Here we go again. Same old, same old. A sense of shame came over me as I learnt about President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet selection. He has appointed the same people who have been running SA into the ground for the past 25 years.
You would be forgiven for thinking that the cabinet, just like the professoriate, runs on a tenure system
By simply rearranging the deck chairs, the president has done nothing but postpone the inevitable loss of trust in the ANC by the public.
How can Ramaphosa explain the retention of Angie Motshekga as minister of education when nearly 80% of Grade 4s cannot read at an internationally proficient level in any language? The Economist described the state of our children's education as a "cognitive wasteland".
If a government cannot educate the young, then what use is it?
Laying the blame only at Motshekga's feet might be missing the forest for the trees. The cabinet, after all, operates according to the principle of collective responsibility.
Could the ANC, a party that once prided itself on intellectual renewal, really not find new blood to steer the ship? Did it have to recycle the same individuals? Could the party find no new leaders at the universities, in civil society, business or the diplomatic corps? Whatever happened to people such as Joel Netshitenzhe and Bongi Njobe, once the bright stars of the party?
If a government cannot educate the young, then what use is it?
Maybe the younger people within the party need to revolt. In no decent democracy is a cabinet position a lifelong entitlement.
I had lunch with a gifted young South African scholar in Washington DC the other day and he kept saying to me: "The problem with the ANC, Prof, is that it has no depth."
How is that possible after 25 years in power? This young man went on to say that the current leadership has such a corrupt hold on power that they would rather see the county collapse around them than cede power to a new generation of leaders. We would have to wait for them to die or the party to be voted out before a new generation emerges, was my companion's view.
You can see the bankruptcy and banality of thought in the language the party uses at election time. As if stuck on a repeat button, they regurgitate the same phrases about economic growth, job creation and - my favourite - a better life for all. Now there is a work of genius, truly. I have yet to come across anyone who does not want a better life.
A better life demands better thinking. Climate change constitutes an existential threat to the Earth - and that includes us humans - and requires more than the same old thought patterns. Changing technology holds promise and threat in the way it will change our lives: from artificial intelligence to new discoveries in medicine and debates about higher education. Are any of the newly appointed cabinet ministers at the leading edge of these developments?
The opposition parties are hardly an inspiration either. The people see through their racism, corruption and cynicism. The fact that these parties mimic the same language means we are in even more serious trouble than we realise.
I do not mean to demean individual cabinet ministers, but they are not going to wake up one day as different people. People are who they are.
Those of us who write about leadership keep thinking that individual leaders can shape the world, but I am increasingly becoming persuaded by the structuralist argument - that indeed the problem is a lack of depth within the organisation.
The studies that say our 9- and 10-year-old kids cannot read at an internationally proficient level also say that only six out of every 100 children who start school every year enter university.
The late Professor Bongani Mayosi said things like this but I was not aware of the staggering numbers. He would ask me: "Where do you think those children disappear to, Xolela?" It is not hard to hazard a guess - into the ranks of the unemployed or the criminal underworld.
No economic transformation or improvement in the lives of black people will ever take place without drastic and meaningful changes to our education system. Our parents drummed this into us during apartheid days - it feels weird and anachronistic saying it in a democratic society.
The 80% of our children who cannot read or write, or the 94% who do not make it to university, are our country's nightmare. You cannot have a democracy with such a large part of the population unable to read or write. They are not only unable to read policies, they are fodder for manipulation. It is sometimes said that governments deliberately keep their people uneducated so they can manipulate them. I do not attribute such ill intent to the ANC leaders. They are simply incapable of thinking differently. They are who they are.
The real tragedy of SA is that I will be saying the same thing a decade from now - just as I have been doing over the past quarter century. The only difference is likely to be that the figures of children who cannot read or write would have risen from 80% to 90%.
I wish to be wrong about this, for the sake of those children. Something will have to give before their fate - and the fate of our democracy - is irreversibly sealed. If truth be told, we need a new way, by different minds.
• Mangcu is professor of sociology at George Washington University in the US
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