If anyone reading this column still had any lingering hopes that South Africa is not hurtling towards being a failed state, then I’m sure these hopes were finally dashed by what happened in Parliament on the evening of November 13, 2014.
When the president of a country, according to some reports, starts sending in his jackbooted thugs into the most hallowed halls of democracy in order to silence dissenting voices, then you need to realise that the end is near for what is described as a constitutional democracy.
These are the kind of images you would expect from a tin-pot dictator in the middle of an African jungle, where some buffoon has proclaimed himself Leader for Life, wearing a full military uniform with rows and rows of gleaming medals, all awarded to himself by himself.
Not in a country where most concerned middle-class citizens were hoping against hope that South Africa would escape the now familiar cascading collapse of the economy, infrastructure and political tolerance in most post-colonial African countries. But it is happening, right before our eyes and we can see just how powerless we are.
Uhuru (Swahili: freedom) in Africa, the cynics often said, lasts for about twenty years before everything starts collapsing: the infra-structure, the economy, the collection of taxes. Does that look familiar to you?
Let there be no doubt: what happened on Thursday evening will have serious consequences, much as the nail-painting ANC-cohorts would like to laugh and jeer. The world is watching and from what I can gather they were alarmed by what was transpiring…
South Africa Today – South Africa News
