Living in Africa

I have to admit, despite my respect for a few of our politicians, that the government has, to some extent, failed us. They have failed at uplifting the poor, employing the unemployed and delivering services. They have failed at reducing crime, limiting corruption, reducing AIDS, and redistributing land and wealth, and even at educating our children. However, everybody sees our neighbour, Zimbabwe, and in contrast we are a huge success, as indicated by the droves of refugees entering our country. But because the government hasn’t succeeded completely, we decide to vote in a nice populist government to sort things out. And in 10 years time we’re just like all our neighbours – living on US or European Aid, watching as the Chinese and Russians take all our resources overseas, watch as our president squanders all the remainder of the country’s wealth, zero jobs available except as inspectors for the government (to enforce all their myriads of new laws like controlling the price of bread, or prevention of illegal currency dealing), grabbing commercial farms to live on in a subsistence fashion as we did 200 years ago, read our government-owned newspapers which have headline stories about someone stealing petrol while hundreds are murdered daily, watch our government-owned TV news and see the science and technology insert about a spaced out wacko in all seriousness describing an alien spacecraft, followed by an interview of witnesses to petrol theft from a government vehicle, including a detailed view of the piece of pipe and bucket used for the heinous crime, sitting complaining about 1000% inflation rate or the fact that our salary is only enough for 10 loaves of bread but nobody’s listening or caring, still relying on the hated colonialists to sell us black-market petrol and food, those same colonialists secreting any wealth they can get straight overseas where it is safe, our wealth in local currency regularly reduced to zero value. Yes, this is Africa, our Africa, and you must accept it and make the best of it. As you can see, I was in Harare recently and I have seen our future. Are we stupid? No I think not – believe it or not, this is what we want, what we feel comfortable with. We in SA complain about everything far more than the Zimbabweans, who are literally starving. They have no economy to speak of, although they try to maintain the colonialist way of doing things still. The remaining colonialists use generators for power, have to collect water, and have to import their own fuel – and that’s inside Harare, the second biggest city. And all the colonialists drive 4x4s because of the potholes. Amazingly, despite the governments’ efforts, they’re still having relatively good lives. I suppose the ones that couldn’t handle it have all left. The people generally accept their lot in life, which is reduced to survival mode, trying to find increasingly rare food and money everyday, and are actually better people for it. They have been there, and now appreciate the small things in life, the important things such as basic necessities, which in all honesty is all we really need. Its only the colonialists who’ve made us greedy, made us want other things. So be satisfied, be happy, accept our culture of mediocrity – and things will always be OK.