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Disintegration happens over time, often when no one is looking and when those who’ve been entrusted with responsibility no longer nurture the bonds that hold everything together.
Southern Africa is unraveling fast, and everyone – the thought leaders in the media, labour and politicians – seems to be oblivious.
Beit Bridge is on fire as Zimbabweans demand that their government drop tariffs on goods imported from South Africa. This border is the lifeline of many countries on the continent.
In Mozambique, Afonso Dhlakama, the leader of Renamo, is threatening to rekindle the civil war that once devoured that country.
South Africa is also on fire. Our leaders may be physically present, but they are lacking the presence of mind and depth to deal with the gust of new and hostile complexities that confront us every day.
The Zimbabwean leaders have a point – why should they import products that the country can produce itself?
At face value, it seems as if South Africa has embarked on a strategy where its policies make it impossible for its neighbours to compete fairly, making them broke until they become beggars.
What the leaders of Zimbabwe ignore, however, is that their very own policies have driven business away and opened the door for poverty. The decline of the commodities market has hit Mozambique hard and a poorly educated population will find it hard to pull itself out of misery.
The mistakes of our neighbours are not something to laugh at, nor are they supposed to be a rod with which to bash the rest of Africa, but rather lessons from which we must learn and grow.
We are good students in that we’ve learnt many bad habits from our colonial master, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which is now also roller-skating down the gradient of decline.
President Jacob Zuma is like former British prime minister Gordon Brown, who didn’t accept that the people no longer wanted him until his party lost an election. Zuma was booed at during former president Nelson Mandela’s funeral; and that, Mr President, is worse than dancing naked in public.
The British Empire has lost all her colonies, and now she has chosen to lose her neighbours. On more than one occasion, the nation itself has threatened to split.
Competence is like any beautiful body, it is enfeebled by time. President Robert Mugabe has stayed for too long. He lost track of history as he became ever more short-sighted. His ageing mind is failing to grasp the unfolding events of our time.
In all these countries, the opposition is hopelessly inept and cannot offer a hopeful alternative because it has been designed to protect the old rather than a new ideal that promises a fair and just utopia.
Dhlakama cannot offer Mozambique anything because he cannot imagine a country where disagreement is limited to words and not weapons of war.
Labour, business and civil society must mobilise for a better world.
Politicians have the least to lose, but they have the most escape routes. They are the first to send their children to study overseas when things hot up. Workers lose their jobs, businesspeople lose their investments, violence erupts and people who have invested in their home countries lose everything.
Yes, there are reasons to be pessimistic, but look at the dry grass all over the Highveld. It’s going to burn, that’s for sure, but then there will be new shoots and it will be green and pleasing again. Yes, there is always a reason to be optimistic.
