OUT TO LUNCH
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Years ago I joked that scenario planner Clem Sunter’s low road looked like a cliff top walk compared with my high road. As for my low road… well you would have needed a submarine to even find it. Not that I would ever compare myself to Clem Sunter who actually uses scientific research methods in his futurology whereas I tend to rely more on gut feel, partly because it’s cheaper and easier than assembling masses of data to wade through but also because it has tended to serve me well over the years.
My gut feel at the moment tells me that we are in a helluva mess as a country and there seems very little political will to get us out of that mess. On the contrary, it seems that some influential factions within the ANC and amongst their leftist fellow travellers would be quite happy to see the entire South African economy collapse in order that it could be rebuilt in the Utopian style of Venezuela or Zimbabwe.
Some have even said as much and the irony is lost on many that Maserati driving NEC member Tony Yengeni can be a huge fan of designer clothing and what many would regard as “la dolce vita” while, at the same time supporting a collapsing, crisis ridden country like Venezuela and its hopelessly stupid leader, the former bus driver Nicolas Maduro.
The problem with being an Afro-realist is that one is accused of being negative, of seeing nothing good coming out of Africa, of not embracing the new dispensation and, of course, of being a racist. Even though the word “racist” is so overused in his country that it has, rather like the rand, become almost worthless it still scares the hell out of many people and, therefore, stifles discussion on important topics like the future of the economy. Which is exactly what it is intended to do. Heaven knows, we can’t have descendants of land thieves going around pontificating about the type of economy they would like.