Reflections on South Africa

I've just returned home to Austin, TX from South Africa and Botswana this past Monday, March 23rd. Overall, it was an exceptional trip. As I've mentioned in a prior post, South Africa offered much much more than I ever expected. I was expecting to spend two weeks traveling dirt roads, visiting companies in buildings with exposed electrical wires and plumbing, composed of shotty construction material, and with problems keeping the lights on. Mostly, I was expecting to visit a third-world country. This was not what I experienced though. I found South Africa to be a beautiful, industrialized, and well-developed country, albeit with some major problems. There is a clear division between the "haves" and the "have nots" in South Africa. When visiting and traveling amongst the areas of the "haves" I find it easiest to compare South Africa to cities like San Francisco and Pasadena/Los Angeles. The streets, toilets, restrooms, and offices are clean, the views are beautiful, the food is delicious, and the people are friendly. Much of our trip felt like I was right back here at home in the States. The "have nots" live a far different life, however. The shanty-towns we visited and viewed reminded me much of the Mumbai-slum scenes from the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire.' It became immediately clear that a significant portion of South Africa's population struggles to survive, including finding work, clean water, safe accommodations, and keeping clear of HIV.

Outside of general perceptions, my other interest is the politics of South Africa. The world needs a strong South Africa to lead the African continent out of 50 years of general decline. South Africa has loads of potential with it's stable (thus far) political system, natural resources, and infrastructure. My fear however is that South Africa seems to be regressing. Even thought it is a democracy by definition, in reality it is a one party system with 60+% of the country supporting the ANC. Now, Mandela was an ANC president and we all know just how successful and wonderful he was. That said, this latest guy Zuma seems like a train wreck and a criminal. He's been investigated in a corruption scandal that was only recently (and suspiciously) dropped, plus he seems at a total loss on HIV/AIDS with his "I took a shower so I'll be fine" after having alledgedly raped an HIV-positive woman. IMHO, Zuma is in no way fit to lead South Africa, or no country for that matter, given his ignorance on HIV/AIDS, an issue that plagues Southern Africa and is perhaps the greatest challenge of our time.