After the Ball is Over... 2

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Blessed indeed are the peacemakers. But I seriously doubt that Mandela has ever really shown himself as one of the blessed. Effectively, on that all-important day, in his opening salvo, Nelson did not declare peace, but war. Almost the very first words he uttered were a high-octane, anti-apartheid chant, not in English, but in Xhosa: "Amandla! Amandla! I-Africa mayibuye!" . . . "Power! Power! Africa is ours!" Not a very convincing display of moderation, if one understands the sub-text: "And the Whites must take their chances." Even more disturbing, he continued: "I salute the SA Communist Party for its steady contribution to the struggle for democracy. I salute General Secretary Joe Slovo, one of our finest patriots. We are heartened by the fact that the alliance between ourselves and the party remains as strong as it always was." Hardly a declaration that what he had in mind for the coming "New SA" was a Periclean democracy. Certainly, he has built no Parthenons for us. Undeterred, De Klerk and a psychopathic media continued to assert that Mandela’s sole platform was indeed love and peace, that what our saintly crusader envisioned and sought was a stable, productive and safe SA, a reign of justice, prosperity and multi-racial harmony. In other words, universal suffrage in a unitary state, a halo for Mr Mandela and we would all live happily ever after. Peace and prosperity? It was an offer SA could not refuse. Of such illusions (dubbed, without irony, "miracles") tragedies are born. In the event, Mr Mandela’s "New SA" is that tragedy. No country ever entered the community of nations to such international jubilation. Sadly, as the ruinous state of our economy testifies, we have blown it. But - a tribute to the incredible power of sustained propaganda - Mandela himself remains, probably permanently, one of the most persistent media-manufactured folk heroes of our day. Let’s put him under the spotlight. He is universally presented as the supreme statesman, abounding with intelligence, wisdom and sagacity. Measured against all reasonable criteria, he projects more as a satyr than as a saint, more as sublime political opportunist than a political genius.		His engaging cherubic smile notwithstanding, he seems caught in an antique world of "liberation movements" and "African socialism," as much out of his time as the Nats were out of theirs. It is one thing to bask in the glory of exaggerated global idolatry. It is quite another to change a nation and create a peaceful, just union of some 43- to 62 million people (no one knows the real size of SA’s population) where all, Whites, Blacks, Asians and Coloureds, enjoy freedom, prosperity and equal opportunity. Well might we today ask: Has he measured up to the legend? Has he repaid the vast faith invested in him? To that, we might answer: Was it ever realistic to suppose that a single man, one moreover in jail from his 40s through to his 70s (and suffering a bad case of Karl Marx disease), could deliver a democratic, free market society enjoying harmonious multicultural democracy, even supposing he had so wished? There is little merit in accepting the PR version and not looking at the historical record. If someone is the subject of hero worship on an intercontinental scale, his record of achievement must be critically evaluated. On that basis, we cannot disguise that Mandela and the ANC have failed, a failure terrible in its character and terrible in its consequences. To suggest anything else is analytically preposterous. The raw reality is that SA today is a broken country, trapped in a vicious cycle of massively declining State capability. Their skills and managerial genius properly harnessed, the Whites could have played a felicitous role in helping create a viable post-apartheid society. Their help was spurned. Crudely applied affirmative action and renewed, blatantly racist policies blocked it, to the point where Whites now are a frightened, heavily marginalised people, their numbers declining all the time through brutal murder and migration. To repeat, we are today a corrupt, sick and increasingly dirt-poor society. No hype or hoopla can change that. The ANC’s performance has been so inadequate to its great task that SA society is now fraying at 1 000 edges.
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