The week before Christmas, as I drove around running errands for our impending holiday, I listened to the radio as President Zuma asked the ominous question to his colleagues: "What have I done wrong?"
I rolled my eyes and dismissed it so that my cheerful mood wouldn't be spoilt. This until three days later when we hit the road, excited to be off to the beach. That's when it struck me – our president needs to take a road trip in South Africa.
And I'm not talking about a trip in a luxury, chauffeur-driven, air-conditioned car. I mean in an overloaded taxi, crowded with too many people on their way home to their families and children after a hard year of working away from them. A taxi pulling a trailer full of goods that they've purchased with that hard earned cash. A taxi that has now broken down on the side of the road, passengers sitting for hours, waiting indefinitely. Trailers that perhaps are filled with perishables that by now would have perished in the summer heat.
And let's assume that those people have only those few days of leave to spend with their families. A day now lost. A child waiting back home for that bicycle his mum bought him. It was on the trailer, above all the other goods loaded up, shiny and new. Now thrown off on account of a blown tyre on the trailer. Then there are beggars. At almost every corner in almost every province. Young kids, teenagers, women with babies and people with disabilities. Starving for anything that may be palmed off on them. We may look past them but that doesn't mean that they disappear.
The divide in our beautiful country is too deep and wide. While I know that many countries in the world suffer with high rates of poverty, I also know that there are surely many ways that our president could better use resources to alleviate the poverty. To ease it somewhat so that less people have to suffer that much. In his speech at Orlando Stadium celebrating the 105 birthday of the ANC, President Zuma said that the ANC is a party for the people. Really? Which people are these exactly? He also stated that "We must give our people hope. We must unite against our common enemies of unemployment, poverty and inequality. Not against one another." Sure. Let's do that.
What have I done wrong? Ask yourself the opposite Mr President: What have you done right?