The 64000 Rand Question

Ladies & Gentlemen (or perhaps that should be "Dames en Heer"), today's blog is going to be about South Africa.

See, one thing you realise quite quickly when you get over here to London is that there are a lot of South Africans here. In fact, there's actually more South Africans in London than Australians. Which is impressive, given that the legend of the Aussie colonial boozing it up in the British capital has been going on for years, so you'd expect us to be the majority. Far from it. We just stand out more.

In coming over to England, South Africans tend to raise a variety of reasons, if asked. A common one is, like the Aussies and the Kiwis, they just wanted to get over to Europe and check the place out. Another is the exchange rate between the British pound and the South African Rand - sitting at about 14 Rand to the pound, it's nothing short of woeful, and hence a few pounds in your pocket translates to big rand back home. And finally, South Africans do have ancestral links to Britain - like us, they used to be a British crown colony, and later a dominion, and were a part of the commonwealth - left/were exiled for a few decades, and then were re-admitted.

And with this comment, you start treading on thin ice.

A lot of South Africans feel embarrassed about their past...particularly the recent past. They don't like to discuss it much, and understandably so.

So, I'll ask the 64000 Rand question myself, and answer it too.


Is there something wrong with South Africa today?


Ask this question of a South African, and you might get a range of responses. You might get a straight yes, or no. A yes, or no, but with a long justification. A shrug of the shoulders. More often than not though, you'll get a rambling answer of yes and no, and somewhere along the way, a comment of "You'd have to go there to understand it."

Now, I'm not bagging South Africans here. But I do find it interesting the way that they dance around the issue, and try and avoid mentioning the "A-word."

Apartheid ended about 15 years ago, meaning that every South African you encounter over here grew up in it, witnessed it's end, and also saw the aftermath, and the political shift that the country has undergone since it's demise.

Now, there's no question that apartheid had to end. South Africa couldn't continue to exist in such a fashion - shunned and ostracised for maintaining a regime that the rest of the world had decried as barbaric, and appallingly racist. The country was well and truly the pariah of the globe. Nowadays, it has moved on, and once more resumed it's rightful place in the international community.

But life is far from rosy in South Africa. The rainbow nation has shockingly high HIV rates, huge problems with crime and gang warfare. Theft and muggings are commonplace. White communities live behind electric fences and gated complex, while coloured communities still exist in abject squalor. While apartheid is dead and buried, division still remains. The bulk of the money is still in the hands of the white community - it is their spending, skills and expertise that keep the South African economy afloat. Coloured communities still exist in a dreadfully poor state, dependent on government handouts and aid in order to survive.

Now, mention this sort of thing to a South African, and they'll probably tell you that it isn't the whole story. And they're right - it isn't. South Africa is hardly Zimbabwe, or Iraq. A democratically elected government runs the country, regular society continues to exist, and the country remains stable, in that sense. There is a vibrant culture present, to a level unthinkable in Australia, which seems positively dour by comparison.

But these positives do not mean that the negatives have ceased to exist. They're still there - not the whole story of South Africa to be sure, but they're still there.

Looking at the history of South Africa since 1993, from a detached viewpoint, it's easy to see how the country went off the rails somewhat. The goings-on in South Africa are merely repeating the sort of behaviour you can read about in any society, where a race or ethnic group that has been repressed for generations, suddenly gains complete freedom from their masters. The South, after the Civil war is the classic case.

Just as it was in the Confederacy, so it was in South Africa. The coloured people, free at long last, celebrated with massive excess. Restrained for decades, the pent-up energy that comes from freedom led first to jubilation, and then, as it always does in these matters, to revenge. Without the grim shackles of apartheid restricting their movements, and free to mingle with their former superiors, it wasn't hard to predict what was going to happen.

Some would argue also, that the new government of South Africa has made a hash of running the country. It has been dogged by corruption, and scandal amongst the members of government. There are accusations of nepotism. There is the taint of "getting square" with some of the policies coming from the government, particularly those which target white South Africans.

The thing is - corruption, nepotism, scandal - these are all classic symptoms of an inexperience government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. My home state of Queensland took a country farmer, shoehorned him into the position of Premier, and now wonders why he ran parliament as if it was his own private pub meeting. That was the only way he knew how to operate. Not for him the decorum of Westminster, rather, the favours and greased palms of Western Queensland.

Yet, the accusation of incompetence dies in the mouths of those in South Africa, who would level it against their government. And finally, belatedly, I get to the answer of my original question.

Yes, there is something wrong with South Africa. It is that the country is afraid to criticise the government, because it believes that to criticise the government is to endorse apartheid. South Africa has created an environment where if a white person stands up to the government and says that they have made a mess of it, that they are corrupt, that they have failed - it is to be read between the lines that this person is advocating a return to apartheid.

Even when that is not the case.

I honestly don't believe South Africa will move on, ever, until it gains enough national confidence, and self-respect, to understand that criticising the present, isn't about returning to the past. It's about being able to create a better future. South Africa has so much to offer the world, and so much to give - it would be a shame indeed to see such a wonderful country fail to deliver on it's future promise, purely because it felt unable to move on from a dark and distant time in it's past.