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MAL43 / 21 ISSUE
On Stunted Progress
The world recently watched in disbelief and dismay as the situation in South Africa deteriorated into one huge looting spree allegedly sparked off by the jailing of the former president , Jacob Zuma , for disobeying and ignoring court orders .
The standoff between the government and the former president had been brewing for a while as Zuma categorically refused to appear before a judicial commission set up to investigate corruption issues arising before and during his nine year presidency .
Africa watched with mounting exasperation as this scenario had all the signature traits of how Zimbabwe , the one-time economic paragon of Africa , collapsed . Africa is not ready to start witnessing yet another economic powerhouse disintegrate into a failed state .
The most frustrating part of this situation is that the world is watching not sympathetically but with pity because deep down they have been wondering when South Africa will collapse not if it will collapse . The rioters just helped to adjust the time frame they had allowed .
The apartheid system was justified in part on the premise that black people could not rule themselves and that if you gave them power they would steal government resources and democracy would be used to promote tribalism , ethnicity , hatred , killings and wars .
Africa seems to have done a good job in trying to prove that bigoted perception correct and the last thing we need is to have another beacon of hope tumble down that ignominious route of selfsabotage and failure . By now we should be tired of being lectured on good governance .
We can choose to believe the ridiculous premise that Africans are inherently incapable of organizing themselves , although we would be hard put to explain the glorious Sokoto and Monomotapa kingdoms , among the many that existed in Africa , or dig deeper to understand what is happening .
We would like to posit that the problem is not with the African but the unfortunate system that he is expected to master and run called democracy . He has just managed to extricate himself from discrimination and oppression and suddenly he is supposed to know how to be fair .
Constitutional democracy is as alien to him as the fact that he warmly invited a stranger into his household who through nefarious cunning and dishonesty not only claimed the land to be his but proceeded to kick the host out .
The irony is not lost that the same person who supervises the democracy he is supposed to follow to international acclaim is the same supervisor who never practiced that democracy on him hence the need for him to fight and reclaim his independence .
He is today expected to share the bounty of the country with the same person who would not share it with him yesterday . In fact he is told that not sharing is contravening the alienable rights of his former oppressor since he swore to uphold the constitution . This is sheer hypocrisy .
The African fights and struggles for his liberation only to discover