OUT TO LUNCH
I can’t remember a time when people were so despondent about the future of this country. Even back in post Rubicon SA, when some of our best and brightest were taking their skills, I and many others still thought that things would take a turn for the better as indeed they eventually did.
My wife and I were on holiday in the UK in July 1985 when the State of Emergency was declared. The TV channels were full of footage of rioting and mayhem but one image that stuck in my mind was the sight of the Rev Allan Boesak whipping the crowd to a frenzy before rushing off to move his new BMW 3 series to a safer place.
My parents kindly offered us accommodation should it prove impossible to return to South Africa which seemed to be collapsing into a state of anarchy. We decided to phone friends in Johannesburg to hear how bad things really were and they hadn’t a clue what we were talking about and assured us it was perfectly safe to return which we did.
In 1985, after the Rubicon speech, R9.2 billion of foreign investment (mostly in the bond market) disappeared from South Africa and that disinvestment continued at a lower level for the next three years. I can’t precisely remember when the ‘debt standstill’ first occurred but I think it must also have been in 1985 and quite possibly just after PW Botha’s disastrous ‘Rubicon’ speech. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
I went to the Inanda Club on the night of the speech for dinner with financial market colleagues because we thought that if it was to be good news then we had already celebrated and if it was to be bad news (as it turned out to be) then we were already partially anesthetized to the pain.