The day 25 years ago when FW De Klerk announced the unbanning of the ANC and other political parties was one such day.
And then there was the day Nelson Mandela strode out of Victor Verster prison like the colossus he was, head held high.
We won’t forget that sombre day in 2005 when former President Thabo Mbeki told a joint sitting of the House that he was releasing Jacob Zuma from his position as deputy president. That, of course, all eventually led to the epic night in September 2008 when Mbeki himself would be recalled from office by his own party.
Yet through all this our democracy held firm, bruised and battered, but firm.
9 February 2017 will be remembered as the night our politics shifted in an even more dangerous direction than the night in 2015 when signals were jammed in Parliament and the EFF was evicted forcefully by the ‘white shirts’.
Zuma’s deployment of soldiers and the unprecedented security around Parliament this year set the tone for the State of the Nation Address (Sona); combative.
It sent a chilling message that those who dare oppose him will feel the weight of the state security apparatus. Much of the pre-Sona build up thus rightly focused on the excessive security measures in place and less on what Zuma would actually say.
The EFF clearly came ready to do battle. Their MPs started taking points of order repeatedly relating to Zuma’s breach of the Constitution in the Nkandla matter and then the alleged presence of SAPS in the National Assembly.
The EFF claimed that SAPS officers were ‘planted’ among the protection officers and equipped with whips and also ‘biological’ spray.
And so it went on and on until Cope’s rather hapless Willie Madisha was asked to leave for what seemed like a minor misdemeanour.
The DA at first requested that the business of the evening be concluded. But once things descended into chaos and DA leader Mmusi Maimane tried to intervene, several ANC MPs who thus far had remained virtually ‘silent-shouted’ him down.
In a base display, an ANC member was heard clearly using the ‘F-word’ at Maimane. Did Mbete not hear that, one wonders? Other inexplicable cries of ‘racist!’ were hurled at Maimane and the DA left.
What a disgrace the ANC has become; a shadow of its former self, trying to win arguments by dint of expletives and force and not by the weight of argument.
The EFF, of course, was spoiling for the fight and while it is so that Zuma has breached the Constitution and has not been properly held to account, their disruptive strategy has its limits.
Thus far there have been open calls for his resignation but it’s hardly a revolution.
