IN THE past I’ve seen a lot of predictions of South Africa’s inevitable demise, and they turned out to be false. South Africa is still intact (sort of).
Now, looking at the images coming out of social media last week, I’m not so sure it will continue to be.
Fires on the streets, smoke rising in the distance, rioters looting and burning, and people shooting at rioters are some of the numerous images coming out of the country.
Apparently, the riot started because of the jailing of a so-called freedom fighter, Jacob Zuma. At this point, I’m not interested in the cause of the riots. What matters now is that riot had ballooned into something far worse.
Food distribution is down. Black rioters are rampaging across the streets. Whites and Indians teaming up to push black rioters. Urban sectors are looking like hell. Ethnic/racial conflict is up.
Mainstream news commentators call the riots “pro-democracy protests”. I see them differently.
Make no mistake, South Africa is near the brink, and it looks like it’s not going back anytime soon. The political situation with Jacob Zuma is not going to go away (at least in the short term), and the government’s mythos about black racial empowerment will only fuel the situation.
But as bad as the situation is, I don’t think South Africa will fall. Global institutions won’t let it fall. If it should fall, it would undermine past narratives about South Africa, especially with regards to building a democratic rainbow society. So they will pump in a lot of money in aid, send food and strong-arm the country’s leaders into returning to the status quo.
The problem with this setup, however, is that it’s the same as the U.S. strategy that was used for Afghanistan and Iraq. It involves using outside forces to enforce a system in places where they don’t work.
The system will only last as long as the outside force continues to pump money and security into the target society. When that stops, the charade stops with it./PN
