As popular idiom has it, “success had many fathers, failure is an orphan”.
Or, as some popular idiots would have it, South Africans must take “collective responsibility” for the failures of their leaders. That’s the latest refrain from within President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration, presumably because blaming everything on apartheid is beginning to wear thin after a quarter century of misguided African National Congress governance.
The ANC has for a while been casting about for a more persuasive target than the 1652 arrival of Jan van Riebeek. It seems that the preferred solution is now to spread the blame more evenly and more widely than just targeting whities. Niftiest of all, if it works, is that it would mean ordinary citizens would voluntarily be taking on the crippling weight that their leaders are shrugging off.