On the first day that Dr. Mamphela Ramphele announced the launch of the political platform named ‘Agang,’ it was a big faaat joke for most. Who IS this woman? What’s with the Peruvian Llama herder hat? Calling a party ‘Agang’ in South Africa? COME AAAN!!! What is she THINKING?
Due to the “Oscar Saga,” there has been a lot going down that has received a lot less ‘focus’ than is deserved. We have all become infatuated with finding out the tiniest shred of new information that is revealed. “How insane is this Oscar thing?” is always the second or third question after “Hey, how are you?” The dank darkness of it all has absolutely consumed us, left us somewhat emotionless and lacking colour in life.
But yesterday afternoon I decided to damn this emotion of mine to hell. Yes, what’s happened is sordid and leaves a foul taste in the mouth, smell in the nose, stinging in the ear, but I am – in fact – NOT a part of it. I decided to focus on the tweets in between the Oscar updates and was blessed to receive a link to an article in the New York Times about Dr. Ramphele, her goals, her past and the substance that this woman is made of.
Agang Website
Mama Mamphela Ramphele is an impressively educated, highly patriotic, machine of a woman. She has energy, she has drive, she contains a contagious kind of hope and most importantly, she wants the same thing that you and I want – for the Republic of South Africa to realise itself.
Let’s be honest, the Democratic Alliance, for all the good that they have done, are a white run political party. Do we really believe that after the evil, that was apartheid, that the majority of our country would want to be governed by the ‘white man’ so soon after such a devastating shambles of a system? They are reluctant to do so. Although it is slowly being revealed to the poor that their government has made a mockery of their support to them, the ANC still remains the party which gave South African’s their desperately sought after freedom.
We were miserably let down by COPE the last time that a seemingly vibrant and awe-inspiring political group encouraged us to instil faith into them and believe that they could somehow, at some point, slowly wrench us out of the governmental quicksand that South Africa finds itself in. I’m not even going to go into the state of our nation. We all know where we’re at. It’s all around us. It’s a deeply felt fear and sadness inside all of us. We knew before Nkandla. We knew before Marikana. We knew before Anene. We knew before Oscar.
COPE Party
“The country of our dreams has unfortunately faded,” Ramphele said in her address to the nation. “The dream has faded for the many living in poverty and destitution in our increasingly unequal society. And perhaps worst of all, my generation has to confess to the young people of our country: We have failed you. We have failed to build for you an education and training system to prepare you for life in the 21st century.”
I implore you to look into Agang. Follow them on twitter (@AgangSA) or Facebook to see what their message is and decide if you like what you’re absorbing or not.
I’ve left out the ‘facts’. What does Agang mean? Who is Mamphela Ramphele? Here is the link to the New York Times article that first got a tiny little flame burning in my heart for this woman, for her vision: Here
JUSSS SAYIN’