* What you might see as an indecorous, comic display of disorder in the South African parliament, was in fact an effective ritual which partly satisfied all ‘stakeholders’ without inflicting serious injury on anyone, or destroying property.
The Speaker allowed members of the EFF to fulminate for an hour, while the President waited patiently to begin his speech. Considering that they had had long enough to say their piece, she called in unarmed security to evict them, which they did, both parties displaying the right amount of pushing and shoving to save face. Disorderly demonstrations in America are not generally solved in this ritualistic give-and-take way.
As for the notorious sign language speaker: he should have been awarded a medal- his gobbledegook was definitely a cut above politicians’ all too comprehensible bullshit.
* When the FT’s Africa correspondent David Piling interviewed a young, rising South African politician, the restaurant bill surprised him, because he was charged for the meals of several party members eating at different tables. Same thing happened when he interviewed the president of Liberia
* The other day a Georgetown professor named Jonathan Brown, who appears to be a white Muslim convert, gave a lecture supporting slavery, including sexual abuse and sex slavery (when done by Muslims, of course). Various people are starting to get outraged, but of course 1/1 trillionth as outraged as if a non-Muslims had said something positive about sex slavery on a college campus.
* It takes a village! Usually one has to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s for this sort of thing, but evidently the South Africans have had the vision and spirit to nationalize it. Good for them!
* Everything the most doctrinaire Broederbond member said would happen if apartheid was dismantled has come to pass. Shocker, no?
* Up until about 1990 or so South Africa was a first world country with rule of law and a booming economy. They even had the Bomb. Now it’s all been swept away. (The Bomb too, thank God!)
* The African Blacks would be better off learning how to farm the land they confiscated from the White settlers who successfully built them. Furthermore successful self governance takes intelligence and grit, two of the rarest commodities in Africa.
* Into the 1980s, lots of respected authorities, including the Royal Geographical Society, expected that South Africa would soon be partitioned along racial lines. The vast bulk of Cape Province would be a white homeland – and probably for Cape Coloureds as well.
The reasons why this never happened has never been fully explained. You would have thought at least some Government members would have favoured and supported this option.
In the event, de Klerk et al threw in the towel. Even the 1992 referendum was highly dishonest. “Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on 2 February 1990 and which is aimed at a new Constitution through negotiation.”
Most White Voters fully expected a further referendum once negotiations were complete , quite naturally. It never happened. As I say, the full story of this squalid episode is unwritten.
I shouldn’t need to warn Europeans and North Americans that similar things might happen to them if they’re not careful.
* South Africa has never been a first world country. Though it is true that economic growth was far better pre 1990, despite being a pariah state subject to sanctions.
I’ve been in SA since 1993, I also spend alot of time in the UK, so my persepctive is less than entirely parochial. I even got to vote in the fist all race elections in April 94 – permanent residents were granted the vote.
SA is a weird hybrid of first and third World. It was in 1990 and it still is now. The problems SA has now – mainly stemming from low economic growth – follow on from rampant cronyism, government corruption, over manning, draconian legally mandated affirmative action, which ends up being mandated incompetence. Dealing with this can make one loose the will to live.
There is also much white talent flight – mostly heading to the rest of the Anglosphere – they don’t call it Perthfontein for nothing.
Despite all this, SA is easily one of the best tourist destinations in the World and tremendous value – it’s a stunning, amazingly varied place. But one must never forget…. TIA – this is Africa!
There are a few signs of hope amid the gloom. The Western Cape – in which Cape Town is located, is governed reasonably competently by the DA – Democratic Alliance, who have after recent elections won municipalities in Pretoria and Johannesburg.
