I must begrudgingly take a bow for the brave souls who endured the State of the Nation Address on Thursday night. It is a feat worthy of a medal, really. But my reality as a card-carrying cynic is that I’d take any form of excruciating pain over the mind-numbing tedium this annual farce serves up.
By Themba Khumalo
I suppose I have to tip my hat to the brave souls, amadelakufa, who managed to sit through the State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday night. It takes a special kind of courage—or perhaps complete lack of self-respect—to endure the mind-numbing nonsense that usually fills the air during this spectacle.
I’d much rather engage in the delightful pastime of eye-gouging with a fork and eardrum-searing with a molten iron than listen to the painfully bland and utterly uninspiring babble that is paraded as a soul-stirring presidential speech at this annual affair.
The last time I subjected myself to the agonising farce known as the SONA—around three years ago—I exploded in a fit of volcanic fury, howling at the television… “What about the previous promises you have spewed while standing there like a hollow figure?”
It was a moment of unvarnished truth; I sensed my sanity slipping, thoughts spiralling into a chaotic whirlwind.
That day, I made the brilliant choice never to endure that mind-numbing farce again, an uninspiring performance pretending to be governance, but it is really just a cacophony of vacuous platitudes and meaningless drivel.
The thought that I might watch a SONA that doesn’t resemble the act of tossing my treasured time into a murky swamp infested with voracious beasts of letdown is simply a cruel trick of the universe.
Year after year, we are flooded with a deluge of empty rhetoric from leaders who seem blissfully unaware of their past proclamations. It is a tiresome cycle of empty blather about utopian smart cities and preposterous bullet trains that are likely to enable us to have breakfast in Cape Town and be in time for lunch in Musina…
The SONA is supposedly a necessary and spectacular occasion, a time when the leader allegedly presents a genius plan, highlights successes, and ignites a spark of hope for the future. However, for a considerable number of citizens, this event often resembles a farcical performance that utterly misses the point, leaving them feeling more isolated than enlightened. The grandiloquent speeches, empty promises, and selectively chosen statistics float in a bubble, completely disconnected from the harsh realities that people face every day.
What’s the deal with this persistent divide, and can anything realistically be done to fix it?
The root of this issue can be traced back to the nature of the event itself. SONAs are in all reality, political spectacles, meticulously orchestrated to polish the public image, garner applause, and present a shiny facade of progress. This inevitably leads to an obsession with lofty metrics and vague policy promises, all while the gritty details of real-world application are swept under the rug.
Sure, negligible and underwhelming economic growth is heralded as a resounding success, but for the individual struggling to make ends meet or secure decent healthcare, those figures might as well be written in a foreign language.
The absurdly convoluted language used in the SONA only serves to further alienate the populace. The jargon-heavy descriptions of policy initiatives, while they may tick the boxes for technical accuracy, are utterly impenetrable to the average citizen. This deliberate obfuscation fosters an air of exclusivity, making it painfully clear that the issues at hand are not just distant but completely irrelevant to the everyday struggles of ordinary people.
The real issue lies not in the lofty dreams paraded during a SONA but in the glaring chasm between those dreams and the actual, tangible outcomes that people experience. When promises are left to wither on the vine and the fruits of progress are hoarded by the few, it is no wonder that cynicism festers. The end result? A SONA that reeks of political posturing rather than any sincere dedication to the welfare of the citizens.
Are SONAs forever doomed to be nothing but a cacophony of meaningless chatter?
It is high time our leaders cut the crap and stopped regurgitating vague platitudes. They need to roll up their sleeves and get down to business with real actions that can be measured. Instead of tiptoeing around with wishy-washy promises, they should set clear, achievable goals, complete with timelines and metrics that actually hold water.
If they ever want to claw back even a smidgen of trust, they’d better start fessing up to their promises and actually doing something for the people instead of just spinning their wheels.