Denzel Washington and predictions for 2008

Denzel Washington once said to me: “The wonderful thing about predictions is they’re simultaneously the front door and the back door. You can be wrong a thousand times, but you only gotta be right once.”

After the party in Polokwane, which, by all accounts went fairly well and a moerse lot of animals died, we look set for some interesting developments. The first has already happened — Machinegun Man raced to assure markets, a justifiably jittery planet and the backbone of the nation’s intellectual and financial capital that he would ensure it was business as usual. And they all said: “Yeeah, riiight! The cheque’s in the mail and that pipe will never leak again.”

With his shower head on full blast, relying on ubuntu’s irrational spirit of forgiveness based only on a timorous “sorry”, Morality Man said we were all friends, plugged the rainbow lights in again, hugged Thabo the Timid, rearranged his errant member (and members) and, like one of our infamous infomercials, promised New Unity with its unique formula, “Iamnotacrook” and “Trust Me X” with improved cleaning power to get right in under the rim of the toilet (especially long-drops).

He has a whole year to go, which will send sales of anything with a “J” — J&B, Jim Beam, gin and Johnny Walker Red rocketing, monthly spikes in emigration figures and more frequent periodic power surges — no, man, the political kind! Meanwhile, the current discernible racial and ethnic divisions will continue to widen with an increasingly militant crop of graduates struggling to find their generation’s identity and jobs for themselves.

How he copes with the crisis unleashed by massive nationwide flooding in the first quarter and humanitarian crises galore, the ultimate passing of Madiba (and the setting in motion of “Project M” which exists in every newsroom, but is never discussed) and several other notables in the Cabinet and provinces will determine whether Kid KZN is still smiling as broadly at the end of 2008 as he is now.

He will also have to cope with his own trial and conviction, the collapse of the nascent African Renaissance and the inevitable scramble to find replacements — and claim the kudos — the growing crises in the Horn of Africa, increased continental Islamic terrorism and the steady decline in tourism outside of the usual fleshpots.

The floods and findings of various research projects due out next year will focus attention on eco-issues, but very little will be done. Archaeologists, gold miners and eco-warriors will clash over the Barberton “Cradle of Life on Earth” as gold continues its inexorable climb amid uncertain futures of fossil fuels.

More and more farmers will seek how to cash in on ways to make money from alternative power sources, especially in the Karoo and the fringes of the Kalahari Desert as it inexorably marches south.

The dissolution of the Scorpions will be met with much rejoicing by the SAPS though the bones are unclear about Slippery Selebi. Seems he will most likely quietly disappear back into the netherworld of diplomacy from whence he originally slithered on to land. As with the disastrous dissolution of the Child Protection Units (though, oddly, not the Specialised Commercial Crime Units), this will result only in lower levels of service delivery, pervasive mediocrity and lower skills levels. But there will be more roadblocks! The Green Scorpions, meanwhile, will have their hands full and we can expect numerous farting competitions between them and local government-backed communities on a range of issues.

With inflation topping out towards 8% spurred by uncertain exchange rates, the economic future looks bright only for politicians and other criminal-minded individuals. However, with Mugabe gone, so many questions left unanswered and a dithering replacement regime, the Zimbabwefication of Limpopo will rise sharply before calm is restored and those miraculously resilient people begin rebuilding the trillion-dollar fiasco that was allowed to grow and fester there.

On the sports front, rugby’s woes are just beginning and we can expect humiliating drubbings in the Super 14 and Tri-Nations and a very tatty-looking bunch of erstwhile World Champions. Soccer will face some trials too, but emerge stronger. Yet there is not a snowball’s hope in the Richtersveld that we will be any more than 70% ready for 2010.

We will perform to expectations in Beijing. but the sheer weight of international competition will cut the medal tally down.

Individual South Africans will continue to perform exceptionally on international stages with Gavin Hood leading the pack, and our young golfers in hot pursuit. For the rest it will be business as usual — though some surprises could emerge out black SA tennis.

There will be much tinkering and bickering in health and education. Teen and family suicides will continue to climb, though there will be some perversely good news on the HIV/Aids front. A major genetic breakthrough will take place in the second half of the year and could have a profound impact on sub-Saharan Africa.

Much excitement will be generated when Tata’s new super-economy car hits the scene.

First the United Kingdom then the United States will somehow manage to extricate themselves from Iraq, but the peace will be short lived and a major holocaust will carry an even more frightened world into 2009.

See you all then. And remember what Denzel said.