By Alec Hogg
Career wise, my most exciting years were during the run up to South Africa’s 1994 Election. It was a period of great hope, excitement, expectation. Our nation could start again with a clean slate. If there was one word that described the highly motivated activists who were poised to become our leaders – Thabo, Trevor, Tito, even Jacob and mostly Madiba himself – it was humility.
Our nation’s new leaders knew that there was much they did not know. And they listened. Intently. Absorbing knowledge like dry sponges in a fresh bath. Determined to use every means possible to create the successful nation they’d dreamed of. Sadly, 20 years later, the words we’d use to describe their successors are very different.
Despite mountains of evidence that their policies are badly misguided, the economic mangling continues. Urgings to reform come from all over. But respected global bodies like the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund and now The Fraser Institute are dismissed like the wave from a Blue Light Convoy.
Today’s political leadership has traded humility for arrogance. A desire to learn has become the belief they have the answers. An appreciation of the complexity of the modern world has been replaced by an outdated, simplistic, centralised command and control dictat. It reminds one of those unfortunate Middle Eastern leaders ahead of the Arab Spring of December 2010. A lot.
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