Back in '94, the ANC led by the late (peace be upon his soul, I mean may he rest in peace) Nelson Rolihaha Mandela negotiated a peaceful handover of government duties from Frederick W. de Klerk's administration and there was new hope. This new dawn shone in promise to the black folk driving away the darkness of the ruthless apartheid system. There was change indeed, blacks began patronizing areas previously reserved for white South Africans, economically, they started getting jobs that they previously could not because of the restrictive racist set by the Boers through the BEE policy implementation. Fast track to the recent years and narrow it down to just a single incident; late last
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| (image from enca.com) |
year, 2014, when the outspoken former ANC Youth league leader's party allegedly orchestrated a Zimbabwean war veterans land grab style in Nellmapius just outside Pretoria. A few of the many homeless people in the country residing in and aorund the city of Pretoria seized a stretch of land belonging to the government, bought from a white farmer sometime ago and demarcated it as a territory for their residence and actually gave it a name in honor of the man who is an emerging voice of the voiceless and homeless in South Africa, Julius Malema. Government officials claim that this land was earmarked for housing development to benefit the same people who had attempted to take it over. Their patience had worn out, I guess, for since time immemmorial, they had been told the same old story and there was no action to back government officials words. The 80-something black South Africans in South Africa have about 10 or so per cent of the total acreage of land in the country. Now that is an unequal distribution given also the fact that one of the promises of the ANC government when it came to power two decades ago was to address the land question. The attempted land grab was quelled by the police but afterwards, ANC political officials were all pointing fingers of blame for this at Julius Malema. He may be indeed putting one of Africa's greatest economies at risk if the majority of South Africans pick on this cue and go all out to occupy the white owned farms. However, he is not the only one to blame. While they were making merry with money, power and women, ANC officials rather, sort of forgot about the man at the bottom of the ladder, and the power that he may wield if he decides to rise and cause disturbances in the economy. Now they must be running around, the Zuma administration trying to lay their hands on a solution but they very well know where the solution is- appeasing the men and women, and in the process Julius Malema and they hate to do that, that's why they will rather wait and play the waiting game till things explode. The results will be seriously grievous and the ramifications may see the country going down the same road as Zimbabwe. In the latter, things rather went south and many people scattered down south and everywhere else but in South Africa, where the population is somewhat inclined towards violence, this may not end on a rather merry note but could cause bloodshed.
Zuma may need to move as fast as he can to come up with a rather convincing plan to stall things and at the same time give confidence to the business world and perhaps his paymasters who cannot stand to lose as hard as the counterparts further up north did since the turn of the millennium. Meanwhile, Robert Mugabe began his job as the chairman of the African Union which has embarked on working to achieve a long term plan ..'Africa's Agenda 2063' meant to maximize Africa's benefit from its vast resources instead of exporting (or allowing exploitation by western countries) leaving the continent impoverished. This year, the organization's short term plan is the 'Year of Women's Empowerment'. It's a good start and we hopefully wish that this is not just on paper as has many plans been.
