By: Natasha Archary
During a stakeholder meeting in Durban this past weekend, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged South Africans to be more patriotic.
The President suggested South Africans take a leaf out of China’s books, whose citizens act as ambassadors of their country, instead of being negative about their country.
“Everyone must be a messenger. We must be like China. In China nearly everyone is a messenger, every Chinese is a messenger for their country. Never bad mouth your country.
Here some people have made it a sport to badmouth the country, to say all sorts of negative things and we acknowledge that we have challenges and problems.
But at the same time we say that our love for this country is much more important than the negativity, so therefore we must be positive about South Africa. That is the only way this country can move forward.”
Cyril Ramaphosa urged South Africans to be more patriotic
Sizwe Dhlomo spoke to Political Analyst and Leadership Specialist Dumisani Tembe about patriotism, and contradictions relating to how South Africans identify their origins.
“In 1994, I call it the honeymoon phase, we felt it’s a new nation, it’s a new South Africa and the sentiment was that things will change. Also, a lot of black people associated democracy with a better life, a better quality of life.
So, in most cases there is what is called a material source of identity, in other words you identify with what gives you particular incentives.
This is why people are proud when they say this is 100% black-owned company, or this is 100% female-owned company because they associate it with a particular identity that has benefits.”
Political Analyst and Leadership Specialist Dumisani Tembe
Dumisani says that most South Africans first identify with their ethnic nationality before saying they are from South Africa.
Sizwe admitted that he feels the same way, expressing that he also feels he’s Zulu first and a South African second, which is why he believes he can live anywhere in the world and not lose his “zulu-ness”.
Listen to the conversation on 959 Breakfast:
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