Do you remember 1994 and the "
Rainbow Nation"?
The days when
Mandela walks to freedom and into power and the chattering classes of Notting Hill were able to nod sagely, and bask in the fact that they had been part of "the struggle" and "went to all the
'free Mandela concerts".
This was going to be the Black African (well ignoring 5 million whites who had built the country) nation that showed that it was ready to rule itself .... Kenya had sort of worked (if you call a one party rule and rampant corruption 'worked'), but has recently reverted to
tribalism and superstition with
old ladies burnt as witches ... then Rhodesia, sorry "Zimbabwe"had spectacularly collapsed into a
bankrupt economy, and a
vicious dictatorship and the worst run country on a continent that had failed on every occasion.
So there we were, the whites swept from power, but leaving a first world infrastructure, a strong economy (especially raw materials), with 'guest workers' living in harmony with the hosts and a functioning parliamentary democracy. Most importantly the whites couldn't do a 'colonial' i.e. ship all their goods 'home', so everything was set fair for the Rainbow nation to lead Black Africa into the golden future.
That was the 1990's and now we roll forward to 2008.
Unemployment amongst SA Blacks is still 40% as it has been since the end of white rule, Crime is rampant (especially rape and
crimes of extreme violence), guest worker figures have been swollen by 3 million Zimbabweans fleeing from Mugabe's henchmen (although SA carries on supporting his dictatorship so it doesn't class them as 'refugees') as well as countless others from across the African continent...... and out breaks
tribalism, killings, '
necklacing',
murder and every other ill that Africa can offer.
Troops are out
on the streets as the murders spread
nationwide and
thousands flee SA to save their lives and the international response? Well by the politicians, deafening ...... silence! Yes that's right, not a word of condemnation at racial attacks, just silence.
When
Kenya went through a bout of tribal violence and
ethnic cleansing, the PC western politicians were leading the chorus of comment, and similarly when it happened in
Darfur or the
Balkans, but when its the "Great Black Hope" of South Africa, the "Rainbow Nation" not a word.
Is it because the politicians are embarrassed that this last hope to prove Africans aren't just incapable of good governance, (there are after all no more 'colonial' governments in Africa to 'free'), has started to fail just as surely as all of the others?
Probably not, after a suitable pause there will be lots of theories from the left that place the blame on the remaining whites somehow, or the fallout from apartheid (even though the killers were all so young that they were born after 1994) and of course Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president is still happy to be sending half a million tourists into the war zone that is South Africa's crime wave as he approves the
hand over of the World Cup to South Africa this week, so that's alright then!
