A test the country must not fail

One day, so the fable goes, Chicken Little was walking along when an acorn struck him on the head. He panicked, thinking the sky was falling, and rushed off to alert the king.

South Africa feels, these days, as if it is trapped some way between a children’s fairy tale and a waking nightmare.

This week, the sky may not have fallen, but on the international stock markets and on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, it hurt a lot more than a mere acorn strike on the cranium.

The rand also fell through the floor.

On top of that, load shedding resumed and Rand Water started throttling water supply to some municipalities because of inadequate dam levels.

While there is a lot of truth in the saying that it is “darkest just before dawn”, the reality is that things are going to get a lot darker.

South Africa has not yet begun to experience the full impact of the coronavirus, which will take a huge toll on the economy – itself already in need of a respirator.

It might be only a matter of time before the international ratings agencies all agree SA is a junk economy.

However, things will eventually stabilise. The stock market will bounce back. The rand will recover somewhat and the worst of the coronavirus will pass.

The worst thing people can do now is surrender to pessimism, because of the worrying power of words and attitudes to become self-fulfilling prophecies.

We need to take a long view, both as individuals and as a country.

We have to believe there will be a brighter tomorrow … if we believe that, we can plan for it.

Possibly more than anything since the end of apartheid, these things will test us as a nation.

We must not fail that test.

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