South Africa: Can we dare to dream again?

Like a sketch artist’s first lines on a blank piece of paper, at first the object is unclear and undefined. Yet as each additional line is applied to the sketch, the subject gains focus & the confused canvas gains clarity. So it is with the unfolding Zuma / Gupta / State Capture / dirty tricks /trumped up charges saga. Thuli Madonsela in her noble endeavour applied multiple illuminating strokes with the release of her much anticipated State Capture report.

 Yet, once again, there is insufficient granularity of detail in the sketch for a formal criminal charge to be laid. Instead, South Africa will have to wait again with bated breath for the final strokes to be applied: This time in the form of a commission of enquiry.

 Thoughts and comments on the imperfect sketch so far and prognostications about possible future events

Main picture: President Jacob Zuma, Atul Gupta and the Eastern Cape Premier Noxolo Kieviet at a New Age breakfast in Port Elizabeth

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Routine and Normal has all but disappeared

South Africa is being rent asunder. The sound of previous certainties & the ANC’s moral high ground being ground underfoot, permeates discourse. Stories of malfeasance abound, with the drip becoming a torrent. Abuse by the ANC is no longer vented against the “racist unrepentant whites” & the “white opposition” but reserved for their former comrades in arms & ANC Cadres. 

As a bystander in this open warfare, it would be a gripping yarn if one were lazing at the spring poolside cogitating the meaning of life, but this is our life, South Africa’s future that is being trashed. 

Will this morph into the “new normal” with a dysfunctional state with all the pigs snouting at the trough? 

Main picture: All of these photos illustrate irony at its best

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South Africa on “The Road to Nowhere”

The ANC could compliment the citizens of South Africa for their forbearance if it was “The Long and Winding Road.” In that case we could at least enjoy the scenery of the journey but just for good measure we are being taken along known treacherous paths where wisdom cautions one not to tread – the proverbial Road to Nowhere. It is a sad indictment that wisdom and sanity has not prevailed. This is the path to perdition. That is why am I so profoundly despondent about South Africa’s future?

Main picture: The Road to Perdition, the theme of this blog. Like the movie starring Tom Hanks, South Africa’s future is murky & full of foreboding.

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Personal experiences: Why South Africa is failing?

I could dwell on all South Africa’s major ills such as an incompetent ANC or Zuma’s single-handed attempt to detail the South African economy. Alternatively I could lament about other ailments such as Zuma’s friend Dudu Myeni’s bid to insert some crony into the Airbus deal at a cost of R1.6 billion to SAA. No. Let me rather rail against my everyday experiences which indicate that all is not well in sunny South Africa.

Main picture: This surreal walkway recently installed in Cape Town, South Africa, creates a meandering, aerial path that allows visitors to stroll through the treetops. The steel-and-pinewood Kirstenbosch Centenary Tree Canopy Walkway begins on the forest floor, gradually sloping upward and eventually elevating guests to a spectacular vantage point above the canopy.

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Signs that prove that South Africa is different

The ubiquitous sign in bold lettering PENIS ENLARGEMENT is plastered on almost every stop sign, wall and bus shelter especially in the decrepit ramshackle areas. What image does this conjure up in the minds of foreigners about South African males? In less bold lettering beneath the prominent words will be a whole plethora of ailments and desires which this magic potion or muti, in the local Zulu parlance, can remedy.

The list will include items such as finding a job, retrieving a lover from the arms of another man to finding another wife. Of course the whities or mulungus sneer and roll their eyes at such quackery but in certain segments of black society, these concoctions clearly have credence and an allure otherwise these flyers would not be as prolific.

Main picture: Perhaps in the case the muti will be effective because all it is “designed” to do is to enlarge and not to find a girlfriend

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