I carefully placed a question mark at the end of my title because what I know about South Africa could be written on a postage stamp! However, it is the implied conclusion of Andrew Kenny in The Spectator. Correctly, in my opinion, he chastises the 'sainted' Nelson Mandela for failing to stay in the job of president for much longer in order to set South Africa on a better political, economic and social course. Yes, his great act was to ensure that no great blodshed occurred after white rule ended but a truly great leader would have had a wider and deeper vision. Instead, he handed it all over to some real third-raters:
His successor, Thabo Mbeki, ruling from 1999 to 2008, was a neurotic racist with intellectual pretensions. Like Robert Mugabe, he worshipped everything European while deeply resenting it. His racism led him to believe that Aids, then decimating the black population, was caused not by the HIV virus but by some sort of imperialist machination. His denial is estimated to have cost 300,000 lives, nearly all black. (Today 11 per cent of South Africans are infected with HIV.)
Jacob Zuma, the president today, is corrupt, incompetent and likeable. He has no political ideas and simply implements the ANC’s prevailing ideology. He is a master at manipulating the party machine. Staying in power is his only ambition. He has survived scandal after scandal. He rewards political allies through an immense system of patronage, and has composed an enormous cabinet where a multitude of ministers, mainly useless, receive huge salaries. Unlike Mbeki, he is proud of his African culture. He boasts of his many wives (all big, strong, black mammas) and delights in dancing in leopard skins, disporting the big belly that marks the traditional African man of substance. His personal demeanour is humble and endearing. Helen Zille, the leader of the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, was once railing against his abuse of government. The interviewer said: ‘But he’s very charming.’ Zille sighed and said wistfully, ‘Yes, I know.’
The result has been a disaster whose full development has yet to be felt - and my American friends faced with a similar movement 'over there' should take note:
The worst feature of ANC rule has been the continuation of racist policies — Apartheid Part II. They are called ‘Affirmative Action’ and ‘Black Economic Empowerment’. Both promote ‘demographic representivity’. This is the belief that at every level of employment, the percentage of the races should be the same as those in the total population. Since whites are now only 9 per cent of the population (down from 11 per cent when Mandela came to power in 1994), whites should not consist of more than 9 per cent of engineers, managers, doctors and maths teachers. Black Economic Empowerment, which is simply legalised corruption, states that all companies wishing to do business with the government must hand over a proportion of their ownership to black people. Naturally the black people in question are always connected to the ANC: relatives and chums.
In other words, South Africa is headed for the knacker's yard and it is only a matter of time before the genuinely poor in the townships take what passes for the law into their own hands!
And talking of law brings me to the strange case of Mr. Shrein Dewani which came to a conclusion today when a white, lady judge dismissed the prosecution case against him which had maintained that he had arranged the contract killing of his new wife. As it happened I was slumped in my armchair this morning and inbetween snoozing off every so often I actually listened to a great deal of the judge's analysis. If even one quarter of what she said about the chief prosecution witness was true then that unfortunate man obviously missed his true vocation as a politician because he lied, and lied, and lied again, and then, well, he lied some more! Not, I hasten to add, that he was alone in his lying. Mr. Dewani, the acused until this morning, didn't just tell lies - he lived them! He was an active homosexual in the habit of practicing his tastes upon European homosexual prostitute circles.
The South African justice system has only just recently provided some delicious irony when a black lady judge reduced the charges laid against the white 'crip' runner who shot his girlfriend several times through the bathroom door so that he is now serving a fairly minimal term in jail. Today, we had a white lady judge, dressed in all the scarlet finery of a British judge and presumably basing her analysis on British common law, setting free an British Indian accused of arranging the contract killing of his new bride. From what I heard of her summary, she was absolutely right to do so even if it went against all received opinion.
I should hasten to add that I have no view on the rights and wrongs of these various cases because I know virtually nothing about them. Still, I am impressed that amongst the shit and corruption that is modern South Africa, the judges seem determined to maintain their independence irrespective of the howling of the mob.
