generalspeaking

"A Better Life for All"?

So what happened to South Africa's dream of realizing itself as a beacon to the rest of that continent? The African National Congress is not very popular with the South African public, that huge demographic that has seen no rise in their miserable standard of living, no new employment opportunities, nothing of the 'inclusion' they were promised when Nelson Mandela left Victor Verster prison after 27 years of defiance against Apartheid.

The face of apartheid has changed, that's all; no longer a white-led aristocracy and a black-majority-marginalized community. Now there's a new reality, the connected black majority and particularly ANC functionaries and their hangers-on with their expensive cars and munificent salaries while the plight of the poor festers. Nelson Mandela's dream has faded and with it the hopes of millions.

South Africa suffers rampant crime, vicious xenophobic violence against other Africans migrating there in search of opportunities from places like Zimbabwe whose tyrannical ruler has ruined the country and starved its people, and who has continued to enjoy the support of South Africa. Oh, it's true that Thabo Mbeki supported Robert Mugabe and Jacob Zuma denounced Mugabe, but he's still there, ruining Zimbabwe.

"A Better Life for All" just isn't materializing in South Africa. Endemic poverty stifles the country and so does HIV/AIDS, in a country whose former prime minister and health minister thought voodoo medicine would save the day, and whose current prime minister feels bathing after sex is adequate protection against acquiring HIV while raping an HIV-infected friend who considered him a father-protector figure.

In South Africa a country with a population of 50-million, 50 people a day are murdered. People are actually poorer in 2010 than they were in 1996, according to a report by the South African Institute on Race Relations. There is an endemic 30% unemployment. Voters in the country increasingly view the ANC which still dominates the country's political landscape, as arrogant, complacent, corrupt.

The divide between rich and poor, entitled and disentitled, has replaced that which existed between white and black, so apartheid is still alive and thriving; its components have been slightly altered to reflect the tenor of its times. One in six adults is affected with HIV/AIDS, and finally the government has begun distribution of anti-retroviral drugs, even though the prime minister subscribes to his own theories.

While people are restive, disillusioned and hungry, unemployed and shiftless, South Africa has spent billions on building new sport stadiums and will proudly host the World Cup soccer tournament in June. Even there, scandals have erupted with allegations of tender-rigging and corruption. Yet in vast areas outside Cape Town, corrugated metal shacks house a huge demographic of the poor, with no running water and no employment prospects.

The government has built three million low-cost houses, but they are inadequate to the demand. Sanitation, electricity and clean-water access has improved measurably in some locations, but millions remain bereft of these classic civil, civic benefits. Nelson Mandela's dream of the future seems to be fast fading into a future of despair for too many South Africans.

Yet there are still visionaries who believe that South Africa can do better and that a good measure of determination on the part of some heroic figures will prevail. There is a theoretical physicist, a cosmologist born in South Africa who, lecturing that a modern economy cannot exist without a mathematical base; a prerequisite for finance, industry, computing, high-tech, plans to help South Africa.

He began his vision of a new future for the country by establishing a post-graduate school of advanced math in South Africa. Now there are plans to create 15 such campuses across Africa, to augment the existing two in South Africa and Nigeria, with another three planned for Ghana, Senegal and Ethiopia. Mathematics, he points out, is a basic skill in science and engineering.

Graduating classes of young Africans will fan out with their knowledge and their expertise and their determination to begin building their countries' futures. "We're all familiar with the Africa of disaster, poverty, corruption, war, disease", lectured at University of Ottawa, Neil Turok, himself director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

He sees a different continent, one that has an as-yet untapped pool of promising human talent and resourcefulness; out of 900-million people enough will emerge with mathematical and technical skills to lead the continent into the future. Dreams do persevere and possibly may emerge into a different reality.

Labels: Africa, Human Relations, Political Realities, Technology

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, February 11, 2010