Africa in an Economic Nutshell
Africa is Not the Place of Economic Troubles for this Observer
An opinion on the current state of South Africa and what it can show the rest of the continent.
Africa is always in peril, or so the West would have you think. Hobbled either by famine, punishing debt or civil war, the continent never seems to set itself. In return the west sends money or peacekeepers and what that does not solve it chalks up to a post-colonial morass.
Now it seems Africa might be coming right. To be sure all of the aforementioned still exist in too-large numbers, but at the southern tip of the continent, in South Africa, an example of Africa’s potential lies quite silent to the rest of the world.
The makings of an economic “tiger,” at least to this observer, in South Africa seem possible, if not imminent. For the first time in the post-apartheid era, the government has produced a budget surplus. New construction is everywhere and homes are routinely sold for millions of dollars. Once derelict and neglected townships now harbor a growing black middle class. Cape Town has become a world-class tourist and business destination. World demand for natural resources has made the country's bounty more valuable than ever in a globalized world. Most of all, the 2010 Soccer World Cup could finally bring on the “African Renaissance” president Thabo Mbeki loves to speak of.
This progress still seems tentative and can certainly fall the wrong way.
Much of the country is filled with corruption. Members of the government have been implicated in a scandal that saw many allegedly being bribed by top European companies in order to influence government arms contracts. The national police commissioner has been tied to a known mobster.
Meanwhile the Health Minister (who has fiercely fought the use of anti-retrovirals in the treatment of AIDS) recently underwent a liver transplant to correct what many believe was fierce alcoholism. Even the transport minister has been attacked for his convoy allegedly flaunting the speed limit (this after a meeting where he warned people about it.)
This disregard for the rule of law spreads to the streets. Crime is rampant and drivers see the rules of the road as unnecessary suggestions.
AIDS still kills vast numbers of people and a drive along almost any highway can alert a viewer to the sort of blinding poverty one expects in Africa.
Most of the economy is tied to mining, a practice that does not preclude the same growth that has defined India and China. State-owned monopolies limit competition and keep prices of precious modern commodities like telecommunications artificially high.
Even the economic growth is jobless. This problem creates a large income gap and breeds a class of people resigned to crime as the only way to improve their lot in life.
There is also a chance that the tenuous balance between white (which still control much of the economy) and black might tip towards the tragedy of the current situation in Zimbabwe.
Still, South Africa is, unequivocally, a model for the rest of Africa. Voters elect new leaders every five years and while corruption is a problem, it is usually caught and dealt with in a free and fair judicial system. The government’s pragmatic economic policies have prevented the white/black economic showdown that so many have predicted for years.
For the past decade or so South Africa has been known for its peaceful transition from oppression to freedom. In the next decade it could be famous for the way it drove Africa, once the purse of the Western World, into the twenty-first century.
