits, to reflect deeply on the future of our homeland.

When I floated my “false dawn” analogy to senior scribe Lucas “Styles” Ledwaba, a man whose pen still carries the weight of thunder, he offered no comment, no acknowledgement. Instead, he sent me a track: “Mickey Mouse Freedom” by the late reggae maestro Lucky Dube, a man, the irony of ironies, gunned down by the very criminals our liberation movement promised to vanquish.

It got me thinking: how long is a piece of string? What do we count as success after 31 years of freedom? Can we truly keep celebrating while things fall apart?

Our Constitution is a beauty, a high-water mark of our negotiated democratic settlement. The law books, rewritten to uproot and replace apartheid’s jurisprudential poison, are the envy of many.

Gone are the days of the dreaded Section 29 of the Internal Security Act, that legal abomination that allowed for indefinite solitary confinement, no access to lawyers, no family visits, and no justice. I should know. I was once a victim of Section 29, albeit for a short time.

Today, some argue that the accused and prisoners enjoy more rights than the average Bhekisisa, who is hustling to earn a living under the crushing weight of corruption, cadre deployment gone rogue, and the maddening indifference of our governors.

Meanwhile, our once-proud metropolitan cities now resemble rusting, creaking and collapsing ghettos, moving not even in slow motion. In this new era, sewage spills have become the gold standard of governance under the watch of modern-day mandarins.

And numbers don’t lie. We’re deep in the territory of outright collapse; in isiZulu, we say sisemasimbeni (we are in shit). A recent investigation found that of all municipalities assessed, 94 were identified as non-compliant in managing raw sewage; their wastewater treatment works were broken. Another 54 were deemed “partially compliant” in bureaucrats’ language; they tick the right boxes when the auditors look, but the reality on the ground is different.

Raw sewage spillages

The Department of Water and Sanitation’s (DWS) Minister Pemmy Majodina admitted they had issued 164 directives regarding raw sewage spillages into freshwater resources.

Instead of fixing the problem, Minister Majodina announced that failing municipalities now faced criminal charges for allowing raw sewage to flood our rivers. Yes, my leader, the rivers that once quenched warriors’ thirst and washed our forebears’ sins now carry untreated human waste. We can cry a river, but the “river of pain” stays here.

How does one (voter or not) even comprehend this level of criminal neglect? It’s not just bureaucratic bungling or technical failure; it’s a State-sanctioned rot.

Let us not forget Emfuleni Municipality (Gauteng), arguably the worst of the lot, where the stench of raw sewage clings to the air like bad governance. At least one life, that of Dimakatso Mofokeng, has allegedly been lost after human waste flowed freely into her home, and municipal employees reportedly demanded bribes to fix the very mess they are paid to manage.

For more than five years, Emfuleni Municipality has presided over the wholesale collapse of sewerage and water infrastructure. Wastewater (untreated human waste) gushes into people’s houses, floods the streets, and pollutes the once-mighty Vaal River. During this time, the municipality had access to an R640-million infrastructure grant but failed to spend it. The money was forfeited to the National Treasury as if clean water, sanitation and dignity were optional extras.

Do you, my leader, honestly believe that those wading through “rivers of pain” quite literally have the appetite (the irony), the energy, or the emotional bandwidth to clap along at Freedom Day celebrations?

Do they pack picnic baskets and don party regalia while raw human waste flows through their communities and homes? I doubt it.

The only “freedom” they know is the freedom to suffer in silence, to have a government that lacks empathy, and to queue not just for water, but to wait in vain for their inherent human dignity to be respected.

Our people are drowning in excrement. Yet, this past Sunday, the brass band played, the flag was hoisted, and speeches thundered about progress, unity, and the ever-elusive “A Better Life for All”.  Meanwhile, the stench of untreated human waste remains as stubborn as a mule.

Motley crew

I know the motley crew who trade under the grandiose title of “letters to the editor/comment section” will roll out their tired trope — you get the government you vote for. Sometimes, they don’t bother with nuance; they bark: “Stop voting for the ANC.”

But maths doesn’t add up. The idea that all black people are beholden to the ANC because of social grants is a racist fallacy disguised as analysis. The ANC couldn’t even muster the usual over 10-million votes in last year’s elections. Yet, 28.7-million South Africans, or about 44% of the population, receive social grants.

So, no, it’s not turkeys who voted for Christmas. That line insults the intelligence of voters and skates dangerously close to contempt for the black poor, if not race baiting.

Some pretend not to know that under apartheid, black people didn’t have sewage flowing into their homes. Yet history, that stubborn repository of facts and wisdom, shows they practised open defecation and drank water from rivers and dams already polluted by their excrement.

We’ve seen this movie before. Just because the camera angle has changed doesn’t mean the script is new.

Thus, the holier-than-thou attitude of a few Daily Maverick resident commentators and other media trolls needs tempering. A bit of history, nuance, and respect would go a long way.

I keep nudging South AfriCANs to take responsibility for rebuilding our country because the barbarians are battering the gate, trying to force it open.

One more slip, and we won’t be crying over dry water taps or raw sewage any more. Something far more insidious and fatal will occur. The Underworld (Barbarians) dressed in fine political attire will take over, and everything, including your exclusive estate in Waterfall (Midlands) or your holiday home in Zimbali (Durban), will become part of the wasteland.

And when that day comes, should I turn around and accuse every sufferer of deserving their fate simply because of that smug old dictum that a country gets the government it deserves? Please. Grow up. Spare a thought for those who voted in good faith and were rewarded with nothing but Mickey Mouse Freedom.

Till next week, my man, send me nowhere - I am tired and worn. 

Written by Bhekisisa Mncube, an award-winning storyteller and author. He writes a regular column for the Daily Maverick. The original article was first published here.  It attracted massive media attention, including a live interview with Newzroom Africa and prime-time interviews with SAFM and SABC Channel 404 over two days, 27 and 28 April 2025.