I have to admit, I only started to panic about South Africa's future a few years ago. I think that all started around the same time as Juju started mouthing off.
I may have been late coming to the doom and gloom party for South Africa, but these days, I find it hard to imagine a future for SA that does not involve a whole lot of suffering, for a whole lot of people.
The thing is, can anyone really tell the difference between the ANC and the NP these days?
Both parties are or were nationalist traditionalists. Both legislate or legislated racist policy to elevate 'their' chosen race groups. Both felt or feel the need to censor art and media. Both were or are corrupt organisations, with members with compromised morals (although the nature of the immorality may be slightly different.)
So where, exactly, is the difference?
In the 18 years since the end of apartheid, what exactly has changed in South Africa?
We're still a country divided. Violence, corruption and human rights abuses are still rife, and the specter of civil war still lurks just outside the periphery - for many of the same reasons it did during apartheid.
Whatever your personal thoughts on the matter, however, you have to agree that over the next ten years, South Africa is going to experience one of the most fraught, dangerous and historic times in it's history. The best we can hope for is that it's historic for the right reasons.
We did not avoid a civil war in 1994. We just postponed it. At least, that's the way it looks today. Let's all hope I am wrong.
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