Mhambi is really depressed. If you have been following this blog it's a no brainer to figure out why. South Africa is going down.
When things started to go awry round 1997 (ok, their were earlier signs but we all chose to ignore them), Mhambi was one of those who put the blame on the ANC's neo-liberal economic policies. I read Patric Bond, and nodded at the sage words of Sampie Terre'blance.
Spiraling crime, the lack of government could all be laid at Mbeki's laissez faire door. The fact that respected anti-apartheid campainers like Dennis Davis were being sidelined for criticising black apartheid sycophants should have warned us that more was rotten.
Unfortunately, the reality of the new racially exclusive Africanism of Mbeki and its pervasive acceptance amongst the black elite only dawned on many when he made his two nations speech. Even then the business world and whites choose to ignore it, the economy was doing just swell, and if you were wealthy so were you.
Aids? Well nobody really knew what to make of that. To ghastly to contemplate. It had me seething with rage and incomprehension.
Corruption? Debilitating. Well it was a Mbeki, a neo-liberal thing. The arms deal, Travelgate and so many more happened under his watch.
Zuma and the left seemed to be a universal panacea to me. He was not a racialist, not a denialist and he was left inclined. At last we could get the state to take care of its citizens.
It was not to be...
Then Shaik and the arms deal transpired, and Zuma was tainted. And the rape case.
Still I believed nothing could be worse than Mbeki. Besides the evidence against Zuma in the rape case was flimsy.
...but... the nagging doubts...
...legal technicalities aside, what does it say of Zuma's supporters that they still wanted a man so tainted as president? Is this a movement or a one man hagiography?
Some influential supporters would not wait any longer for us to make inferences of their character. ANC youth leader Julius Malema is threatening the Constitutional Court with promises to die for Zuma. Not to worry, don't take me literally he avers.
How are we to read that?
Even more worrying is Zwelezima Vavi's parroting of murderous threats. We are used to idiotic statements from the Youth league. We expected allot more from the leadership of an workers organisation like Cosatu.
Zuma's own lawyers have now stooped to a level where they are trying to degenerate the reputation of the court.
Now I am wondering. Is the Zunami a genuine left movement for the benefit of poor South Africans or a cult of personality ready to usher in a new elite?
Is the Zunami going to give us a social compassionate state at the expense of the rule of law? Unfortunately the first is always dependent on the latter.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
South Africa is going down
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3 comments:
I echo your sentiments exactly. South Africa is going down. I think the reactions to price hikes - protests, violence - will simply hasten and exacerbate the process of breakdown. Our citizens - many of them - have unfortunately learned to get what they want by cheating/violence/corruption/collusion - by any means necessary (rather than a sustained honest effort).
I am afraid of the unwavering, unquestioning support Zuma seems to recieve from certain sectors. I feel that kind of worship can drive even the most sane and intelligent to become a megalomaniac despot like Mugabe. We should demand our leaders to serve us, not the other way around.
Nick, on the one hand I think the ANC elite including the so-called Zuma-ites underestimates the intelligence of the poor. Witness the warning given to Zuma on the East Rand.
Po, I agree. Unquestioning support of individuals have been the undoing of progressive movements the world over.
If this is a genuine movement for the benefit of the people and particularly the poor, it does not need Zuma.
The left has many leaders. For instance Gwede Mantashe could just as easily take over.
We need ideas, discipline and structures to deliver, not personalities and anarchy.
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