To give you a flavour of Malema’s oratory, consider this official statement made during soon-to-be President Zuma’s rape trial of women who are raped:  “when a woman didn’t enjoy it, she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money.”

The ANC said nothing about this.  Malema has become a divisive figure and represents all that is going bad in South Africa.  However, for the moment, the courts still work and today (miracle of miracles), they found Malema guilty of “hate speech” and instructed that he pay a fine of $5,000 to a women’s shelter for rape victims.

Malema is currently standing trial for a more recent event where he sang the very charged ANC struggle song, “Kill the farmer, they are rapists.”  This song has already been declared as “hate speech” in a previous case and the sentiments behind it, and nominal “encouragement” that the ANC provides in venting these thoughts, has led to South Africa having an astonishing rate of farm murders, where farmers and their families are regularly (i.e. some 65 violent attacks since November 2009) slaughtered by criminals.  Does this matter?  Well, as little as five years ago South Africa was a net agricultural exporter.  No longer.

South Africa’s courts are in a precarious situation but they still appear to have some level of respect for the law.

My first experience with the UK was registering my company and opening business bank accounts. In South Africa, as a local, it takes two months to register the company and another three months to then open the bank accounts.

In the UK, it took 24 hours. And I walked away with a personal credit card, despite having no credit history. This, by the way, after the collapse of the credit industry. Not that I’m complaining.

This vote of confidence allowed me to rent a small apartment just outside the centre of Oxford. I was told that, living alone, I could apply for reduced rates. I’m used to dealing with municipalities. So, I fortified myself with a jug of coffee and a book, and phoned.

An actual human being answered, which was a surprise. I was expecting one of those multiple-guess things.

“Hi, I have just rented an apartment and I live alone. I gather I can have the rates reduced. Who do I speak to?”

I now prepared myself for the inevitable paper-chase. The chap asked for my account number and then followed up with, “Right, and how else can I help you?”

“No, just that,” I said.

“OK, well then, thank you so much for calling and please call again should you need anything else.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I stammered. “Are we done?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “All done. I’ll send you a letter just confirming these changes.”

And that is what life in the UK is like. People do their jobs. That is startling. But, I’ll put that in perspective for you in a bit.

Love

My then partner and I struggled with contact. We spoke every day. We were able to see each other on the rare occasions that the broadband connection in South Africa held and we could use Skype. The rest of the time were the daily spoken words. Of love. Of missing someone else beyond the bearing of it. Of hoping and begging the universe that, one day, we will be together.

But it would never be an easy decision for her to leave, for reasons too personal to write about in such a public forum.

In September, she visited, at the tail-end of the English summer. She fell in love, as I knew she would, with the country and the people and the beauty of it all. In a really ugly restaurant that a friend had recommended, with mannequin heads and arms fighting out of the walls, I proposed.

It wasn’t romantic, but it was inevitable.

I returned to South Africa in April to be married.

A year away had changed me. The edge that I had – that protective screen – was gone. I could see, for the first time, how brittle everyone in South Africa is. How you act to protect yourself from others. How close to the surface the violence and rage is.

In the UK, if someone stops you in the street to ask for directions, you’ll probably tell them and chat briefly in friendly conversation. In South Africa, outside of a few obvious tourist spots, you will be pushed away with a look of fury and fear.

I felt like I was suffocating. I hated it. I was scared and worried. I only wanted to get away. To be safe.

My new wife and I would be leaving for the UK together. Starting a new life. But first, we would have to settle the old one.

We queued at the Department of Home Affairs for our official marriage certificate. It took a whole day to move, slowly, through the queues. There were only two people assigned to handling a queue of 70 people. Behind them, papers were piled randomly, yellowing, damp and rotten. Dozens of people sat in the open office and drank tea, oblivious to doing their jobs.

“Your certificate will be ready in six weeks,” we were told.

“When will it really be ready?” I asked.

“In three months.”

“Really?”

“Maybe.”

I left the documentation with my parents. It is now four months since we put in the application and Home Affairs tells us they have no record of the application (despite receipts, copies of applications, copies of receipts of applications and my father’s regular calls to verify progress) and can we please apply again. I’m thinking it’ll be easier to simply get remarried in the UK.

A few months ago, frustrated beyond measure while waiting for an identity book – without which a South African cannot work, cannot live – a young man walked into a Johannesburg Home Affairs office and held the entire management at gunpoint for several days. It is a mark of the national despair with bureaucracy and inefficiency that he was celebrated and cheered as a hero.

Work

South Africa has a new glass ceiling. It is a limitation on professional work. The country has an appalling skills shortage. But the shortage is not of top analysts, engineers or scientists (which they don’t have either) but of artisans and managers. In summary, the layer of people who are sufficiently skilled to even understand the intense and intellectually-driven computational analysis that I do no longer exist.

I’ve discussed this with colleagues and my business partner. South Africa is still a grand investment destination for capital assets (mining, plant, machinery) but definitely not if you are in the services sector. South Africa’s income inequality is legend. But it is very distorted.

Relative to their efficiency and productivity, both the unionised unskilled and the CEO manager-level are overpaid and underworked. The skilled level of professionals are underpaid relative to any measure you care to name. That is why the bulk of them are emigrating.

Companies in South Africa are conservative and unlikely to try new approaches to risk management (my profession). My only work in the last two years in South Africa was the equivalent of license-plate manufacturing.

In the UK, I travel extensively. I have worked with some of the largest companies in the world where my ideas and opinions are listened to, discussed and frequently employed. It is, professionally, one of the most fulfilling periods of my life.

Life

A month ago, South African newspapers were crowing about the sudden return of many expatriates to the country from the UK. “Life isn’t as good over there,” was the general consensus.

But, again, let’s put that in perspective. A person who graduates with a weak high-school certificate is in the minority in South Africa amongst so many who don’t graduate at all. You are considered “skilled” and in demand in labour-intensive businesses.

The 25% of long-term unemployed South Africans are, in fact, unemployable. They have no skills or abilities that are of any use at all. If the government hadn’t introduced minimum wages and minimum rules of employment, perhaps they could get a job in a Chinese-style sweatshop. That — without debating the merits or concerns of such an approach — isn’t permitted.

So they remain unemployed.

This gives many South Africans a false sense of superiority. Graduates arriving with these qualifications in the UK find that they are not in the middle, they’re at the bottom. For, even in South Africa, these are the absolute minimum requirements to secure work. But here, the majority have these skills.

Young South Africans find themselves competing with Indians and Poles and Australians for the same jobs. Many give up.

Yet the highly skilled, such as myself, are in demand. My wife was employed only a few weeks after starting to look for work here, and is still receiving job offers. An astonishing number of local businesses are owned by South Africans; all doing very well.

Skills are skills, even in an economic downturn.

And the quality of life is outstanding. Certainly, there are issues (and I could spend hours writing about the dismal performance of state-run healthcare) but life is treasured here.

And that is a good thing.

The last year has been difficult, but it has also been rebirth.

—

Return to Part 1: One year an immigrant: a resolution

I have seen snow before, but never lived in a place where snow thrusts itself into your daily life. The familiar landscape of fields, farmlands and wilderness was utterly transformed. I could see just how much wildlife lived around me. Bunnies hopped. Deer loped. Birds scratched.

I took a morning off, just to go see what the massive Port Meadow would look like. I got only a few yards on my bicycle before becoming glued in the snow. So I walked. It was magnificent.

I arrived in Oxford at the end of April 2008, leaving South Africa for good on 27 April: Freedom Day. Ironic. The day that South Africans celebrate as the day of the start of majority rule has now become my own private memorial to personal liberty.

A pain that only has one resolution

I have a friend who owns a micro-coffee roastery back in Cape Town. He has burned millions of rands over the past few years as he tries to get South Africans to enjoy high-quality coffee. It is killing him, that slow awful and agonising murder that the self-employed experience. Every day you are reborn and die again.

Business people aren’t the only ones to experience this pain. Maybe you had a relationship like that? A love which is on fire and filled with light and colour and texture, and agony. For you never quite connect in the most critical places; that of mutual respect, adoration and compromise. One of you is making all the running while the other lives exactly as they please, ignorant and immune to the consequences.

It’s a destructive relationship. You put everything you can in, but you’re burning yourself out.

Maybe that relationship turns around. But there comes a point where, no matter how that relationship ends up, it no longer has meaning for you.

I’ve been through a few of those. Personal, business and ideological relationships that I put my soul and spirit and determination into. Even where they worked I found that the success was ashes in my mouth.

South Africa had become like that to me and the only solution was to leave. Frank McCourt who, more than any recent writer, has done so much to lift the “glamour” of poverty had this to say:

“Very little is written about poverty…You see part of it. You see Dafur. You see Chad. That’s African poverty…you see this all the time. You almost become accustomed to it…you can send in rice…but that doesn’t heal them…beware of giving energy to desperate people. They are going to use it.”

Beware of giving energy to desperate people. Good advice. But, when I left, I also left behind a life, friends, favourite places, favourite things, and my fiancée.

Putting it in perspective

I had a long chat with a Swedish chap who was complaining, “Don’t you find England dangerous? I hate the public transport and I never feel safe. By the way, what’s South Africa like?”

I looked at him, dumbfounded. “If this is how you feel about the UK, you’ll probably not want to get off the plane when you arrive in SA.”

So, my perspective is coloured by a comparison to a country with one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world, the highest rape rate, a government so corrupt that the cabinet now is dominated by convicted (and accused) fraudsters who have dismantled the judiciary and appointed apparatchiks to head up the newly emasculated state departments.

There’s a joke about Jacob Zuma, the morally suspect new president, which goes like this.

President Zuma suffers a heart attack while having sex with his seventh wife, a 14-year-old school-girl from the rural North. He gets taken, by accident, to a public hospital, but the doctors are out on strike and the nurses are all asleep in an unused theatre and he dies without ever receiving attention.

He ascends to Heaven and stands at the Pearly Gates where St. Peter greets him.

“Welcome to Heaven,” says Saint Peter, “Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a Communist around these parts, so we’re not sure what to do with you.”

“No problem, just let me in; I’m a good Christian; I’m a believer,” says Comrade Jacob.

“I’d like to just let you in, but I have orders from God Himself. He says that since the implementation of his new Affirmative Action Policy, you have to spend one day in Hell and one day in Heaven. Then you must choose where you’ll live for eternity.”

“But I’ve already made up my mind. I want to be in Heaven,” replies Zuma.

“I’m sorry … But we have our rules,” Peter interjects. And, with that, St. Peter escorts him to an elevator and he goes down, down, down … all the way to Hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a lush golf course. The sun is shining in a cloudless sky. The temperature is a perfect 22C degrees. In the distance is a beautiful club-house. Standing in front of it is Thabo Mbeki and thousands of other Communist luminaries who had helped him out over the years; Tokyo Sexwale, Peter Mokaba, Tony Yengeni, Schabir Shaik and thousands more. All the ANC leaders are there, everyone laughing, happy, and casually but expensively dressed.

They run to greet him, to hug him and to reminisce about the good times they had getting rich at the expense of ’suckers and peasants.’

They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster and caviar. The Devil himself comes up to Zuma with a frosty drink, “Have a tequila and relax, Jake!”

They are having such a great time that, before he realises it, it’s time to go. Everyone gives him a big hug and waves as Zuma steps on the elevator and heads upward.

When the elevator door reopens, he is in Heaven again and St. Peter is waiting for him. “Now it’s time to visit Heaven,” the old man says, opening the gate.

So for 24 hours Zuma is made to hang out with a bunch of honest, good-natured people who enjoy each other’s company, talk about things other than money and treat each other decently. Not a kanga, or scantily-clad woman amongst them. No fancy country clubs here and, while the food tastes great, it’s not caviar or lobster. And these people are all poor. He doesn’t see anybody he knows and he isn’t even treated like someone special!

“Whoa,” he says uncomfortably to himself. “Robert Mugabe never prepared me for this!”

The day done, St. Peter returns and says, “Well, you’ve spent a day in Hell and a day in Heaven. Now choose where you want to live for Eternity.”

With the ‘Deal or No Deal’ theme playing softly in the background, Zuma reflects for a minute … Then answers: “Well, I would never have thought I’d say this. I mean, Heaven has been cool and all but I really think I belong in Hell with my friends.”

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down, all the way to Hell.

The doors of the elevator open and he is in the middle of a barren scorched earth covered with garbage and toxic industrial wasteland, looking a bit like the eroded, befouled informal squatter camps around South African cities, but worse and more desolate.

He is horrified to see all of his friends, dressed in rags and chained together, picking up the roadside rubbish and putting it into black plastic bags. They are groaning and moaning in pain, faces and hands black with grime.

The Devil comes over to Zuma and puts an arm around his shoulder.” I don’t understand,” stammers a shocked Zuma, “Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a club-house and we ate lobster and caviar and drank tequila. We lazed around and had a great time. Now there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and everybody looks miserable!”

The Devil looks at him, smiles slyly and purrs, “Yesterday we were campaigning; today you voted for us.”

—-

Continue to Part 2: One year an immigrant: so you see…

“A judge is not supposed to do that. It’s not for judges to decide on foreign policy. They don’t run government and they don’t run foreign policy. There is separation of powers. They run the judiciary. I don’t comment on the judiciary.” (This after a judge in SA’s constitutional court sided with the current minister of health that it was unadvised to prevent the Dalai Lama from visiting).

“Tutu does not run government. Remember, he said he was not going to vote. If it were up to him, there would be no elections next month.” (In response to Archbishop Desmond Tutu declaring that he would now boycott the conference.)

Which got even the usually intelligent finance minister, Trevor Manuel, involved: “Is he just the spiritual leader of the Buddhists in Tibet or is he the one who on March 28 1959 established the government of Tibet in exile in the same way Taiwan was established to counter the legality of a single China?”

“The reason why the Dalai Lama wants to be here is to make a big global political statement about the secession of Tibet from China. He wants to do it on the free soil of SA,” Manuel said.

“I am sure he is welcome to come at any other time but we should not allow him to raise the global issue that will impact on the standing of SA. Quite frankly this has nothing to do with the PSL (Professional Soccer League). It is a matter of the relationship between states and that is what we have to stand up for.”

But, back to the continuing lunacy of the foreign minister:

“Foreign policy has to be discussed and has to be understood. But at the end of the day we can’t all conduct foreign policy. I’m not casting any aspersions on anyone. But the truth of the matter that foreign policy has to be conducted at one level and has to be co-ordinated.”

“China cannot bully us. But of course, they also have their own interests. As a country, they will further their own interests. But we are not hiding the fact that we want to have good relations with China – like everybody else in the world.”

“Human rights are also about jobs, education and shelter. You can’t divorce economic interest from human rights. Our [Bill] of rights is much more broader than that of many countries.”

“But when we took a decision on his visit we looked at what is the national interest -which includes making sure that the country runs, human rights, in the broad sense, are protected, people have food, shelter and jobs. What brings stability is the combination of each of all these rights.”

Which earned the following response from Professor Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute:

“We are disappointed that the South African government did not stand up to Chinese pressure, particularly bearing in mind the strong support the ANC got from abroad and the Norwegian Nobel Committee in its historic struggle against apartheid.”

And my take: claiming that denying the Dalai Lama entrance to a conference to discuss peace and global harmony is actually in the DEFENCE of human rights is the sort of double-speak gobbledygook you’d expect from a government with absolutely no respect for human rights. Claiming that Desmond Tutu, one of the greatest humanists alive, is in favour of the destruction of democracy because he WON’T vote in a political system that has become nothing but a collection of favouritism and corruption is just spurious bullshit.

About the only ANC/government representative who has said anything approaching sense is the current Health Minister, Barbara Hogan (who has now earned the ire of the unsackable Dlamini-Zuma): “Just the very fact that this government has refused entry to the Dalai Lama is an example of a government who is dismissive of human rights. I believe [the government] needs to apologise to the citizens of this country, because it is in your name that this great man who has struggled for the rights of his country… has been denied access.”

The government decision was, said the Dalai Lama, “another manifestation of one of the fundamental challenges to world peace as a whole: namely, a lack of understanding and mutual respect”.

“I believe religious, social and political leaders throughout the world have a responsibility to ensure principles triumph over the obsession with money and power.”

Except for the missing word “unearned” in front of “money and power”, I have no problem with those sentiments.

Yeah, the last person you want loitering around a freakin’ PEACE conference and mucking things up is the D-Lam.

Dirty goddamn hippies.

If you happen to be the owner of a unique piece of art, say the Mona Lisa, and you decide to set fire to it, then that is a terrible tragedy, but it is your property.  No government should ever have the right to intervene.

Apartheid in South Africa was a crime against humanity.  You can argue the reasons.  Some say that it was racial prejudice translating into attempted genocide.  Others that it was a violation of human rights of equality and justice.

My take is that Apartheid got its start with the denial of property rights; that one group of people gave themselves a greater right to property than they did to others.  This spurious belief was used to boot black South Africans off their land and replace them with politically chosen beneficiaries of “land reform”.

The new South African government, after 1994, began a tortuous process of their own “land reform” in which the original owners of land – often dispersed and with limited proof of title – would be able to receive a fair hearing and just compensation.  So far so good.

However, the new government, at pains to bring about a transformation of the economy, chose to use this process as a way of ensuring that the majority of agricultural land should be owned by black people in toto.

The government is purchasing land for this purpose and then settling people on it.  Instead of just receiving restitution for the property that was stolen from them, victorious claimants were set up as small-scale cooperative farmers.  These new farmers are not allowed to sell the land they have been given.  They have no title to it and have become no more than indentured peasant farmers; slaves at the pleasure of the state.

The government pegged their success on the financial success of these subsistence farms.  It has been an abject failure.

The people being settled on these farms are now several generations away from the original land-owning farmers.  They have no experience of agriculture, or of how technical the profession has become.  Many of them don’t even want to be there.

“More than 21 properties in the Empangeni and Eshowe districts, and reportedly many more across KZN bought by the land affairs department, lie fallow, producing only weeds, dead trees and choked sugar cane,” according to the Natal Mercury.

The response from the Minister of Agriculture, Lulu Xingwana, has been total fury.  “I have instructed my directors-general to implement, with immediate effect, the principle of use it or lose it,” Xingwana.  “Those who do not use the land must immediately be removed and the land must be given to emerging farmers and co-operatives.”

In other words, people who had their land stolen from them by one government, who decided that they weren’t deserving enough of their property, are to have their land stolen from them again by another government which has decided that they are still “not worthy”.

The first and only objective of land restitution is just recompense for people who had their property stolen.  It was a mistake forcing land as compensation on people who did not want to own land.  They should have been given money.  Whatever they chose to do with that money would have been their own choice.

Instead of accepting the restitution process for what it is, government wants a trophy.  They demand that beneficiaries of the process demonstrate their gratitude to the state by performing and delivering successful agricultural businesses.

That is an outrageous demand and entirely unacceptable.  What’s next?  Snatching private businesses from entrepreneurs who fail to employ an appropriate number of people?

Enough.  Government made the mistake of conflating two independent objectives and is now compounding their error by abusing property rights.  Farmers will always be in the minority of both businesses and land-owners.  Whether those properties are owned by black-skinned people or white-skinned people is immaterial, and should be immaterial to a liberal democracy.

The only matter of importance is whether their property was acquired without force or fraud.  Something that governments are supposed to ensure.

[P]erhaps the most compelling evidence against the existence of a boys’ crisis is that men continue to outearn women in the workplace.

— from a report by the American Association of University Women, “whose 1992 report on how girls are shortchanged in the classroom caused a national debate over gender equity,” that debunks the notion of a “boys’ crisis,” saying, “Girls’ gains have not come at boys’ expense”; May 20.

I would say the president really has a choice here to show how much he values military service.

— Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who has led the Senate’s efforts to expand education benefits for veterans, on President Bush’s threat “to veto a bill that would pay tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for anyone who has served in the military for at least three years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001″; May 22.

What’s this administration done? Nothing except to increase energy taxes.

— Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the assistant Republican leader, on March 12, 2000, as Senate Republicans blamed the Clinton-Gore administration for recent gasoline price increases; during the 2000 election season, reported The New York Times, “The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline, which was about $1.25 at Christmas, is now more than $1.35. This week, the Energy Department warned that the price would rise to an average of $1.80 and as high as $2 a gallon in some places by the time people go on summer vacations.”

The fact that the U.S. gasoline demand can be down and that the U.S. gasoline consumer is no longer driving world oil prices is a monumental event.

— Arjun N. Murti, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, who met disdain in the summer of 2006 when he predicted a “super spike” of oil prices at $100 a barrel from $40; he now predicts oil will hit $200 a barrel and remain above $100 until 2011; May 21.

We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they’re beginning to fuse.

— Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group, in a Washington Post story reporting that “the grain required to fill a 25-gallon sport-utility vehicle tank with ethanol could feed one person for a year’”; about a quarter of the American corn harvest is diverted to ethanol; April 30.

We are seeing a flicker of light after long darkness. We never imagined coal would actually make a comeback.

— Michio Sakurai, the mayor of Bibai, on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, where coal mining has been revived as oil hit $135 a barrel; The New York Times reported that “fears of future energy shortages … have been an unanticipated boon to the coal producing regions of countries like Japan that had written off coal mining as a relic of the Industrial Revolution”; May 22.

They came at night, trying to kill us, with people pointing out, ‘this one is a foreigner and this one is not.’ It was a very cruel and ugly hatred.

— Charles Mannyike, 28, an immigrant from Mozambique to South Africa, describing what a news report called “a spasm of xenophobia, with poor South Africans taking out their rage on the poor foreigners living in their midst. At least 22 people had been killed by Monday in the unrelenting mayhem …”; May 21.

The campaign has put a very strict policy in place and every member of the campaign is expected to be compliant with it. There may be perfectly good people that have situations that are not reconcilable. They will not be compliant with the policy.

— Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for presidential candidate John McCain, on reports that Sen. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, lobbied on behalf of foreign governments over the past seven years and met several times with Sen. McCain to discuss his clients’ interests; May 21.

[I]n both parties, the very extreme elements control the nomination process. And a tiny number of people in a few states make these decisions, and we’re left with these options that are increasingly not attractive to the American people. If you had found the right candidate in 2000 or 2004, and you could have put that man or woman, given them ballot access in September of the election year, they could have won the election. There was broad dissatisfaction with the choices that the American people have.

— Hamilton Jordan, chief of staff for President Carter, in a May 31, 2006, PBS interview; Mr. Jordan died this week at age 63; May 20.

As I watch Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s continuing campaign for her party’s nomination, I see a self-focused politician who, despite the reality of the situation, continues to stubbornly pour money that the campaign doesn’t have into a battle that it can’t win. And over these last several years, I have learned that these are the specific qualities that I do not want in our nation’s next president.

— a letter to the editor of The New York Times by J. Maynard of New York City; May 22.

Although age is not a determining factor in whether or not we detain an individual under the law of armed conflict, we go to great lengths to attend to the special needs of juveniles while they are in detention.

— from a periodic report by the United States on its compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child that “as of April 2008, the United States held about 500 juveniles in Iraq”; May 21.

Administrator Johnson was presented with and reviewed a wide range of options and made his decisions based on the facts and the law. Distraction-oriented political tactics of the committee will not keep E.P.A. from moving forward, tackling tough issues and putting into place the most health-protective standards ever.

— Jonathan Shradar, Environmental Protection Agency spokesman, on a congressional report that the administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, had “initially supported giving California full or partial permission to limit tailpipe emissions, but reversed himself after hearing from the White House”; May 21.

To those who attacked them we say, you will not find a safe harbor. We will find you and justice will prevail. America will not stop standing guard for peace or freedom or stability in the Middle East and around the world.

— President Bill Clinton, speaking at an Oct. 18, 2000, memorial ceremony at Virginia’s Norfolk Naval Base, home port of the USS Cole; The Washington Post reports that “[a]lmost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials”; May 4.

We’re already seeing a hurricane premium on gas of about five to 10 cents per gallon. Especially since Katrina, we’ve seen traders build that into prices.

— energy analyst Phil Flynn in a CNN story predicting that if “a Katrina-like hurricane were to hit in July, gas prices could go as high as $5 or even $6″; May 22.

Simply by chance, a pair of new cars fell into my hands last weekend that perfectly demonstrated the yin and yang of today’s auto industry. The Pontiac G8 was powerful, exciting, fun to drive — and as obsolete as the buggy whip. The Nissan Cube was homely, utilitarian and slow — and we all ought to get used to it, because that’s what most of us are going to be driving in the future.

— Alex Taylor III, senior editor of Fortune magazine, explaining that “an era of personal indulgence in automobiles — when prosperity and cheap gasoline made big and fast available to everyone — is rapidly being replaced by an age of limits“; May 20.

When the government attempts to intrude upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals, the government must advance an important governmental interest … and the intrusion must be necessary to further that interest.

— Judge Ronald M. Gould 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, writing for the majority in a decision that ruled the military cannot automatically discharge people because they’re gay; May 22.

There are few things that provide greater health benefits than quitting smoking. When considering the use of Chantix for their patients, health care providers should discuss the risks of smoking, the health benefits of quitting smoking, and the product’s efficacy and safety profile.

— from a statement issued by Francisco Gebauer, spokesman for Pfizer, maker of the anti-smoking drug Chantix (which had $883 million in sales last year), after the Federal Aviation Administration banned pilots and air traffic controllers from taking the drug — after the “Food and Drug Administration issued a public health advisory in February, saying that some Chantix users had developed a variety of serious psychiatric symptoms, and that some had committed suicide”; May 22.

I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network’s viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don’t hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.

— from a letter to NBC president Steve Capus from presidential counselor Ed Gillespie complaining about the editing of an NBC interview with President Bush; May 19; here are the edited and full interviews.

It is routine for them to write memos and scream and yell, it’s all part of the game. But when it goes public, it reflects a broader strategy to get something else done. Maybe it’s to put everyone on notice that we’re still here, or to put everyone on notice that you’d better be careful, we’ll embarrass you publicly if you get the story wrong. Or maybe it’s a political strategy to help McCain and help gin up the base. Or it could be all three. But it wasn’t a random act.

— Joe Lockhart, President Clinton’s press secretary, on the White House’s publicized complaint by Ed Gillespie, counselor to the president, accusing NBC of “deceitful editing” of an interview with the president; May 23.

Patrick J. Durkin, of Connecticut, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation for a term expiring December 17, 2009 …

— from a May 22 nomination announcement by President Bush; Patrick J. Durkin, a managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston, was a two-time Bush Pioneer fundraising “bundler” of at least $100,000; Patrick Durkin is listed as a “Trailblazer” (bundlers of at least $100,000) for presidential candidate John McCain.

Q: Farm bill — where are we with the farm bill?
MS. PERINO: You tell me — or the Democrats tell me.
Q: What did he veto?
MS. PERINO: He vetoed — the President vetoed the bill that the Democrats sent us. And, look, I understand there’s a technical error and we’ll have to see what the Congress decides to do, but maybe it gives them one more chance to take a look and think about how much they’re asking the taxpayers to spend at a time of record farm income. The Congress had an opportunity to put forward — I’m sorry — to implement reforms, much needed reforms, and they decided not to. And I think with this move it shows that they can even up screw up spending the taxpayers’ money unwisely.
Q: What was that —
MS. PERINO: Said they can — they’ve proved that they can even screw up spending the taxpayers’ money unwisely. (Laughter.) Laughter by reporters. (Laughter.)

— exchange between reporter and press secretary Dana Perino at a White House press briefing; May 22.

This younger generation, it’s not that they’re more relaxed about grooming — they still spend time at the salon — but the grooming rules are different.

— Kerry Diamond, a vice president for public relations at Lancôme, on a trend described by New York Times style writer Melena Ryzik as “Over the last few years — since the era of the skull print scarf, let’s say, or the (metaphorical) rise of the Olsen twins — having streaked, chipped or just plain grotty nail polish no longer suggests drug addiction, manual labor or pure laziness. Like untied high-tops, thread-worn jeans and bedhead, it’s now part of a deliberate look“; May 22; emphasis added.

photo credits:
corn and tractor: Michael Williamson, The Washington Post
Hamilton Jordan: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
forecast graphic: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency
chipped nails: Robert Stolarik, The New York Times

Quotabull is a weekly feature of Scholars & Rogues.

The last few days, the world’s murder capital has cemented its place as the country where you are most likely to die in a violent attack. 22 foreign African economic migrants have been murdered by rampaging mobs around Johannesburg.

The response from government has been their usual anaemic, “We intend to investigate this thoroughly and have set up a tribunal to look in to it.” Double-speak for, “We’re burying it under a mound of bureaucracy.”

In the mean time, Zimbabwean friends – refugees from a vicious tyrant at home – are hiding in their apartments for fear of being assaulted in exile.

It makes a fascinating contrast for me, having just immigrated to the UK. There is a lot of grumbling about foreigners here too, and plenty of new government initiatives to keep us out. But the restaurant industry reports tens of thousands of unfilled positions that low-paid immigrants usually take, and so some compromise will have to be reached if the molly-coddled locals are to be served in public places.

Violence is in the news here as well after a gang-related stabbing in London. The new mayor, Boris Johnson, has promised to place metal detectors at public transport nodes to enable police to catch potential killers. “Why the panic?” I ask myself, “Only one person died, after all?” But I’m wrong. This is how a country that is serious about stamping out violence and intolerance should behave.

I phone friends at home in South Africa to tell them about the hilarity of one stabbing being taken so seriously. My business partner tells me about a friend who watched another mother get a gun pressed into her belly and robbed of her handbag outside their children’s school when she went there to pick them up.

Many are thinking of leaving. When violence becomes so pervasive that it is invisible it is time to reconsider your life and where you live.

It’s only a few weeks since I moved to the UK. Already I am surrounded by professionals who take their work seriously, and are passionate about delivering at the top of their game. It is refreshing, after being surrounded by nothing but excuses and contradictions for the past decade. Here I am expected only to deliver. In South Africa, tiered ranks of bureaucrats stand in the way of progress, coming up with excuses as to why progress cannot happen.

It is only a few weeks. And the first months are the hardest, as one has to make new decisions about every aspect of your life. There are no familiar faces, no familiar places. The person closest to me in the whole world is 10,000 kilometres away. Even the brand names of washing powder and breakfast cereal are unfamiliar. Every day is exhausting as I have to consciously think about so many different things that in familiar places are invisible: coffee shops, favourite restaurants, familiar settings, standard routes home, comfortable relationships and old friends. None of them are around and all the unfamiliarity is daunting.

It is only a few weeks. But I don’t regret being here at all.

It wasn’t until I was emptying my flat as my cleaning lady took possession of most of my bits and bobs that it really hit home.

The life of a cleaning lady

There are around 15 million South Africans of working age (out of a population of 41 million). Around 8 million have jobs. The rest don’t.

For 2 million uneducated, barely literate women there really is only one choice for earning a living. They clean the homes of the people who do have jobs. These are the cleaning ladies, or “Domestic Workers”. Maids, in other words.

Sometimes they live in and cook and clean and wash. Sometimes they turn up once a week to do some ironing and basic cleaning. They’re not paid much. The minimum Government-mandated wage is less than $1 per hour.

Since most white English-speaking South Africans battle with African names, these women call themselves mundane platitudes, like Beauty, or Faith, or Monica. I think half the cleaning ladies in Cape Town are called Monica.

Nothekanti (who calls herself Monica) has been working for me every Thursday for 12 years. Aside from her annual leave I think I can count on one hand the number of days she has missed work. Last year there was a crippling transport strike that stopped busses, trains and taxis. Bang on 7 am she rang the doorbell. Khayelitsha, where she stays, is some 50 km outside Cape Town. It’s a long way to come.

On a per hour basis, I pay her significantly more than the minimum wage, and as much as some of the junior consultants at the place I work.

In her mid-40s Nothekanti supports five children on her own. She cleans in different places on different days and she works her tail off. She barely speaks English and we have never really, in all the years she’s worked for me, had a lengthy conversation. Yet we still know a great deal about each other.

I helped her get a raise from her other employers after her home burned down five years ago during one of the township’s frequent shack-fire outbreaks. That was the week after her daughter was raped, but before her son was killed in another shack fire. She suffers from high blood-pressure and, I’m sure, severe trauma.

Her life is brutal and tough by any measure you care to name. Yet she is totally professional and totally committed. I reward and honour that as best I can.

But she is still only one of 2 million women looking for work as cleaning ladies. It doesn’t matter how awesome you are at a skill if it is significantly over-supplied.

Bringing it home

As I have gradually dismantled the life I’ve created in South Africa prior to heading to the UK in April, I have tried to find homes for all my responsibilities. My employees have been absorbed into other companies. My property has been willy-nilly distributed. I have my cameras left and my car (hint, hint, for anyone who wants a bargain).

I asked Nothekanti if there was anything of mine she might like to have. She looked apprehensive and then said, “Everything?” Since all the “big” things (like my stove, fridge and washing machine) had already gone, “everything” turned out to be a few free-standing lights, my microwave, some cupboards, kitchenware and other bits and pieces.

She arrived on Easter Friday with her brother and ten-year-old son in tow. Each thing she wanted she would look at me as if to say, “Are you really doing this?” And with each thing I would nod and say, “Yes.”

It brought it home, just what it means. Looking at my stuff, standing out in the sun before being loaded, I thought: this stuff is old, frankly quite hideous, but it’s mine. She also wanted some of the things that decorate my home. Souvenirs from my travels, large photographs I’ve taken and printed as posters. Something to hang on to from 12 years of working for someone.

She’s just an employee; I’m just her boss. But 12 years starts feeling a lot like family.

This morning I dropped her at the station. The last few items of furniture and all my books (some 15 boxes of them) are being shipped to Port Elizabeth, to my family. She cleaned up the dust and detritus left behind.

We said goodbye. And that was all; there wasn’t much to say.

Leaving the life

Yesterday, driving through Cape Town, I passed a billboard: “Cape Town mourns death of Ivan Toms”. That hurt, and I was crying.

More sensitive than normal, sure. But there are few people in the world that I can point to who had any impact on me during my life. Only one had any critical impact on my future career. That person was Dr Ivan Toms.

For two years from 1993, while a science student, I had volunteered to teach biology to learners from grades 11 and 12 from township schools. This was a program run by SHAWCO, the NGO run by UCT students. Apartheid was pretty much dead, but the legacy of poor education and limited opportunities was plain to see.

At the end of 1994 I was a confused 20-year-old. I was set on a career path I wasn’t sure of and had developed a small business training course that I wanted to trial as part of the general SHAWCO offerings. The head of SHAWCO at the time was Dr Toms.

Full of doubt and apprehension, I approached Dr Toms and presented my idea. At the time, I had no business training, no background in teaching entrepreneurship. Nothing but a scientist’s methodology and approach to problem-solving. Teaching small business was a side-issue for me; something I didn’t have great confidence in or understanding of.

I was used to the standard response of teachers, community leaders or other “leaders” I had presented ideas to over the years. I was prepared for being shut down. I was not prepared for what happened next.

Dr Toms was not just a tremendously talented doctor who led through charisma and example. He had another talent so rare, I can’t say I’ve ever experienced it with anyone else. He filled you with the belief that you could achieve, that you were capable and talented in yourself. He created enormous space for others to become self-confident and achieve in their own endeavours.

That sense of self-belief and self-confidence has never left me.

I left the idea of formal, “safe” employment behind me and dedicated myself to a profession in economic development. My small business teaching course became a large-scale project. Thousands of UCT students consulted to businesses across the Western Cape through my programs. Thousands of people started businesses as a result other projects I ran.

In 1996, Dr Toms finally got the chance he had wanted and moved to a government position in charge of public health. He is one of the word’s great heroes. An anti-Apartheid campaigner who went to jail for his beliefs, a doctor who chose to work in the middle of the war-torn townships where he was the only person caring for 60,000 people. A giant.

He has died at age 55 of meningitis. I wonder if he, too, was disappointed that the freedom he fought for is represented by people who won’t even provide antiretroviral treatments to pregnant mothers. President Thabo Mbeki continues to believe that HIV is a myth.

Reasons to go, reasons to stay

I visit clients whose businesses are running non-stop on generators, their investments falling apart as the government continues to piddle about with solutions to our electricity crisis. They tell me, “It’s good that you’re going. You’re young, you’ll make it again. I’m too old to go now. You’re doing the right thing.”

The head of a large firm takes me out in the moonlight and points out where the reflected light washes over the sea. No sound but the waves, and the smell of foam crashing on the shore. The stars are lost in the vastness of the African sky. “We are the only ones who can make this work,” he says. “People like us must stay and make it happen.”

I nod. It is beautiful. And I’m almost swayed. But not really. Under Apartheid we were fighting a system of governance that was consciously evil. How does one fight a system that declares that the evil it does is in the best interests of everyone? It isn’t my fight. Economic populism is the choice open to a majority-rule government. They have chosen it.

It won’t work as it hasn’t for Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez or any other despot who disregards minority rights in an effort to appease the majority.

I don’t have to “make” anything work. I didn’t create the problem. I, as with so many others, committed myself to ending the legacy of Apartheid. I didn’t bargain on a legacy of a newly-created populist dictatorship.

But, still, it is a beautiful country. There are many awesome leaders, astonishing people. It is just a shame that they have to fight so hard to implement common-sense policies.

At home, the packing is complete. Now come the farewells. People I won’t see very often and some, like Nothekanti, who I will never see again.

Here, though, it is Google – owner of 62.9% of all Internet searches ($16.4 bn in ad revenue) – which dwarfs any tie up (Yahoo-Microsoft have a combined search share of 15.7% and $ 9.8 bn in ad revenue). Could it be that Google is trying to pull a Microsoft and protect its home-turf advantage from a healthy rival?

The Shock of Protectionism

Recent respondents to my weekly newspaper column here in Cape Town have expressed shock – shock – that businesses appear to actively seek protection from their competitors. Such protection naturally increasing prices and hurts consumers.

One of the easiest ways to raise barriers to competitors is through calls for the patriotism of consumers. South Africa has become one of the most regular claimants against dumping from foreign business rivals at the World Trade Organisation. For those of you not acquainted with the business strategy, I shall briefly digress.

It may horrify you to know that some countries have lower costs of labour, rent and taxes than do others. Products made there are, therefore, somewhat cheaper. When imported – even with the cost of distribution and import tariffs added on at the border – they are still cheaper than manufactures produced locally. Sometimes the results are a tad unusual. For instance, while the breast-meat of chickens is very popular in the US, thighs, wings and legs are less desirable. Eager to divest themselves of this part of the bird, US distributors sell it for quite low prices around the world.

South African companies find it hard to compete against this and so they have won a case against US chicken distributors allowing for large fines (tariffs) to be imposed at the border. This helps local producers keep their margins firmly in place and defrauds local consumers. US prawn fisherman won a similar dispute against farmed prawns sourced from China.

Suing foreign competitors for “dumping” products by selling them for less than local firms is very popular. It appeals to xenophobia and nationalism by declaring that “jobs will be lost due to the predations of these evil foreigners”. At the same time it allows businesses to keep their prices high. It is now known as the “third rail” of US trade policy.

Monopolies make slaves of us all

Companies that trade their monopoly power into influence to keep competitors out of their markets are justly held to account. So too are companies that collude with their competitors to raise prices. However, governments confuse the issue through promoting such anti-competitive behaviour in their chosen industries. Agricultural subsidies are one hefty example. Why not subsidies to US software designers?

A tax allowance given to one chosen industry is equivalent to a special tax levied against all that industry’s foreign competitors at the border. Given that other industries are consumers of the favoured industry, this raises all prices for them. American corn farmers (who receive hefty subsidies) are in competition with American software writers (who don’t). If corn farmers are protected from competition they can charge more. They pass those costs on to their customers. Many of their customers are software writers (who, even if they don’t eat corn, may eat beef which does). Higher corn prices become higher programming costs. A tax supporting corn farmers becomes a tax decreasing the competitiveness of American software programmers.

Price controls are another way that governments like to imagine they can “protect” consumers from the perils of competitive markets. Venezuela is currently out of coffee and milk. Price controls have made it impossible to import coffee, and farmers no longer milk cows when the cost of doing so is higher than what they’re allowed to charge. Closer to home (South Africa) the government’s price controls on pharmaceuticals have meant that first-line antibiotics – such as Amoxycillin – will soon be unavailable.

Not content with this state of affairs, the South African government is to introduce price controls on gas as well as legislative monopolies to protect gas suppliers.

Bulls to the wall

Price controls are like slavery; forcing people to provide their labour at a price other than it is worth. As slave-owners discovered; slaves work to their lowest ability, not their best. So too with monopolies.

A good government approach to competition is one that promotes it and keeps the competitors fighting it out, no matter how tired they are. Try and imagine a sports match with protectionism, monopolies and anti-dumping laws?

Anti-dumping? A rookie hotshot isn’t allowed to play because he costs less than the opposing team’s seasoned veterans. Monopolies? Only one team is allowed to earn advertising revenues and use them to build up their player base. Protectionism? Our star player has a cold; the opposing team has to send three of their players off to keep things even.

Good competition policy works a bit like an all out bull-fight. Even when they beg for mercy you keep them in the ring; so that the blood and bones of the losers become fertile soil for the growth of the next generation of champions.

But you also believe that you can make that journey easier for them by showing them how an addiction-free life can be, and by offering them the advantages that make it worth going cold to achieve.

At some point, though, maybe you get an inkling that the process isn’t working. Maybe it’s after they’ve come out of rehab once too often, only to go on a binge again, that you start thinking that the effort isn’t worth the stress.

Countries are like that too.

A sense of fairness

Out of my high-school class, probably only 20% are still in the country. Probably even fewer from those I graduated with in University. And there have been plenty of reasons to go.

Prior to 1994 it was because of the racist, Apartheid policies of the white-minority government which resulted in sanctions which froze out opportunities for those professionals who lived here. Then it was the violent transition to majority rule during the 1990s.

In 1994, it was because of the uncertainty of black-majority rule. In 1998 it was the transition from Nelson Mandela to Thabo Mbeki, the collapse of the currency and so on.

Right now it is the in-fighting in the ANC, the collapse of critical infrastructure (several hours of power failures every day) and the gradual shift of our politics towards communism.

All good reasons. None of them mine.

I became a communist as a child without knowing what communism was. I supported the liberation of black South Africans who I saw as being enslaved. They were regularly accused of being communists by the government media, and so I became a communist in their support.

For me, it wasn’t about leaving to pursue my own opportunities; it was about ensuring an environment in which all were free to pursue their interests. I knew that I hated slavery; no person should ever be forced to work against their own best interests.

Black South Africans were abused in ways I had no words for, but it cut deep into my sense of fairness.

I believed, and was willing to fight, for universal freedom.

When Nelson Mandela became our president he didn’t just say all the right things, he did them too. He lived tolerance, benevolence and an inclusive form of governance.

His economics were weak, but I had a genuine sense that we were all working on this project called The New South Africa together.

Creating my hopes

I have been involved in community and social development since as long as I can remember. I cut firewood at a township crèche as a 10-year-old boy-scout. I volunteered my time at the Animal Welfare and Aquarium throughout my school years.

In university I tutored township kids through high-school, complimenting the appalling Apartheid education system with all my own learning. This was before 1994. Before majority rule.

I would get ferried into the townships where the majority of South Africans lived. Places barricaded behind barbed wire and military checks. Places that it was nominally illegal for whites to visit but where Apartheid was already falling apart. Everyone knew the end was coming. No-one knew what would come next.

In 1994, before the elections, I already knew that there was an economic problem coming. I had no political affiliations, no knowledge of business or economics, but I could see the patterns. There were teeming masses of unemployed people, and not enough jobs.

I was a scientist and I asked the obvious question. How can the dreams and ambitions of the majority be satisfied if they cannot earn a living? I was smart enough to know that jobs wouldn’t fall from the sky just because we’d had a democratic revolution.

As I shouted at an ANC Youth League cadre who was demanding his rights, “How long are you prepared to wait after freedom comes? You do know that freedom includes the freedom to starve?”

So I started developing business and entrepreneurship training courses. By the time I graduated in 1998, it was my career.

Losing my dreams

Mandela, for all his genius at nation-building, was no economist. The South African business environment was weak and failing. When Thabo Mbeki succeeded him in 1998 I hoped, along with many others, that now we would start working.

But I was troubled. For all Mbeki’s impressive way of speaking, and his seemingly astute political sense, I had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong.

He had a prickly way of dealing with the opposition and disagreement. His rejection of scientific research that declared HIV a threat was astonishing. His refusal to recognise the disaster about to strike Zimbabwe. All that was a mystery.

His championing of Black Economic Empowerment – an exchange of the empowerment of white Afrikaans-speaking men for the empowerment of black men – was a serious confusion.

Looking at the whole of the difficulties of the South African economy he had identified a single cause for poverty and joblessness: being black.

Lack of education or economic growth had, in Mbeki’s eyes, nothing to do with poverty. Only skin colour. He had bought entirely into the vision of his erstwhile oppressors. Instead of punishing people for being black, now it became a symbol of victimhood and charity.

Even so I still had the feeling I could work. I could deliver.

And, largely, I did. My entrepreneurial development projects created thousands of new businesses. I lectured and taught all over the country.

But it was like being on quicksand. As fast as I could start ‘em government entitlement programs would undermine them. Cut the legs out from underneath.

The only way to get ahead was through connections, pull and the appropriate high-profile “black” business partner.

Losing my shirt

In 2004 I quit. I wanted to get into the private sector.

But the years of undermining the state, of appointing people based on their race rather than their ability, was starting to have its effects. Massive and crippling power-failures in the Western Cape put paid to my fledgling new business.

I went back into development consulting. I thought I could reverse the collapse by rating the effectiveness of development projects. I uncovered a major fraud within months of beginning.

I was certain that the value of my work would be recognised and appreciated.

It wasn’t.

The only work I have been able to get for two years now is significantly beneath my creativity and ability.

The gradual and continual undermining of the skills base; of exporting our most talented people while promoting only the most contemptible has its conclusion. What good is talent when those who would hire it no longer have the skills to appreciate it?

At the end of 2007 the logical happened. The logical that I had predicted and warned against.

Losing the light

The government claims to have been caught by surprise by the major power failures that struck South Africa in late 2007. The government’s own analysts presented a report in 1998 declaring that we’d run out of power by 2007. Most of those people were white males. They have been “empowered” by being fired and replaced by black people.

It’s very easy to be surprised when you refuse to acknowledge that there may be a downside to firing skilled people because of their race and hiring others based on their political affiliations and connections.

South Africa, far from being a non-racial society, has become entirely defined by race. It is the number one question when I apply to work. It is the only thing to bring to the table.

Thabo Mbeki was displaced by Jacob Zuma. The political party that had given us Albert Luthuli, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela would now throw up a verminous louse of a man. A serially corrupt and abusive man who is so stupid that he thinks that a shower is sufficient to wipe off the HIV he covered himself with when raping a house-guest.

A man promoted to power by communists and unionists who believe that, once they’re in power, they can nationalise the productive parts of the economy and redistribute this money to the power. Like Cuba, but without the Latin beat.

Fergal Keane, a BBC journalist, interviewed Zuma for his documentary, “No more Mandela’s”. It is an epic and seminal piece of journalism. Here’s a brief transcript from his interview with Zuma:

KEANE: Is it not extraordinary hypocrisy for Jacob Zuma to lecture anybody about HIV and AIDS when you’re the man who stood up in a courtroom and acknowledged having unprotected sex with somebody you knew was HIV positive, and then you come out and say: “Well I took a shower and therefore thought I’d be okay.”

ZUMA: The story of the shower makes big news.

KEANE: Did you really think that would get rid of HIV, having a shower?

ZUMA: No. Did I think so? No. It’s your guys, the media who says so, who say I believed it will take out AIDS. How could I believe that?

KEANE: But do you not think that whole episode casts grave doubt on your fitness for any kind of office, let alone the presidency of South Africa?

ZUMA: No, it can’t be.. it can’t be. What happened, that case, was what happen to people. People make mistakes in their lives, and for that mistake I apologised to the people of South Africa.

KEANE: Ethically and morally are you fit to lead this country?

ZUMA: Absolutely fit. Absolutely fit. I have been fit to fight for the freedom of this country. I have been fit to be in the ANC leadership as that thing happened when I’m already in the ANC leadership and I’m still fit, and I’ve got a better lesson to tell people, don’t commit the same mistake.

KEANE: But this is still a country where the powerful can be held to account. In 2005 Zuma’s financial advisor went to jail for his role in a corrupt arms deal with a foreign company. Now Zuma has been charged with corruption.

A lot of people think you’re a crook.

ZUMA: Is that so? (laugh) Ah huh, I want to see those people and government tell me why they think I’m a crook.

KEANE: Well there’s a whole army of prosecutors clearly think it.

ZUMA: Ah huh, is that so? Oh! Serious.

KEANE: Are you a crook?

ZUMA: Me?! What? I don’t know, unless I must go to the dictionary and learn what a crook is. I’ve never been a crook.

KEANE: Somebody who takes money from other people for corrupt purposes.

ZUMA: Have I ever done so?

KEANE: I’m asking you.

ZUMA: No. I think that’s a mistake you guys make, and I’ve said I currently have two trials, a trial by the media and then trial by court. I’m saying I’m not a crook, I have never been a crook. I will never be a crook.

Government officials – especially the ANC hierarchy – are used to being treated with slavish adulation by the local press, so this was especially shocking. And Zuma looked shocked.

It is no wonder that a week later Zuma was keen to speak at a black’s-only function. Barely 14 years into democratic rule and we have a deliberately racially exclusive function. How little things change.

“I saw nothing wrong,” said ANC president Jacob Zuma when asked whether he approved of the exclusion of white journalists from an address at the Forum of Black Journalists.

I am not a slave

The truth is that I am not here out of any sense of guilt or duty. I am here to test my abilities. To see what I can achieve.

However, that comes with a rider. I can only achieve in an environment that respects my independence and desires what I can do.

South Africa is becoming a place that does neither.

I could accept the situation when we really were a dictatorship. I could even accept the situation when the ANC was still learning the ropes.

But I can accept it no longer.

I am not prepared for my talents, and the value that I generate through those talents, to be used in the service of a new dictatorship.

From 1 May 2008 I will be in the UK. I will have gone into exile from my home, joining millions of other Africans who have chosen life over brutality.

I am not a slave.

Scholars and Rogues is pleased to introduce the first in a series of talking and speaking type Scrogues. This Scrogcast was presented by Gavin Chait at an informal interactive gathering of analysts at Frost & Sullivan. The seminar is about 11Mb, is in MP3 format, and is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License

Download the Scrogcast: The US dollar in Africa.

Not that the rest of the world consistently gets the idea either, but there are no other regions that so consistently mess up the nature of cause and effect. The source of this confusion is the economic boom that results from the mere good fortune of having some valuable resources.

In both Russia and Venezuela the near vertiginous rise of oil prices has stimulated economic growth; which is a good thing. It has also led the Big Men in power to associate that boom with their own blunt political ministrations. Both Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin have perverted their constitutions to ensure their continued control. “After all,” they think, “if it weren’t for me the economy wouldn’t be doing so well.”

Sadly – for themselves – this is a woeful fantasy that the citizens of these oppressed lands are willing to go along with. They remember the poverty of previous leaderships and confuse democracy with economic neglect.

Lest you think this is mere speculation, consider the following: In 2003 Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, took control of his country’s oil production after declaring his lack of faith in private endeavour. It is difficult arguing that Chavez’ nationalisation was a bad thing when daily oil revenues have risen from $ 50 million in 2003, to $ 190 million in 2007. Yet it has been an appalling disaster.

Between 2003 and 2007 oil production fell from 3.3 million barrels of crude per day, to 2.5 million – a drop of 32%. Over the same period the price of oil has risen by over 500%. If the industry had been left alone Venezuela would be generating $ 60 million more per day. At the same time, rampant public spending due to Chavez’ determination to nationalise all parts of the economy has driven inflation to 21%.

In similar fashion the Apartheid-era dictatorship in South Africa was paid for entirely out of the proceeds of a rising gold price. In 1971 gold was $44/ounce, in 1972 it was $70/ounce and – by 1980 – it was $641/ounce. Without this windfall “separate development” would never have been possible.

Many societies confuse a lucky cash boom with sound economic policy. Where there is confusion there is opportunity for analysis.

Measuring how bad it is

Various international organisations have attempted to objectively quantify what it is that separates the countries with the best economies (consequentially offering more opportunities and better lifestyles to their people) from those who don’t. The UN produces the Human Development Index. The World Bank, The Ease of Doing Business Report. Even Africa has its own index after Mo Ibrahim, the genius telecoms billionaire, developed his African Governance Index.

These are new ideas and have rapidly taken hold. We have indexes ranking entrepreneurial expression, and environmental care. However, these could simply be rankings of GDP per capita. They offer little that is new, and little that is helpful for investors, or genuinely progressive governments.

The measure of an index is also in how it predicts the future. Does knowing that Gambia is 143 places behind Denmark in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index help in reducing corruption? What caused it in the first place? And what will the result be? You can figure it out, but it will require a lot of searching in other data series.

The graph above is from a new benchmarked index created by Whythawk Ratings. The benchmark is a selection of 25 emerging nations who are currently considered fantastic (and relatively stable) investment bets. The index is to be released late in January and will cover all emerging markets. Not to elaborate on it in any great detail, but consider the two notable “dips” resulting in the notable bow-tie shape.

The “Poorest 20%” measure considers the mobility of the poor; accepting that there is poverty, how much opportunity do the poor have to become less poor. The “Wealthiest 20%” is independent of the “Poorest 20%” and considers the extent of the middle-class and their quality of life. Low scores in both indicates that, not only is poverty endemic and enduring, but that wealth is concentrated within a tiny portion of society. That portion is the political class.

In other words, where poverty is entrenched and wealth derives only from political power, there is inherent instability. That doesn’t mean that society will break down, merely that all the elements are there for a blow-out.

Africa in Kenya, Kenya in Africa

The graph above is for Kenya. For those who weren’t aware of it (considering the excitement of the election nomination process in the US), Kenya just had an election. It was so profoundly rigged and stolen that the opposition supporters protested. Police opened fire, killing many. Churches sheltering women and children fleeing the violence have been burned down. Many of these murderous acts have started to look a lot like genocide. Neither of the two political leaders will talk to the other.

In a matter of days Kenya, which had been starting to look like an emerging market bet, has fallen apart.

African politicians, no different from politicians elsewhere, like to make big promises to reach out to key electoral groups. Since their countries are dominated by the poor, they make huge promises to that group. Yet promises are an implicit tax. Governments do not make money. The money they make comes from taxing businesses, the formally employed, or from royalties derived from the exploitation of state-owned resources.

African countries are terribly poor. There is no business class to tax. So most government largess is derived from royalties on oil, timber, minerals and the like.

Without a middle-class there is no external scrutiny. Political leadership is an opportunity to loot, buy the loyalty of key leaders of the police, courts and military, and salt away vast amounts of dosh. There is little that governments can do to relieve the suffering of the poor other than through promoting economic growth. Corruption antagonises all but the most robust businesses and little of that necessary investment will take place. Fearful of the corruption, local entrepreneurs choose to remain outside of the law in the informal sector.

After a few years of leadership the poor are no better off than before. Given the chance, they’ll vote for someone else. Lawrence Schlemmer, a South African social scientist, researched key voting trends around sub-Saharan Africa. “People usually vote for those who make the best promises,” he says. No-one worries about delivery until their chosen leaders are already in office. Nowhere in Africa do you get the sort of live, acrimonious debates between political candidates where they challenge each other on policy.

South Africa is the only real economy in Africa, yet the African National Congress (ANC) – the dominant party – has just elected Jacob Zuma as their leader. Zuma, who has just married his fourth wife, was found not guilty of raping a psychologically-disturbed, HIV positive, friend of his daughter’s when she stayed over at his house. Sex between the two was described as consensual. Zuma showered afterwards to protect himself from AIDS. If Zuma’s fourth wife – with whom he has already had two children – cannot trust him to be honest, how can the rest of us? Not much. Zuma was charged this week with racketeering, corruption, fraud, and bribery relating to payments received to promote Thint in South Africa’s arms deal in the late 1990s.

South Africa does not indicate the bow-tie shape in Whythawk’s curve, so it will be interesting to monitor how the country deals with so divisive a leader.

Ending the cycle

No politician anywhere in the world is prepared to tell their citizens the truth. It is much easier to blame external factors, or sheltered and vulnerable elites, for problems than to point out that poverty ends through hard work. The only experience of wealth that the poorest Africans have is through watching their elected representatives on television. The only peers they see getting rich do so through cronyism, political appointments, or state-allocated contracts. It is no wonder that they have a lottery vision of wealth: that it derives through luck; that wealth is not created, but taken.

It would be difficult to get elected through anything other than making improbable promises. Yet this is precisely what African countries need to change.

And there are a few who are doing so. But it isn’t easy. It requires a bedrock of a nation exhausted by violence and robbed of everything they ever had. Only when there is nothing left to be fought over do people seem willing to hear the truth.

The ex-communist countries of Eastern Europe are learning this. Africa still has a way to go.

In the meantime, as we watch the raucous political debate taking place in the US, consider that such a thing never happens in Africa. That the first time a citizen of an African nation has any idea – beyond sound-bites – what their politicians will do, is after it has happened. And by then it is much too late.

Jacob Zuma, the women-abusing, criminal thug darling of the African National Congress, has become the new president of the ANC. Since, in South Africa, it is the party which runs the country (rather than, in more civilised lands, where elected politicians run the country) this – effectively – puts Zuma in charge.

The Scorpions are South Africa’s elite police service, a version of the US FBI. They are tasked with tackling corruption at the highest levels. They are about to file criminal proceedings against Zuma on bribery charges related to the government’s multi-billion Dollar arms deal scandal.

The first act of Zuma is to scrap the Scorpions. The unit is to be disbanded within months.

Note that this is a decision of the ANC – not parliament. Rather like the Republicans deciding that the FBI are getting too close and shutting the organisation down without going through Congress.

More interestingly is who is the king behind the thrown throne. Most commentators (including your humble servant, esq) agree that Zuma is too dumb to swallow his own saliva. So the real power rests in his newly elected deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe. Two years ago a bank set up by the ANC – the Land Bank – aimed at providing loans to aspirant farmers lent 40% of its total equity – R 800 million – to one company. That company “lost” the lot. The primary shareholder in that company? Ah, yes, that would be Motlanthe. To date no-one has had to answer in any way for this bit of corruption.

Run Forrest, Run.

Jacob Zuma, some-time rapist, multi-million dollar arms-deal fraudster, populist, and permanently in search of his machine gun, declares that he is ready to “rule” South Africa.

This man is likely to be South Africa’s next president.

This is quite a departure for the African National Congress, the ANC, the party of Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela; both Nobel Peace Prize winners.

The noble ideal of setting aside the politics of race in search of a new, unified, representative nation has given way to the politics of race, nepotism, corruption and dictatorship.

As Kent Durr, South Africa’s one-time ambassador to the UK put it, “The ANC appears to have gone from struggle to corruption without an intervening period of service to the nation.”

A history of corruption

There is someone to blame for all of this. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s current president.

Think of him as Africa’s Vladimir Putin, but without the gumption to shed blood publicly. Mbeki prefers smoke-filled backrooms and innuendo rather than outright assertiveness.

In 1999, shortly after Mbeki became president, he did two things that have left a legacy of corruption and despair:

1) He approved a $ 16.2 billion arms deal
2) He stood up before the World Aids Conference in Durban and declared that HIV does not cause AIDS

Mbeki’s deputy in these machinations was Jacob Zuma. Both ideals have had consequences.

The arms deal first

Jacob Zuma’s rape trial revealed that he believes HIV can be “showered off”

South Africa is not under any international threat and appears loath to engage in even basic peace-keeping (the little that has been done has been chequered by accusations of rape, the theft of caches of weapons and ammunition, and – just recently – losing control of weapons on firing ranges). That which we do need to defend – our coastal fishing resources – is entirely undefended.

Despite this a rather large refit of the military was ordered. There are plenty of local companies that supply a wide variety of military hardware and software. Most were ignored in favour of significantly more expensive European providers.

Accusations of corruption turned up early and were ignored. A magnificent new book by Andrew Feinstein, the former deputy chair of Parliament’s prime watchdog, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), which tried in vain to launch a full-scale investigation into allegations of arms deal graft, has just been published.

Feinstein narrates, in painstaking detail, how pressure was brought to bear against every independent office designed to prevent exactly this type of corruption. He names names. Both Zuma and Mbeki were in it up to their fetid breath.

Zuma’s “accountant” Schabir Shaik is currently in jail for facilitating a bribe for Zuma. Zuma has yet to appear in court on these charges. Mbeki fired Zuma soon after Shaik’s incarceration.

This has simply strengthened Zuma’s popularity.

Then comes AIDS

Zuma, head of the Moral Regeneration Commission

Zuma is hardly a paragon of virtue when it comes to HIV. A friend of his daughter, who stayed over one weekend at Zuma’s compound, found herself being raped by South Africa’s next president. He declared, during the subsequent trial, that she had been wearing a skirt, what did she expect.

The woman, placed on the stand, fell apart and a history of self-abuse came out. It was sufficient evidence to cast doubt on her story of being an unwilling participant. Yet this woman has another attribute: she is HIV positive.

Zuma both knew she was HIV positive and admits to having unprotected sex with her. When asked how he explains this, he answered that he took a shower to wash off the virus.

Despite this Zuma has managed to gain the high-ground over Mbeki who flat-out denies that HIV even exists.

Last weekend the ANC women’s league cast their nomination for the presidency of the ANC. They chose Jacob Zuma.

Which is which; ANC or Government

This weekend a leaked report declares that the ANC is planning to oust the president and call an early election. Zuma is behind moves that would see parliament being answerable to the ANC.

For the Americans in the room, this is equivalent to Congress and the Senate having to go and visit the Republican Party headquarters to ask their opinion on how to run government. I realise that many of you believe that this is already true, but I’m fairly sure that no party in the US would seriously present an election manifesto declaring that the objectives of the party supersede the objectives of government.

This is precisely what they ANC has declared.

More importantly, the electorate are not invited to participate in the direction the ANC takes.

You really elected this guy? Twice?

The US has been treated to a lengthy spectacle of the various candidates for Republican and Democratic Party nominations to become US president making nice with the public. Each candidate is expected to present detailed plans of what they plan to do should they win.

These plans are endlessly debated by public groups (including Scholars and Rogues) and the pro’s and con’s of the candidates evaluated.

Says Mbeki of the people wanting to be next president of the ANC: “Any attempt to campaign and promote ones-self will be rejected by the party.” In other words, campaigning is out. This tends to leave incumbents and populists in good positions; i.e. Mbeki and Zuma.

Neither person has been expected to present their credentials or proposals and so neither has. No-one has any idea what a Zuma presidency would be like.

But we do know that he is in hoc to both the trades union and the communists.

The justification for expelling Mbeki and calling for a new election is that it would be better for the country if both national and ANC elections proceeded at the same time. That there should be no difference between the ANC and government.

Yet the choice of head of the ANC is given over to only 3,000-odd accredited ANC members.

A nation of 47 million people is to be run through the obscure and shadowy criteria of 3,000 people.

So what are the rest of us doing

Pieter Dirk Uys, best satirist in the country, is delighted to discover the health minister’s cure for HIV: garlic, olive oil, lemons, beetroot, and African potatos!

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the largest in Africa, is at its highest point ever. Property prices have risen dramatically. Economic growth has managed a good (but not outstanding) 4 – 5% for the last three years. Investment is booming.

Despite this unemployment (by government estimates) is stuck at 26%. There are plenty of reasons for this, most having to do with Black Economic Empowerment policies that have shut down the bulk of the nation’s manufacturing businesses, leaving unskilled people with no recourse for finding work.

The point of good economic policy is encouraging business investment. Promote protectionist policies that have strict employment criteria about minimum wages, racial demographics, regular strikes, and an impossibility to fire incompetent staff, and investors put their money in businesses without a high staff overhead.

South Africa’s economy is now almost 70% service based which makes us look like a developed country. Why build a bicycle factory when it’s easier to simply import the bicycles and not employ anyone.

An economy based on 70% services is very fragile. Factories, mines and farms can be nationalised. Skilled people can only be nationalised if they are enslaved. And slaves don’t produce to their best advantage. With so much of the economy dependent on so very few highly skilled people, and on little infrastructure, a small jolt will have a large impact.

Jonathon Shapiro – aka Zapiro – whose cartoons dot this article, has done a sterling job jabbing the ANC where it hurts. Other comedians and satirists have followed suit. Belatedly many black writers and journalists are starting to do the same.

The health minister is our president’s dearest drinking buddy

At the recent launch of Zapiro’s new book, “Take two veg and call me in the morning,” numerous stalwarts of the message that HIV is dangerous voiced their opinions about the future of the government and the danger of dictatorship.

It probably won’t change anything. Africa’s most recent best hope for turning the continent into something that doesn’t spell “basket case” appears intent on committing suicide.

Over the next few weeks watch the currency and the stock-exchange. If they plunge, then future risk is being priced in. At which point, can I come sleep on your sofa?

Definition: Hollywood Helicopter Hero – a famous personality who uses charitable and / or popular social / environmental / economic issues to burnish their professional credentials and boost their celebrity status.

Examples include:

i) Bono: lead singer of Irish rock band U2, now bouncing about the world talking about how we must all get together and fight poverty
ii) George Clooney: actor famous for portraying urbane, debonair heroes, now jetting into Darfur where he can be urbane and debonair while pointing out the trauma behind him
iii) Diana Spencer: ex Princess of Wales (and now deceased) who used to hug AIDS and landmine victims, which helped her become the “people’s princess” instead of the shallow, venal royals we all read about in the tabloids
iv) Angelina Jolie and Madonna: one a so-so actress, the other a past-it singer, who helicopter into impoverished nations and find cute-looking poor kids to adopt
v) Al Gore: ex-presidential hopeful, and Nobel Prize-winning documentary producer, who gets to jet about the world, talking about how everyone must downsize to reduce global heating, while upsizing his personal body-mass and living it up in a massive estate (while buying carbon offsets to offset his offset)

However, my personal favourite is still:

vi) Oprah Winfrey: talk-show host about whom I have written considerably (and more below).

Cardboard Heroes

It must be nice to be a Hollywood Helicopter Hero. You get to associate yourself with noble causes (creating the image of compassion), speak humbly about the subject (giving gravitas) and tell everyone that something must be done (striking urgency and showing your deep personal commitment) but without having to do anything about it.

It’s a no-brainer as far as personal publicity is concerned.

And South Africa’s always been a great location for poseur benefactors. We have astonishing poverty which makes Calcutta look upmarket, yet we also have really fantastic hotels and restaurants a short drive away (the spoils of the most unequal economy in the world). Plus, Nelson Mandela is still alive and you can usually prevail on the old man to give you a hug on camera if you toss enough money at one or other noble cause.

Enter the Winfrey.

Back in December 2006 I wrote about Jackie Maarohanye, the “Angel of Soweto”. Mama Jackie had become famous for running a self-help program for disadvantaged kids in Soweto, the large black township outside Johannesburg. She had received millions of US dollars in dosh from willing benefactors; not least $ 1.14 million from Oprah Winfrey.

Then it turned out the whole thing was a sham. Maarohanye had collected various children and paid them to tell sob stories to donors. It worked. When confronted by journalists she kidnapped one and held him hostage.

Despite all this Maarohanye is still an Ashoka Fellow and received a personal invite by Winfrey to the opening of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in January 2007.

Winfrey’s Leadership Academy was an expensive boondoggle. The school cost $ 46 million to build and $ 800,000 per month to run. The dollar may buy less than it used to, but that’s still a lot of cash to throw at a mere 150 students. Yip. 150 students.

Fortunately, the $ 60 000 per year each student costs was covered entirely by Winfrey.

Winfrey got to swan about and declare how wonderful she was. 150 girls got an education.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Yet, like Britney Spears before her, Winfrey is discovering that kids hang around a lot longer than it takes to snap that front-page image. Children are an ongoing responsibility.

Over the past few weeks the school has been subject to an inordinate amount of bad press. Staff are alleged to have been abusing the girls, who are kept under near prison conditions.

You’d think that Winfrey would have learned about responsibility after her experiences with Maarohanye. However, she hasn’t.

“I trusted her. When I appointed her, I thought she was passionate about the children of Africa. But I’ve been disappointed,” said a tearful Winfrey of the principal of the school, Dr Mzimane. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

What to make of all this?

Firstly, that Hollywood stars have fallen for their own bullshit. All those kids swanning about, humming along to “We are the world,” genuinely believe that supporting some over-inflated celebrity is a way to end suffering and bring about a “better” world (whatever that means). But so do the celebrities.

They genuinely think that all that is required is that we all “care” about poverty, neglect and so on.

Poverty is not simply the absence of money or opportunity. Anyone – especially Hollywood stars – who places themselves in front of the most impoverished and desperate are going to find out the hard way that money, in and of itself, solves nothing.

You were traveling in one of those beat-up old vehicles that passes for public transport in the most impoverished parts of the world. And they had only one album playing at that tree-splitting volume so necessary for third-world travel.

It was Bob Marley playing, wasn’t it?

Except, sometimes, they had a second tape that would also be played. Round, and round, and round. Also reggae. Also loved beyond the singing of it. Maybe you never knew who that was?

That was Lucky Dube.

No, I’m not here to tell you how much I love his music. I don’t really connect to the soul of reggae. To the pride, or shape, or centre of it. Whether it was his ‘Soldier’, or ‘Prisoner’, or ‘Slave’, or ‘Different Colours – One People’; it certainly spoke to the desperately abused denizens of despotic poverty. But I do recognise talent and genius and passion when I experience it. And I do have the humility and admiration to admit it.

If anyone can lay claim to being a South African music superstar it was Dube.

Note that I use the past tense. On Thursday evening, 18th October, as the 43-year-old singer was dropping off two of his children in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, gunmen opened fire on him in an attempt to hijack his car. He died almost immediately. They fled without taking his car.

The senselessness of it. The outrage. The terrible, terrible, ordinariness of it all in a nation where 50 to 60 people are murdered every single day.

Think of Iraq. A war zone. According to Iraq Body Count some 36 people per day are murdered. South Africa is, by this measure, almost twice as dangerous as Iraq.

Yet here it isn’t single bombing outrages. It’s quiet, bespoke, single deaths, and families traumatised. On Dube’s website, the lyrics for ‘Celebrate Life’ – probably Freudianly misspelled – declare:

Liars’ cheaters, politicians and black stabbers

Making life a little bit more unbearable

Welcome to Africa, the place that eats its own.

Africa, what makes you so weak?

The reason for my silence over the past two months is that I was hired to conduct research into the health sector across Africa and analyse the situation. It is dire.

One can make all the sympathetic noises one likes. One can talk about the legacy of slavery, or the history of colonialism, or even of the Cold War. It doesn’t wash. It is hard to argue that Eastern Europeans suffered less from the interference of the Soviet Union or the US as a result of the Cold War than Africa. It is impossible to suggest that Japan’s being bombed into the Stone Age during World War II was more pleasant than colonialism which, at least, left a legacy of infrastructure and law behind it. It is downright silly to discuss slavery by the West which the British banned over 170 years ago, in 1833.

None of these things made President Thabo Mbeki, of South Africa, declare that HIV does not cause AIDS, or hire a mob boss to be head of the police service, or an alcoholic petty thief to be health minister. None of these things made Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, destroy thousands of businesses in Harare, snatch productive farms away from people and impoverish his entire nation. Neither did it create the opportunity for the savagery in Darfur or the genocide in Rwanda, the war in the DRC, the ongoing troubles in Western Sahara or the abject silliness of Cameroon.

None of these things is justifiable.

Dr James Watson, co-winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for identifying DNA, has been publicly disgraced following a recent statement in which he said that he was, “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa,” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not really.”

He explains himself thus:

“There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically,” he writes. “Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.”

Doing it to themselves

I don’t believe that Dr Watson deserves opprobrium for this statement, but neither am I as generous as he is. I don’t give Africans the excuse of saying, “Hey, the reason Africa can’t help doing these stupid, fatuous, self-destructive things is because they can’t help themselves. It’s their nature.”

I believe that, no matter how ill-informed, the events in Africa come about through free choice.

There is some matter of social engineering involved. The majority of talented and skilled Africans flee and can be found in Europe or America where they do extremely well. As the available pool of ability drops there is certainly something to be said for the difficulties that the remaining African population will experience. Certainly, but this alone doesn’t explain the self-destructiveness of the place. They’re like serially addicted Iraqi suicide bombers trying to find new ways to cause pain.

Yet there is something especially hypocritical about society’s peaceniks and charity freaks rounding on Dr Watson over his statements. People who are forever finding excuses for why Africa needs more sympathy or more money or more time are denying Africa the ultimate cop-out of being genetically incapable of achieving any better.

So what excuse do you want to give this troubled continent? Come on, I’m ready for you. And, no, this doesn’t mean I have lost hope in the opportunities here. Like those great columnists, Xolela Mangcu and Aubrey Matshiqi, I believe that it is the duty of analysts and commentators to express our outrage, and demand the accountability of our leaders for the betterment of society.

As Cornel West declared in ‘The Meaning of Mandela’: “No democracy can survive without the culture of criticism and dialogue and discussion and debate and contestation.” In another essay, he describes the role of the critic thus: “Criticism always presupposes something in place – be it a set of beliefs or tradition. Criticism yields results or makes a difference when something significant is antecedent to it, such as rich, sustaining, collective memories of moral struggle.”

In the mean time I join in the rest of the outrage over another senseless killing of another brave and talented soul. And I wonder, just what will it take before the South African people pay any attention to the price being paid by their support for its government’s social policies?