1 December 2014 | Tony Leon | Original Publication: Rand Daily Mail
As the tide of woeful news grows, predictions of a dire future are
gaining strength with some notable exceptions
Where you stand on an issue depends on where you sit. It's
really quite amazing how the very same set of facts lead to radically different
conclusions about what they mean. Take the travails afflicting South Africa at
the moment. They make a long and depressing list and you're spoilt for choice
on which to highlight.
Our ever-weakening currency - or the country's share price, as
it is sometimes termed - has fallen more than 70% against the surging greenback
in just over four years. The public service wage bill now gobbles up 42.2% of
all government (read taxpayer-funded) expenditure and three million civil
servants make the government the biggest single employer in South Africa by
far.
Yet, across a swathe of functions, the state is barely
functioning, from supplying electricity anywhere to safe drinking water in
Gauteng.
The flagship national airline is the scene of boardroom battles
even as it battles to stay aloft. The South African Post Office cannot deliver
letters and even the much-admired South African Revenue Service is mired in
allegations that one of its units ran a brothel.
Property rights, one of the key compromises in the constitution,
are under threat, and not just from the land grabs by the Economic Freedom
Fighters in Pretoria. A flurry of laws are excavating under the foundations so
carefully constructed at Kempton Park in the early 1990s.
Our growth rate has dropped from the 5% achieved a decade ago,
and the once-mighty tripartite alliance has been rent asunder.
The day after Nelson Mandela died, in December last year, the
parliamentary speaker of his time, Dr Frene Ginwala, noted that in place of his
normal batik-style shirts, South Africa's first democratically elected
president "always wore a suit to parliament as a sign of his respect for
the institution". And it wasn't just his sartorial choices that mattered
both there and in the courts of law. He arrived, did his duty and even took the
occasional judicial and political bullet that went against him.
The scenes of chaos in parliament two weeks ago - especially the
fateful decision to send the police into its inner sanctum - show how far we
have fallen since then, not least in our own estimation and in the eyes of the
world, which has long since moved beyond the "miracle rising" narrative
we once gave to a globe in need of heroes.
But is it a tipping point into failed-state status or simply a
fork in the road to more competitive politics? Despite its enormous numbers at
the moment, is the ANC staring long-term decline square in the face?
Of course, the governing party will reel off a host of
statistics, from three-million houses delivered to 16million social grants
deposited every month, to justify its claim that life is better today than it
ever was.
But even for those sitting far away from government,
commentators reading the tea leaves predict different futures. Just last week,
two of these scenarios were on offer.
Financial analyst Magnus Heystek read the last rites for the
rainbow nation on the back of what he called "jackbooted thugs in the most
hallowed halls of democracy". I never thought of my former place of work
in such sacrosanct terms. His conclusion set the Twitterati ablaze. Forecasting
the demise of offshore investments, Heystek prognosticated that within five
years the effects of weakening economic growth and further currency decline
will see the "jackbooted bankers" from the Reserve Bank -
"overnight and without warning" - switch off the offshore investment
tap.
So, if you think your rand-hedged investments are a safe haven,
think again, he suggests. He ends his cheery note with this zinger: "There
are only two types of ex-Rhodesians in the world. Those who took all their
money out of the country and those who wished they had."
DA leader Helen Zille is made of sterner stuff than this
"apocalypse just now" scenario. Strangely, she describes herself as
"exhilarated" by the recent events inside and outside parliament. She
reads into the "deep crisis" in party and state the seeds of a
campaign of "fighting back" (long after I thought the phrase was
banned by the party) by civil society and through the accumulation of actions
and pushback, "a prefect storm for fundamental change".
Her reference point is the Leipzig Moment in East Germany 25
years ago, when the people's demands for reform and freedom became unstoppable
and eventually toppled the government and the Berlin Wall.
Of course, a major factor beyond "people power" in
that revolution was Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's decision not to use force
to prop up his satellites. Locally, Marikana suggests that a different scenario
could unfold here.
But what certainly links the collapsing Soviet empire with our
state, apart from ideological nostalgia, is that when the money runs out, all
settled futures become unknowable.
As US scenario consultant Ian Wilson said: "However good
our futures research may be, we shall never be able to escape from the ultimate
dilemma that all our knowledge is about the past, and all our decisions are
about the future."
Perhaps before either packing your bags or at least sending your
assets offshore while you can, the more earthy remark of former editor Steve
Mulholland might chime with both history and expectation. He said: "Ever
since I was five years old, I was always told that South Africa had five years
to go before it exploded. Well, I'm 78 and we're both still here."
• Leon is the author of Opposite Mandela (Jonathan Ball) Follow him on
Twitter: @TonyLeonSA OR on Facebook: facebook.com/TonyLeonSA
No comments:
Post a Comment