I ARRIVED in South Africa during the council elections and was stunned to see how avidly they were being followed.
Where I live in England, local elections attract one man and his dog killing time until the pub opens.
Yet here people were queuing to cast their vote.
Then it dawned; in South Africa, council elections affect far more lives than national polls.
When you see how many inefficient councils battle to deliver even basic services, or are bankrupt, you realise just how crucial this is.
I’m experiencing it first-hand, staying in Umdloti where taps flow for just a few hours a day. So you gotta go to the toilet before 9am.
But just wandering around the village for the past week has shown me one thing; South Africa would be a far better place if politicians just provided government and then got out of the way.
The press in the UK indicates race relations are worsening, thanks to Malema and co. But in my opinion, on the ground the exact opposite is happening.
For example, I have seen more white couples with black children, obviously formally or informally adopted, than in any other country I have visited.
The affection displayed is heart-warming. In the UK this would never happen because social services are run by rabid anti-white fascists (usually white themselves), who say mixed race adoption ‘negates’ a child’s ‘black experience’.
So… the race hustlers win again.
Taking my highly unscientific observations further, all Umdloti lifeguards are black. Yet their dealings with mainly white and Indian beachgoers is done with smiles and genuine warmth.
The same applies to the car guards… it’s common to see white surfers amiably chewing the fat about the weather or whatever with guys who get a couple of bucks watching their bakkies.
And of course, in my case, if you want a fascinating discourse on what’s biting out there, ask an Indian fisherman if he’s caught anything.
In short, it’s about people just getting on with their lives and ignoring political polemic.
This is actually a worldwide trend. The incompetent elites are the problem – not us.
You may despise those who voted to leave Europe (I’m stunned how strongly so many South Africans feel about that), but it was a slap against a top-heavy organisation of ivory tower bunglers who treat the rest of us as insufferable fools.
Even more graphically, you may loathe Donald Trump, but his bewildering skyrocket to presidential candidate is a direct result of the ineffable smugness of the inept political elite epitomized by Hillary Clinton.
There’s a movie out at the moment about a 1920s New York socialite called Florence Foster Jenkins who believed she was a world class opera singer.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t hit a note with a cricket bat. But because she surrounded herself with fawning, obsequious followers, she thought she was a genuine diva.
When she ‘sang’, her husband ensured deferential critics gave glowing reviews to her appalling performances that were by invitation only.
Florence Jenkins is unwittingly a modern metaphor for the today’s political elites. They worship at the shrine of their own spin-doctor hype, and their lofty purpose in life is to educate the rest of us about the error of our ways.
The Obama administration, for example, talks almost exclusively to an echo chamber of devotees.
The mainstream press seldom criticises it, even though by any measure American international policy has been an unmitigated disaster.
How else do you explain the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton having a ‘homebrew’ computer in her attic where top secret emails were hacked with contemptuous ease?
How else do you describe the increasing number of instances where religious extremists well-known to the police shoot hundreds of civilians in Western cities?
How else do you explain Putin outsmarting Obama in the Middle East, routing ISIS with a small air force and ageing navy missiles, while the most powerful army in the world is hamstrung by political correctness?
It’s time arrogant, incompetent politicians who have failed to deliver, get out of the way.
Perhaps in a microcosm, the South African council elections have shown us just that.
