Zimbabwe and lessons for South Africa

News24 has an interesting piece on Zimbabwe by Mpumelelo Mkhabela, written from a South African perspective.

The coup d’état in Zimbabwe – call it bloodless, benevolent, calm or whatever – holds so many lessons for South Africa.

In fact, the whole continent of Africa has a lot to teach us, mostly on how not to govern.

The question is whether we are taking notes. And if we are, whether we are going to act on what we are learning.

This has been the embarrassing aspect of African government for much of  my adult life – Africa has a lot to teach us, mostly on how not to govern. Yet in the UK there is a strange tendency to idolise Africa as the feckless political imbecile we should never criticise because… Because?

Whether Jacob Zuma likes it or not, there are no traces of Russia in our Constitution. We are closer to New York, London and Berlin than we are to Moscow. We have had what we might call the “cruel but distinct advantage” of seeing what worked better and what didn’t in other jurisdictions.

The advantage was cruel because we learned from others while freedom fighters were being killed, tortured and jailed. But this is precisely one of the reasons we cannot afford to squander the lessons that Zimbabwe is offering to us now – on how not to run a country.

That seems to be Mr Mkhabela’s main concern – the possibility that Jacob Zuma is not so much an aberration as an indication that South Africa could become infected with the Mugabe disease. I hope not, but when it comes to principled government Sub-Saharan Africa inspires as little confidence as it always has.