Government legislates dispossession

Ramaphosa projects justice while administering inequality

- CHRISTOPHER RUTLEDGE

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has perfected the art of dignified doublespeak.

With calm delivery and a statesman’s demeanour, he presents himself abroad as a champion of justice and equality, while at home presiding over policies that deepen the very injustices he decries.

The irony could not be sharper. At the recent launch of the G20 Expert Task Force on Inequality, chaired by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Ramaphosa declared with solemnity that “people across the world know how extreme inequality undermines their dignity and chance for a better future”.

He spoke of soaring food and energy prices, debt traps, and widening wealth gaps. He positioned himself as the custodian of a global project to “combat inequality”.

And yet, like a seasoned illusionist, he gestured toward inequality with one hand while concealing the elephant in the room with the other.

As Mphutlane wa Bofelo has written, the mainstream media thrives on spectacle and suffers from “a deeply embedded amnesia” This is the political terrain in which Ramaphosa flourishes.

He counts on the fact that South Africans, exhausted by daily crises, will be mesmerised by the pomp of G20 announcements and distracted by the gravitas of Stiglitz’ presence.

The president’s performance relies on a selective memory: we are asked to forget the lived realities of inequality in South Africa while applauding his role in diagnosing it on the world stage.

Stiglitz himself reminded the gathering: “Inequality was always a choice, and G20 nations have the power to choose a different path”

That statement should have hung like a mirror before Ramaphosa. But if inequality is a choice, then we must ask: what choices has his government made?