South Africa’s dilemma: Will our country thrive or wither?

It’s the South African dilemma.

Will our country thrive or wither? Should we stay or go? It’s the quandary that appears to be on the lips of everyone who has the luxury of options.

It’s a move whispered about even among lifelong supporters of the anti-apartheid struggle.

The numbers leaving have soared in recent years. Anecdotally, it has reached levels akin to the pre-democracy exodus of 1994, as well as the rush for the exits during PW Botha’s 1980s state of emergency.

A few weeks back, I received a poignant e-mail from someone who, to me, seemed to typify a new kind of white South African: entrepreneurial, politically enlightened and socially committed.

His observations are made without rancour and so heartfelt that he is worth quoting in full: “William, are you sticking around in SA? We feel like we are soon going to be the only umlungus left here in KZN. So many friends, family and acquaintances leaving, we hear of a family nearly every day at the moment. It starts to gnaw.

“It’s tragic. Solid families are leaving in droves, the ones who I respect for having the backbone and making a conscious decision to stick it out for the long haul 20 years ago. Who can blame them now? Their 2010 confidence booster shots have long worn off with corruption and incompetence variants running rampant. Their resolve has been white-anted by an army felling the fruit tree that sustains everyone’s existence. And they are leaving with tears rolling down their cheeks.

“The primary reasons haven’t changed – for their children, the safety of their families, cannot get jobs primarily because of the colour of their skin – but the level of desperation and exasperation has. I’ve noticed older folk are leaving now, the same people in the past who said ‘It’s too late for me to go’ or ‘I can’t afford to leave’.

“And kids straight out of school, if they can, not sticking around to do tertiary education here first. And then those that morally simply cannot tolerate what they witness here daily.

“This is a personal, tough one for me. Aren’t we complicit if we do nothing? Yes ‘running away’ is worse, but tut-tutting around the braai and voting anything other than ANC doesn’t cut the mustard. Even doing the neighbourhood patrol thing is really just self-preservation. Probably there are already too few, we lost the war a
long time ago, it’s now just the daily battles left to fight.”

There’s no easy answer to his musings. But unless trends in SA reverse rapidly, the situation in neighbouring Zimbabwe is a feasible, even likely, endpoint.

The evidence on our national performance post-1994 is voluminous and irrefutable.

After a sharp improvement in virtually every citizen’s social and economic circumstances – coinciding roughly with the Mandela/Mbeki years – it’s been mostly downhill since.

The Zuma years were possibly irretrievably damaging.

The question is whether President Cyril Ramaphosa can, or even wants, to bind the country’s grievous wounds and restore it to rude health.

Again, the evidence of his almost three years at the helm is not reassuring.

My heart bleeds for those who feel it’s time to leave. As, too, I know do theirs.