On Safari With Secretary Clinton

After urging African youth to use their skills with the new potentials of the Internet to expose corruption and other endemic sins of politics in the Dark Continent and spewing vague promises of support to the Transitional Federal Government in the geographic entity known as Somalia, the fast-stepping SecState donned her pith helmet and jetted into South Africa. In Pretoria, Ms Clinton dove into the deep end of Southern Africa's liberation mythology and its political implications.

Other than perusing the archives of Nelson Mandela, and "seeking better relations" with Pretoria, the former senator from New York sought to get the effective cooperation of South Africa in bringing stability, economic recovery, and governmental transparency to Zimbabwe. In the process of schmoozing the country's new foreign minister, Maite Nakoana Mashabane, Ms Clinton made all the requisite noises about South Africa being, along with China, India, and Brazil, one of the world's "major and emerging global powers."

She will make the same soft, soothing, and stroking noises when she meets with the new president Jacob Zuma tomorrow. It does all sound good and it is correct--in principle.

But, not so in practice. While a far cry from the nearly failed state of Zimbabwe, South Africa is facing a host of major problems. Most of them made by the majority rule based government. It may not be politically correct to write that, but the statement does have the simple virtue of being accurate.

Emblematic of the problems besetting South Africa is the pending strike against the national electric company, Eskom. The country's largest union is in the final stages of negotiations. If these fail, the strike will further paralyse South Africa's mining industry. Production of both platinum and gold have already been adversely effected by rolling brownouts caused by the failure of the government to budget for long necessary infrastructure improvements and repairs.

The big money makers for South Africa are minerals, gold, platinum, and chrome. Diamonds may be the most famous export, but the dollars--or rands--are in the minerals. The US takes a lot of these, accounting for nearly twelve percent of the South African exports.

Any further curtailment of mineral production such as would necessarily result from a strike against Eskom shakes the country's economy--hard. The gap between the union's demands (fourteen percent pay hike) and the company's offer (eight percent) as well as the current inflation rate of 6.9 percent makes the probability of a strike very high.

Another union has already hit the national telecommunications company. The communications workers hit the bricks in four of South Africa's nine provinces. In addition, the union representing the platinum miners rejected an 8.5 percent wage increase, holding firm at 15 percent, so the threat of layered strikes is high. While the rail workers called off their 28 July strike, the state rail company, Metrorail, is not likely to meet the 12.5 percent increase the union wants. Strike three!

Not surprisingly both the rand and the South African stock market tottered more than a little.

With beaucoup strikers added to the large pool of previously unemployed people, the economy is likely to shake, rattle, and roll even more than it has in recent months. This can easily lead to political problems for President Zuma, who was elected on promises to end inflation and unemployment alike. He has not been able to pay off on the promises with the result that street demonstrations blasted across the country last month. More are in the offing.

While it is customary to put the onus for South Africa's current problems on the residue of the ancien regime, it has been more than a decade since majority rule became the rule. Since then the indigenous governments have shown a remarkable willingness to benefit their supporters rather than make proper investments in the common political and economic weal. While no where near so extreme as in, say, Zimbabwe, there has been a propensity to shower goodies on the Alte Kampfer of the liberation movement to the detriment of the country as a whole.

For years the nature of the global economy allowed this short-sighted, ethnocentric approach to government. But, the events of the past couple of years brought the flow of cash and goodies to an end. The dues collector is at the door.

Since South Africa's mineral riches and impressive (white developed) industrial infrastructure and agricultural equivalent has made the country the largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa, any sort of major spasm there will echo throughout Africa. The spasm will happen unless the government can focus on efficiency even at the expense of liberation mythology.

The very heavy hand of this myth rests on President Zuma as it did on his less-than-impressive predecessor Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki was so anti-white, anti-West that he was in a state of constant denial about the realities around him including the high HIV infection rate in South Africa. This attitude coupled in a synergistic way with the Bush/Cheney regime's unique ability to either ignore or insult countries which were not in total tandem with its policies to sour bilateral relations.

Ms Clinton is aware of the Bush/Cheney delinquency but seems totally oblivious to the power of the liberation mythology. Zuma no more than Mbeki will be able to step out of the shadow of the myth to pressure liberation "hero" Mugabe next door in Zimbabwe. This, in turn, means that Zimbabwe will remain a running sore. The refugees will continue to flock to South Africa and other neighboring states. Additional costs will be imposed on South Africa at a time when the country cannot afford them.

Additional costs will couple with continued alienation among Zuma's base with destabilizing effects. A tipping point may be reached with results which will be devastating to the country. Any increase in white flight from South Africa will do the country no good. And, white flight can be stimulated quickly by any move by the government to expropriate or otherwise take wealth, land, or businesses from white owners.

The unfortunate history of post-colonial Africa has shown time and time again that when economic conditions are such as to breed unrest among the lower socio-economic segments, governments respond by seizing property from the white minority regardless of the longer term consequences. Governments, particularly new ones, live in the shortest of short terms.

This potential is the unmentioned T. rex at the meetings between Secretary Clinton and the South African ForMin and President. It is not the sort of thing that anyone likes to mention--particularly if one is a progressive, a believer in multi-cultural diversity as the touchstone of an "enlightened" society and polity.

The potential of social dislocation bringing ill-advised government seizures and white flight is real enough, close enough, that failing to get a grip on this brutal ground truth will spell ruin to the well intentioned effort to build a new relation with South Africa. It also will spell the difference between South Africa as a "global and emerging" nation and South Africa as the next African basket case.