🔒 Boardroom Talk: Reminder from distinguished Prof about how ANC and Nats are similar in so many ways

By Alec Hogg

This week, I’ve enjoyed the privilege of interviewing RW Johnson and William Saunderson-Meyer, two outstanding South African political writers. Both delivered a message laced with concern, highlighting the distressing manner which the ANC is cosying up to Russia – and in particular its creepy president Vladimir Putin.

For a few years I had the great fortune to live next door to Nick Binedell, founder of GIBS and all round intellectual champion. As neighbours often do, we spent many hours over cups of tea, him graciously humouring my naive prognostications, me drinking in his wisdom earned through a life of teaching, travelling and reading.

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One of the most memorable lessons from this period was Nick’s assertion that little would really change in the portals of South African power. Because the then all-powerful ANC, he averred, was the liberation party of a sector our SA’s population in the same way Apartheid’s architects, the National Party, did for a different group. 

When threatened, he added, they’d once again gather ox wagons into a laager; put retention of power above all else; reject the rational advice of democratic nations; and seek succour among the world’s polecats. It took the remarkable FW de Klerk to break that habit in 1994. Perhaps Ramaphosa will surprise everyone by finding his inner Gorbachev and repeating the favour after 2024. 

• PS There are now only 4 rooms and 2 chalets available for BNC#5. Oh yes, you can also fly in if you prefer – the airfield is across the road from the venue.

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