S'Africans should tighten their seat belts. It's not over until it's over

There will be countless moments of déjà vu, obfuscation, fake news aimed at either diverting attention or damaging reputations, and a whole lot more, as South Africa heads towards the next general elections. We have said it ahead of each successive election in recent years, that the elections ahead will be a ‘watershed’. It seems repetitive and boring, but the truth is that with each subsequent election, the ‘watershed’ temperature rises to another level.

The journey of South Africa from the ‘oh-so-many-years-ago’ horrendous apartheid years has long turned out to be like a horror ride only few had seen coming. Many of those who tried to warn us that it would only be a matter of time before the "new South Africa" train got derailed were accused of being sour grapes or of being racist. Some probably were, who knows? It is hard to tell.

They explained their warning on the basis of having looked around the African continent in those early years (late 1980s to early 1990s) and fearing what they saw.

There are also dark-skinned Africans this writer has met along the way, mostly in Europe and North America, who, cynically, pointed out that we, black South Africans, were very lucky to have been handed on a platter a country as developed as South Africa, the most industrialised economy on the continent with institutions that worked and public infrastructure that matched a lot of what existed in many developed countries. They went on to say that looking at what happened to the respective African countries they were forced by various circumstances to leave, it was just a matter of time before South Africa would be reduced to the same ‘rubble state’. Now, those dark-skinned Africans could not reasonably be accused of being racist. Jealous, perhaps? Pessimist? Self-hating? Something worse? Or just realist? Again, each one is free to draw their own conclusions.

Of course, many will respond to these claims of “great infrastructure and institutional starter pack inherited from apartheid” by pointing out that such assets had been developed to serve the Whites, euphemistically also referred to as the “minority”, or “some”, not all. The answer, of course, is a lot more nuanced than that. Apartheid South Africa was bad in most ways imaginable, no doubt, but it did construct – ok, on the back of cheap labour provided by broken black families with fathers being forced to leave their families behind and move to earn meagre salaries in, mostly, what was referred to as the Reef, Johannesburg, the mines; while other men and women served as domestic workers, including garden boys – but the systems worked.

There was an opportunity, many missed and squandered opportunities, to continue investing in what worked while it was gradually expanded to cover the parts of the country that had been left out, often black areas. The skills inherited from apartheid, mostly white skills for all the reasons we know - particularly in the civil service – should not have been intimidated out of office in the manner that it happened to hurriedly make place for the Blacks.

With smart, empathetic, balanced, emotionally intelligent and, importantly, visionary leadership, more could have been done to expand the skills base rather than maliciously rush those white civil servants who were competent and had the right attitude to embrace change – not all of them did - to remain in place and work with fellow citizens from other backgrounds to help grow a successful, inclusive, country that would offer a place in the sun for all its children, irrespective of racial, religious, ethnic, or gender identity background.

What we witnessed, instead, was an endless supply of “chips on shoulders” and serious attitude on the part of people who were hurriedly appointed into middle-management and senior government positions without, in many cases, requisite qualifications and experience.

For many, the top priorities were to quickly buy that roaring German sedan/SUV and expensive furniture for their work offices. The phenomenon of placing ill equipped individuals into important public office continues to this day. Recent reports of councillors who can neither read nor write, in KZN and, possibly, elsewhere, is a sure sign of disaster in the making. That many of them created costly labour relations mayhem in government departments across the country would be an understatement.          

In the end, what cannot be denied is that under the black nationalist and soviet-era blues-driven ANC, South Africa, ok “we”, if we must all share the burden of responsibility, have done everything to give the cynics and prophets of doom described further up reason to feel good about themselves, reminding all who will listen that they knew, they saw it coming, and that it was indeed just a matter of time before it all came to pass.          

What is sadder, other than many of the negative prophecies described above having come to pass, is that “we” remain incapable of learning from our own mistakes, let alone those of others. Following almost two decades (or is it three?) of post-apartheid state capture, many other forms of corruption and abuses, there are still many who cry victim, but not of the horrendous, wrecking ball, mismanagement and callous, arrogant, kleptocracy under the ANC – the people who “mostly look like us”.  

2In the ANC, they seem to see a mirror reflecting an image whose horrors they would rather not confront for what they are. It is too close to home; it is them. Confronting the image that they see would be confronting themselves and being forced to come to terms with own failures. They are not emotionally ready for that. It is unclear if it's pride or another deeper fear, like being forced to stare into their own souls and being confronted with a deeper, failed, self?

What is it, really, that makes it so easy to continue blaming colonialism apartheid, America, the Whites, the West, and everyone else other than us for Africa’s perennially sorry state? Aren't many of the instances where outsiders take advantage of (South) enabled by, in many cases, African leaders who stand to personally benefit from the abuses?

Our collective African victimhood is not helping us confront and overcome our weaknesses so that Africa, we, can begin charting a new path, one where realistic self-confidence, underpinned by a better cultivated sense of individual and collective self-worth, drive us to better heights.

Nothing we read about the people elected by often gullible political party members to lead South Africa gives one needed hope to believe the future will be better. As things stand, only ego-charged political entrepreneurs and opportunists who have no appreciation of the past we must flee and the future we must build will remain standing while the rest of us will continue moaning on social media, helpless to do anything because the entire post-apartheid political system was designed to ensure that the baddies remain in control.

If they keep failing to stand up and demand an entirely new deal, whose development they must play an active role in, South Africans must prepare to tighten their seatbelts, the only things they have control of.