No More Mandelas ...

Fantastic Panorama documentary this week - charting 25 years of South African history .... and ripping to shreds any pretences that this is not a country in deep deep strife and despair ..... Fergal Keane challenges the international community's myopic assumptions about South African post-apartheid stability .... but also doesn't hesitate to point the finger squarely at the corrupt fatness and almost junta-ness of the ANC .....

Friends who have recently returned from SA and those who live there report of a country in black depression .... power cuts (cape town recently spent a full 8 hours without power ... the whole city!), water shortages (even the fancy suburb of sandton in jozi went 2 days without water recently) .... spiralling crime .... only serve to highlight a society losing control ....

Mbeki's plain failures to show any decency on the issues of AIDS or Zimbabwe led even White/Indian/Non-Zulu South Africans to not feel too desolate about Zuma's election as head of the ANC (not too desolate in itself not exactly being a resounding endorsement) .... but further corruption charges against Zuma .... the arrest of the Chief of Police Jackie Selebi on criminal charges and associations with mobsters .... and the revival of the political fortunes of Winnie Mandela (a convicted kidnapper and fraudster behind some of the more abhorrent violence in the township riots of the late 80s including the infamous necklacing) ..... give the impression that the country is on a precipice .... a national breath-holding moment until its safe to exhale ... or scream ....


I love South Africa with a passion that I never thought I'd feel for another nation ..... and i hope with all my heart that the vibrant civil society structures that led to the demonstrations for HIV rights and gay rights in the country .... the journalists that braved to tell the world about apartheid .... and the priceless heroes such as Archbishop Tutu and Mandela will ensure that the current rot does not seep too deep .....

But at the same recent ANC conference that Zuma was elected at in December - the same delegates voted to disband the Scorpions - the elite anti-corruption squad that has been investigating Zuma and Selebi etc ..... and there have been dire warnings of violence if Zuma is found guilty alongside a resurgence of Zulu pride and tribalism (and we know where that got Kenya, Rwanda, Congo etc etc) .....

Do watch the programme if you can online .... and i'll leave you with this from Alan Paton:

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.
Let him not love the earth too deeply.
Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire.
Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley.
For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
Cry, The Beloved Country, Chapter 12