South Africa has entered the age of disorder
Racists said black people are irreparably corrupt. Has the presidency of Jacob Zuma not vindicated them?
In his book, World Order, Henry Kissinger is correct to assert that every historical epoch has its own leitmotif, a central organising theme that enables people living in a particular age to make sense of their reality. From 1994 to 2005, hope was our leitmotif. From 2007, we have been living through a period of disorder. Before we expose the character of this disorder we must state the obvious: that SA was not born in 1994. There had been organising themes back into antiquity. Before the arrival of Europeans, hunter-gathering was the way of life in most of southern Africa. If you go back thousands of years, you will pass through proud ancient African civilisations — of Maphungubwe, of Great Zimbabwe, and so on. But this is too distant a past. From early European settlement at the Cape of Good Hope to the end of the 18th century, invasion was the leitmotif. This was a period when settlers were driven by hunger for land and livestock, resulting in frontier wars. Among Africans, the r...
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