I have a certain regard for Carol Paton's writing and was thus a little taken aback that she felt that I had written “not in a nice way” about SA’s problems “Ramaphosa’s Vision and Courage at the Crux of SA’s Future Development”, (April 30). I must confess I’m not sure how to write in a “nice way” about nearly 10-million unemployed, power cuts, the fifth consecutive year of falling real incomes, and so on. She also charges me with Afropessimism. Are we back amid the “people’s democracies” of Eastern Europe where, as Vaclav Havel put it, optimism was compulsory? I think I will take a leaf out of Franklin D Roosevelt’s book. When he was told his crusty vice-president, John Nance Garner, had told a reporter that “the president is a goddamn fool”, he simply grinned at the press corps and said: “Well, I think we ought to pay attention to that. He’s usually right about such things, after all.”. RW Johnson Constantia
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