SA leaders must heed Mbeki’s words of warning

Looking at the deplorable conditions many have to endure on a daily basis, former president Thabo Mbeki’s utterances that SA could be heading for its own Arab Spring if circumstances don’t change drastically and rapidly, do not come as a surprise.

It’s not something we haven’t heard before and, no doubt, we will hear it again.

The high cost of living – no thanks to crippling, soaring fuel costs and now a substantial increase in interest rates – massive levels of unemployment, particularly among the youth, and no confidence in the country’s leadership, makes South Africa ripe for the picking.

In short, people have had enough and it’s only a matter of time before something gives.

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We’ve experienced last year’s July unrest that cost the country and its economy dearly. That tension has not disappeared.

During fallen ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte’s memorial service on Thursday, Mbeki said: “One of my fears, comrades, is that one of these days, we … are going to have our own version of the Arab Spring,” with reference to the 2011 uprisings, which was triggered by a nationwide revolt against dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, after police harassed a Tunisian street vendor.

He added: “One of my fears is that one of these days it’s going to happen to us.

“You can’t have so many people unemployed, so many people poor, people faced with lawlessness, faced by leadership in which they see ANC people one after one another called corrupt. One day it’s going to explode.”

Throw in the increasing frustrations of load shedding plaguing the country and the sheer lack of any real plan to fix our power crisis – and you realise the nation is restless.

While Mbeki, as one of the country’s former leaders, needs to shoulder some of the blame for the position we find ourselves in, it would be folly to not heed his warning.

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