Scaring ourselves on the Great Zim Dipper

The ultimate “scare-the-shit-out-of them” ride at Fairground SA is the Great Zimbabwe Dipper. It colours, even defines, the entire South African experience.

The Zim Dipper shoots them high with its moment as Africa’s breadbasket; it dives into an economy now devolved to feudal simplicity. Then it again catapults them skyward with the land’s exceptional beauty and promise, only to plunge into disease, famine and state-sponsored violence.

Zimbabwe was Africa’s hope. It is Africa’s despair. It may be, many fear, SA’s future.

Such a possibility is on everyone’s lips because Zimbabwe has just marked 30 years of independence. Not that there was much to celebrate, with the country at its social and economic nadir with no end in sight.

Despite this, some in the African National Congress express admiration for how President Robert Mugabe has steered Zimbabwe’s destiny. Some, like ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, go so far as to promise that Mugabe’s racist, undemocratic and failed policies will be emulated here.

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille warns that unless corruption is stopped, SA will become a “failed state”. More surprising is that the Congress of South African Trade Unions agrees with her assessment. Former ANC minister Professor Kader Asmal warns that the the “politics of intimidation” threaten to negate SA’s “greatest national achievement … our native-hewed Constitution”.

Veteran foreign correspondent Fred Bridgland, writing in Scotland’s The Herald, poses the question, clearly rhetorical in his view, as to whether SA is turning into Zimbabwe. He quotes Financial Mail editor Barney Mthombothi’s view that “hardly a decade from now, Zimbabwe will be our destination, our reality”.

One cannot credibly take issue with Bridgland’s litany of SA’s woes. The problems are significant but are by no means insoluble, given responsible leadership, good governance and a nation committed to a shared future.

The undercurrent, however, to fears that Zimbabwe is the template for SA’s future, is that sound government is simply not achievable in Africa. Sometimes this is couched in racist terms: black Africans are innately barbarous and lack the intellectual resources needed to run a modern state. More often, though, the negativity is not racist but rather a paralysing despondency borne of the magnitude of the task, the scarcity of resources, and the ineptitude of the government.

Bridgland, in fact, distorts for effect what Mthombothi wrote. The quote above was prefaced by the omitted words: “We need to wise up and change course, or …” Although Bridgland flatters the FM by describing it as SA’s equivalent of The Economist, he is right about Mthombothi being “one of his country’s finest journalists”.

The sensible response to the “dreaded Z-word” debate lies in the observation by Mthombothi — who though unflinchingly critical of recent developments is no Afro-pessimist — that “Mugabe didn’t usurp power. It was given to him by the electorate.”

This is important to keep in mind when comparing the two countries. Assuming no coup d’etat, the question in SA is, how likely is it that voters will give power to a Malema-like president?

Forget President Jacob Zuma’s florid words about Malema’s supposed presidential potential. The reality is that Malema barely commands a majority in his uncouth league, never mind the kind of sway in the broader tripartite alliance that could see him — or his ideological surrogate — as king, rather then merely one of a number of kingmakers.

Not only is the ANC not Zanu-PF, but the SA electorate is volubly engaged in events, whereas in Zimbabwe many withdrew from political discourse after independence. SA also has strong democratic traditions — the United Democratic Front’s non-racialism; the influence of the churches, unions, judiciary, business, and the media — and opposition parties are well supported.

One cannot categorically dismiss the Z-word, but if citizens stand up for their rights, meltdown is not inevitable.

Bridgland’s article