This statement by our president triggered a range of thoughts. Please indulge me while I express some of these. #Thread https://twitter.com/CyrilRamaphosa/status/1309082482935988234

Heritage Day is an opportunity for us as South Africans to celebrate our diversity. It is an opportunity for us to affirm what makes us unique in the family of nations. Instead, our president used this as an opportunity to go on a guilt trip.

I would I have liked to have heard our president say: "My fellow South Africans, as the world continues to be battered by a disease that has wreaked havoc upon the human race, let us celebrate our diverse cultures that make us stronger together."

Instead, he chose to focus on that which divides us; unfairly, I must add. And this in turn opened up a thought process around messaging, and what it takes to get people to pull together.

As people who have followed my writings over the past decade are aware, I remain largely a fan of @BarackObama — I disagreed with a lot of his policies, but overall, I believe he was a good president. I elaborate on some of this here -> https://kanthanpillay.com/content/look-fondness-obama-presidency

But crucially, a lot of what Obama focussed on was his core message of "Yes, we can". Think also of his other slogans: “Change we can believe in,” “Fired up and ready to go”, and the single word "Hope" — none of these were divisive, each was an invitation to pull together.

Now contrast that with the @HillaryClinton campaign message: "I'm with her" — core problem, it's not about "us"; it's about her. Would you get out of bed on Election Day because "I'm with her"?

Outsider @realDonaldTrump had a core message anyone could relate to: "Make America Great Again". If I was an auto-worker in one of the the US flyover states, it's the sort of thing that would make me get out of bed to vote.

Recently, a hashtag "VoetsekANC" has been trending. No doubt it will continue to do so in the months ahead. I agree with the sentiment, but have not joined it. Why? Because all of us know that the ANC is the problem. Shouting it out every week will not fix that.

What fails us is that we have not articulated an alternative vision that we can collectively agree upon. Our national discourse ever since Thabo Mbeki introduced BEE has been around what divides us. This has allowed @EFFSouthAfrica to flourish.

And so here's a truth we must accept: unless we can, as the people of South Africa, articulate a vision that all of us — from Soweto to Stellenbosch — can agree upon, we will continue to be ruled by the ANC.

Maybe the starting point is to consider what I believe: Our diverse cultures are doomed unless we recognise that each of these will only survive if we celebrate all of these, notwithstanding atrocities committed by our ancestors.