Hannes Wessels,
When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently dispatched himself, along with a small army of security personnel, to Russia and Ukraine, to bestow upon Presidents Putin and Zelensky, his worldly wisdom as a peacemaker, his fruitless foray raised a number of issues for me.
He left behind a once well managed country which he is busy transforming into a failed state, but he also left behind a continent that is quickly becoming a catastrophe. In the context of a landmass experiencing unparalleled deforestation and environmental devastation due to population growth and primitive agriculture, millions of Africans are starving.
With infrastructural collapse and atrocious governance leading to loss of control, borders are disappearing, and nation-states are disintegrating. Power is increasingly shifting back to tribal, ethnic, and religious leaders providing a febrile field for wanton violence, nepotism and plunder. Africa is in many ways, reverting to the state it was in before it was colonised. While President Ramaphosa was being ignored abroad, it is a pity he chose not to stay home where he has some heft and there is much to attend to.
While civil unrest rages in Libya, potential conflict with Egypt looms over disputed maritime territory. Islamist separatists, coming out of the Sahel are in the throes of dismembering Mali. The Central African Republic has been turned into an ungovernable hellhole by various vicious militias leaving the Russians to milk the mines and what is left of the national wealth. In West Africa, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Liberia are impoverished failed states and the rest of the region follows a uniformly downward economic trajectory. Northern Nigeria is being terrorised by Boko Haram militants. Eastward, Ethiopia is torn by conflict in Eritrea, Sudan is fractured and at war with itself and Somalia, a state in name only, is impoverished and utterly lawless. In northern Mozambique, a simmering insurrection threatens to fracture the country and wreck what is left of a wrecked economy. The Congo, arguably the country with the richest natural resources on the planet, is the poorest, soaked in the blood of the innocents. In the conflicts that followed the turn of the century that involved nine countries, over five million people were killed, and the slaughter continues. While Kinshasa is the official capital, central government control barely spreads beyond the municipal limits.
Against this backdrop, Cape Town, and the Western Cape Province, stand in stark contrast; a beacon of blinding light shining out on a very dark continent. Interestingly, the city mayor is Mr. Geordin Hill-Lewis and the Provincial Premier is Mr. Alan Winde who represent the Democratic Alliance. Both are known to be competent, diligent, well informed and of impeccable integrity. They also lead administrations that deliver to their electorate and the citizenry, the best run polity in Africa. They are also the last two European politicians of any serious consequence on the continent. While their efforts are unquestionably laudable, their success is also their burden; it means an ongoing struggle against the continental tide.
All the other provinces in the country are run by the ruling ANC and they are staggering in varying stages of collapse, triggering a massive migration from the hinterland to the Western Cape coastal region where there is a chance of a home, a hospital, running water, and employment. But that is only the tip of the iceberg because also streaming into the Cape are migrants, in their millions, (an estimated three million from Zimbabwe alone), from the rest of Africa, in wretched condition, fleeing the aforementioned countries, among others.
Somalis are running informal retail outlets, Ethiopians are driving Ubers, Zimbabweans dominate the hospitality industry, the Congolese are running carparks and doing security work, the West Africans are running the rackets. But hard as they try, the municipal and provincial systems and structures, cannot possibly provide for the tens, possibly hundreds of millions, now looking for refuge. And unfortunately, this is the southern tip, so only the Atlantic awaits now and ships are in short supply. If the slave ships were to sail into Cape Town harbour, there would be riots; not to get away, but to get aboard.
On reflection, there is irony here because this is where it all began for the European on the sub-continent when Jan van Riebeek docked his ship in 1652 and set up a victualing station for vessels of the Dutch East India Company. And this is where it will end, in a sense, for the white tribe in Africa. Overwhelmed by events beyond its control, a tiny minority is trying to literally keep the lights on, against all odds, but they are almost assuredly doomed.
And so, it is with some surprise I watch events abroad and wonder. In the UK, Europe and the United States, there appears to be an unprecedented urgency coming from the people in power to emulate Africa and transfer positions of authority, in the public and private sector, from people of European ancestry to so-called ‘people of colour’.
Maybe the ‘Woking Class elite knows something that has been lost on me; but as a White African, having seen what I have seen, and what I am seeing, this looks like a mistake. I hope for their sake it does not have the catastrophic consequences I am witness to here.
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Cry the beloved country couldn’t be more apt when it comes to SA. We spent 70 to 99 in JHB and had nothing but admiration for the hard work that had been achieved since 1652, we retired to CT in 2001 and left for Oz in 2017 having spent seventeen years in the most stunning place on Earth, and now accepting that SA is going to become just another African problem.
Australia is now home. It’s not Africa, but it’s safe, the government is organised and we don’t have to turn the alarm on before going to bed.
David Heath
This is a great website to check on VOC shipping from Holland to Asia. The Dutch started stopping off at the Cape in 1611 way before Jan Van Riebeck. Their first recorded voyage to Asia is 1596. Click on the “Voyages” button for shipping.
“The Dutch East India Company’s shipping between the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795” https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/das/index_html_en
On the standards in America – if Joe Biden approached me in my capacity as an executive recruiter seeking to help executives find the right post, I would not even interview him given his lack of corporate management experience. Biden sat cushioned in the senate for around 40 years. What does he know about management ? He is also too old. This appointment does not say much for the American electorate.
I honestly believe that we have to thank the system of Apartheid which denied Africans the right to be educated properly – we have them zero training in management and now expect them to run this country efficiently. Sorry but no cigar. I call Cyril the WILL DO man – always talks of the issues he will be dealing with/ never why these mattes have not been addressed already. Guess why. We have the situation today with a group of gardeners trying to pilot a jet plane. Blame Apartheid for giving them no management skills nor much-needed real-time experience.
Not quite true Howard. Remember Apartheid consisted of 2 parts – [1] Grand Apartheid and [2] Petty Apartheid. For the record Great Britain set the ball rolling in 1806 with the first segregationist legislation in the Cape. The word – and formal policy naming of the existing segregated status quo – only came into being in 1948. Grand Apartheid started with the British 1913 Land Act where the immigrant tribes existing territories were recognised to seek their self determination in their tribal structures within the greater western capitalist democratic whole of the Union Of South Africa. From 1948 the National Party introduced Westminster style democratic government in these territories with a long term view to create a federal system – or “Constellation Of States” as PW Botha called it. So black South Africans had 46 years of training and experience to draw on before taking over in 1994. Regarding education: as recently as c1820 there was not a black man that could read or write in Southern Africa. Non of their languages had been transmitted into the written form. It was up to firstly white missionaries and secondly successive white governments to manage the task. This begs the question: why were Black Africans unable to develop this skill independently? The Egyptians, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Arab Muslims and Europeans managed to do so. And finally entrepreneurial capability utilising the natural resources available on the continent. Once again it was white colonialists that created the enterprises and then passed on their skills to the local people. This is one of the great mysteries of our time – how Van Riebeek sailed into Cape Town harbour in the Dromedaris – the Boeing 747 of his time – and planted the seeds of European civilisation on the southern tip of Africa not taking anything away from the people that were already here. At some point in our lives or in the hereafter this revelation will be made to us.
I agree with you Allan. I think Howard is a bit of a Woke Libtard!!!! They love blaming “apartheid” for everything andont actually the poms invented it! (as well as concentration camps)
Read my comment about the Dutch trading with Asia via the Cape from 1595. Their first stop off at the Cape was 1610 way before van Riebeck arrived in 1652. Check out the Huygens website I provided.
The Poms “annexed” (ie: stole) the Cape in 1800 after the VOC went bankrupt. They immediately started rearranging the furniture in their own image as is their MO….
The saddest thing is that the ANC have done things to their own people that the racist apartheid government never did.
Sad too say but they were better under apartheid
In the early seventies, I was gaining valuable experience in some of the UKs top hospitals, when my former boss back in Cape Town, scared I would be a challenge to him, wrote to tell me he had no job for me in the future. He didn’t know how large a favour he was doing me and my young family as instead I ended being head-hunted to a senior Professorial position in Australia, where we live in peace to this day. I remain in touch with friends and colleagues in South Africa and weep regularly as the criminals in charge of the country destroy it beyond belief. Sadly many of those I am in touch with have nowhere to migrate to and suffer unbelievable deprivations in their struggles to live their lives.
When Cyril took over after Zuma’s misbehaviour,
He entered the stage hoping to be our Saviour,
Now that all has gone awry,
And most are wondering why,
“Tis because he is not Ramaphoria but really Ramafailure.
Good article….
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There was the FRANKFURT SCHOOL that deposited in the USA a set of ideas which the DEMONRATS (sorry for the correct spelling) taken on board as their m.o. Those ideas play hand in hand with the New World Order, and only a revival of Ayn Rand’s objectivist ideals will turn the situation around.
I lived most of my life in RSA. I now live in Canada – best decision of my life but I still miss and weep for my previous country.
Hannes, the question is do we see a whole string of Rwanda type revivals or just more of the backward and ignorant same? I would have thought the latter; there are just too many negatives stacked against achieving what we’d call success. We know what they are so it’s not necessary to spell them out. Together they’re so all – encompassing that they create an inertia it would, and not necessarily will, take at least a century to overcome? Add to that in the East / West competition the continent is seen – politely – as a hopeless case useful only as a source of raw materials and wildlife holidays?
Spot on, Keurboom & H