TOM EATON: Welcome to the post-Soviet era, with a distinctly SA flavour
The outrage of the unions is easy to understand. It must have been a terrible shock for them to learn that the Soviet Union no longer exists and that the inevitable triumph of global communism might be pushed back a year or two.
Now, I know talk is cheap and I know that politicians throw words around the way sweaty frat boys throw banknotes at exotic dancers, but a budget speech is not something you toss off in a morning.
When Tito Mboweni told us on Wednesday that “we are in a post-Soviet Union era”, two groups of South Africans got confused and angry. The first group was the trade unions, although, to be fair, you could make them confused and angry just by asking them to explain how money works. And the second group was me. The outrage of the unions is easy to understand. It must have been a terrible shock for them to learn that the Soviet Union no longer exists and that the inevitable triumph of global communism might be pushed back a year or two. Some of the less intellectual unions — the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), for example — might also have heard “post-Soviet Union” and thought Mboweni was referring to a union of post-Soviets, presumably representing workers who spend their days mailing Soviet clothes to consumers. This would have been very upsetting indeed. Why was it a Post-Soviet Union era now? What did they have that Sadtu didn’t? These sorts of panicked questions bring me to t...
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