The most existential questions that all South Africans need to ask themselves post the looting and mayhem that happened a few weeks ago,
When will things finally change in South Africa, and how will that change be affected?
1. When a sufficient number (as per Everett Rogers, “Law of Diffusion of Innovation”) of (ordinary) white and brown people (coloureds and Indian), realise that they are being used as a bulwark by the white capital class, the billionaire oligarchs and a supine, mealy-mouthed black political class, against the vast number of our dispossessed, and historically disenfranchised black people.
2. When a sufficient number (as per Everett Rogers, “Law of Diffusion of Innovation”) of (ordinary) white and brown people (coloureds and Indian) realise that they need to unlearn their pathologies (mental models) of white supremacy and internalised racism.
Let them urgently wrap their heads around a few statistical, axiomatic (logical) truths.
a), Our government, black or white is controlled (read owned, managed and manipulated to their own ends), by the intersecting forces of the Washington Consensus (the IMF, The World Bank, The Neo-cons in the US government, The Rating Agencies and The WTO), the local white capital class, the black politically connected and the “freedom fighter” pathology of an ANC that is as corrupt as it was useless at fighting for our “freedoms” to start with.
b), “Big business” and the top performers on the JSE (read AlSi index) refuse to reinvest capital, aka IDI (Internal Direct Investment) that they make in South Africa, instead, shipping their ROI (profits and dividends) to overseas markets and banks under the pretext of portfolio diversification.
c), The ANC under Nelson Mandela was as much a de facto partner (in crime) of the white (Anglo-American) capital class and billionaire oligarchy as the Nationalist Apartheid regime was. Under Matamela, the First Magistrate of the Republic, it is worse by many orders of magnitude.
d), It is estimated that South Africa still has natural resources to the tune of anywhere between $49 and $69 Trillion left to exploit under the soil. Does it not seem strange to you that no white or black business wishes to take advantage of these opportunities? Instead, they seem intent on maximising their existing cash and profits through the ever more complex financial instrumentation (derivatives and similar products) that guarantees quick returns, even though it may cause another global economic catastrophe ala 2008/09.
Parting Thought:
If this Republic was a minority black regime ruling a majority white populace with the impunity, disdain and criminality the ANC displays towards black people, we would have a revolution in the streets by tomorrow morning comrades……
“The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.” ― Howard Zinn.
