Institutional turmoil, both in the public service and in the private sector, increasingly represents a fundamentally sorry state of affairs. Even a well-intentioned attempt by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to broker a peace deal among parties in Parliament in recent days is on the verge of collapse. The chaotic scenes in parliament, laced with utter disregard for public decency, hardly depict a country that is at peace with itself. In the last two weeks, politicians from the opposition parties have almost come to blows with those of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) over their differences about how President Jacob Zuma should account for taxpayer funds that were spent on upgrading his Nkandla homestead. South African platinum mines, responsible for three-quarters of world’s platinum supplies, stood shut for five months.Īdd to that the weekly, if not daily protests over service delivery and the recent chaos in Parliament, it soon becomes clear that the South Africa that Nelson Mandela may have dreamt of has not yet arrived. This was a consequence of the country reeling from the longest strike in its history. In the second quarter of this year, South Africa narrowly averted a recession after the economy had contracted by 0.6% in the first quarter. Unemployment is sky high, poverty is endemic, education outcomes are dismal, crime is rampant and corruption continues to rob the economy blind.Įarlier this year, South Africa even lost its status as Africa’s No.
The global player with developmental problemsĪlthough South Africa is now a global player - via the G20 and the BRICS - the country is beset with challenges that remind everyone of the long road that still lies ahead. actor James Earl Jones.įast forward to 2014 and Paton’s words seem to have been quite prescient as South Africa keeps taking one step forward and two steps back. The novel was subsequently adapted into a stage play, as well as a movie starring U.S. His seminal novel, first published in 1948, was ultimately a call for South Africa to put its past behind it and look to a new and a brighter future. In that short, poetic and prophetic title, Paton aptly summed up the perennial condition of South Africa. When renowned author Alan Paton penned the words – “ Cry, the Beloved Country” – he probably did not imagine that in 2014 South Africa would still be a country wrestling with itself.
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