WORLDVIEW: The breathtaking ignorance of SA’s inhabitants of its own Belindia

By Alec Hogg

Current events in South Africa are a stark reminder of a warning delivered in 1974 by Brazilian economist Edmar Bacha, the first from that country to earn an economics doctorate from US ivy league Yale University.

Bacha described his country as "Belindia" – with a tiny island of prosperity like "Belgium" floating in a sea of poverty like "India". He argued the nation would only flourish if it protected the Belgian part against destruction by Indian waves. To a large extent, Brazil managed to do so – its wealth has expanded to a point where the country housing 3% of the world's population now generates an equal 3% of global GDP.

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