Part 78
When I was first asked to do a blog on the ExoTech website, I was both excited and apprehensive. I had never written an ongoing series of blogs before and wasn’t at all sure what I should write about. Eventually, I have simply written about events that have touched my life in many different places, mostly but not entirely in Africa. I thank all you who have encouraged me in this journey. It has motivated me to keep going.
This blog will deal with the traumatic events taking place in South Africa right now, one of which has sparked a ray of hope for the future, not only for our beloved country but for so many other nations going through their own periods of turbulence.
As most of you know by now, South Africa’s nearly fifty years of Apartheid ended in 1994 with the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as its first democratic President. I’ve written previously how his glorious attempt to bring about a peaceful and successful transition from an autocratic and suppressive regime failed. This was in the main because he was already too old to impose full control over his own party, the African National Congress (ANC). On reflection, it was also because he was more of a statesman than a politician. He came up with some wonderfully wise words about the nation and its people, but he was ill-equipped for the dirty cut and thrust of politics. He was replaced after one term as President by a radical Marxist-Leninist-leaning leadership. Additionally, the level of fraud and corruption reached staggering levels in virtually all government departments as well as in many businesses.
Thabo Mbeki who succeeded Mandela was more of a dreamer who spoke glowingly of an African Renaissance but failed to control the basic mechanisms of successfully running a country. He was disgraced and replaced by Jacob Zuma, a semi-literate thug, whose street smarts enabled him to claw his way into power. Zuma was also the first Zulu President, the other two men having been Xhosa. I regard the Zulus as being in many ways a fine nation, but as usual they were misled and misinformed by a ruthless leader.
The levels of corruption grew to even greater levels under Zuma. It was tragic for those whites who had rejoiced at the end of Apartheid. We applauded Mandela’s earlier attempts to create a new and balanced society built upon the strong First World infrastructure he inherited from the Apartheid rulers. To watch the country going steadily downhill and, most appalling of all, the fact that the poorest people in the country, overwhelmingly black, were if anything worse off than before. The so-called socialist leaders grew richer and richer and the poor remained poor because of greed rather than the fear-induced political repression of a ruling white minority.
So, what has happened now?
South Africa’s fourth democratically elected President, Cyril Ramaphosa who followed Zuma, appears to have tried, against considerable odds and fierce opposition from the Zuma family, to reduce corruption. He has finally been able to bring Zuma to justice for his earlier corrupt practices. Zuma refused to accept the legal demands for him to stand trial for various offenses and was declared in contempt of court. He has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for this contempt.
His imprisonment triggered an orchestrated and frighteningly violent reaction from people already mostly out of work and often near starving. As part of what is now believed to be a well-organized rebellion, two provinces of South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, have descended into what can only be described as anarchy. In these two provinces many of the major supermarkets, shopping malls and factories have been looted and burned to the ground.
A clever campaign, waged among the Zulu nation, persuaded the masses of poor and unemployed that they deserved a share in the wealth of Big Business and that anarchy was the means to achieve this. With the powers of the State waning, the level of destruction is almost unbelievable. The logic behind this form of protest in insane. To destroy the very infrastructure that supplies your food, to prevent fuel distribution and to lay whole communities, both white and black, open to attack does nothing for the people. The looters concentrated on stealing TV sets, washing machines and stoves, etc., rather than food. If you sit in front of your new stolen TV set, with no food and no electricity, you may just wonder what in the hell you have achieved.
I have two of my children in South Africa right now. Jason, my eldest son, is a senior Production Manager for Sky TV Outside Broadcasts and is in Cape Town handling the TV production of the British and Irish Lions rugby tour of South Africa. He is fortunate in that he is part of the bubble of the touring party and is confined to his hotel and the rugby stadium. The tour has been nearly called off a couple of times, with a combination of the pandemic and the uprisings, but Cape Town is relatively quiet and I think the tour will complete in three weeks’ time.
My eldest daughter Tanya lives in a highly secure residential compound called Zimbali outside of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal with her partner and two adult children. When we first heard about the looting and destruction, we called to see how Tanya was coping. She said that the place was being patrolled by residents, including her partner Kevin and her son Kyle. There had been no incursions onto the estate.
This was the first indication that anything was being done to halt the chaos. Subsequently, YouTube videos and other social media in increasing number were received by us from South Africa. To our surprise and growing excitement, we heard that South Africans of all races had said “Enough.” With the government once again failing to control the situation, it seems as though this was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m talking here about the people of all races, black, white, mixed race, called “coloreds” in the Republic of South Africa (RSA), and Asians have apparently joined together in large numbers to protect businesses, shopping centers and residential areas. In many instances, they have combined with the police to form roadblocks and other protective barriers to prevent unruly mobs from literally destroying the infrastructure of the country’s commercial activities and killing over a hundred people, predominantly blacks, in the process. Black-owned small businesses have been virtually wiped out in some areas.
Now, extraordinary scenes of concerned citizens of all colors have been sweeping the streets of debris, rescuing whatever they can from both small businesses and huge shopping malls and generally bringing some order into the wreckage.
Some very prominent people have spoken passionately about what they see as a turning point, a new dawn, a moment when the decent, law-abiding man and woman in the street have been sickened by the erosion of what was up to the 1990s a First World country, fairly handed over to the country’s African majority and which has descended into a classic Third World mess. If there is a Fourth World, it was well on its way there. Maybe the Fourth World would be the product of anarchy, a desire to destroy everything before rebuilding it the way in which anarchists feel it should be recreated.
What I believe is happening here is something I have written about previously. Those of the ever-growing black middle class have now had the advantage of being able to attend all schools, previously the exclusive domain of white children. They have received a reasonable education and are able to go onto universities and technical colleges. This same group of young black men and women is now beginning to get jobs on merit, instead of being pushed into positions simply because of color, which is known as Affirmative Action.
These young and ambitious Africans have come to realize that the ANC government’s obsession with inflicting retribution upon the whites, regardless of whether they supported Apartheid or not, is rapidly destroying an incredibly rich and potentially powerful country.
This traumatic situation has been the stimulus for young, forward-looking Africans and moderate whites, “coloreds” and Asians to bond together – a true Rainbow Nation. They want to create a genuinely race-less society and rebuild the economy for all the people. A vital part of this is to finally improve conditions for the poorest people who have risen up in desperation, having seen endless promises broken by a failing government. Food trucks from volunteers all over the country are now arriving to help stricken communities.
It’s only a start and in many respects just an idea, but the speed with which these positive groups have formed across the country gives us all hope that real change will emerge at last. To quote Madiba (the affectionate term for Mandela):
“It is easy to break down and destroy but the heroes are those who make peace and build.”
Incidentally, that could also be a quote for the future intentions of ExoTech!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.