The ANC's recent decision to defend in court the singing of "Kill the boer" goes to the heart of perceptions of this country's future.

The knee-jerk reaction is to conclude that the ANC wants to get rid of all 'boer' farmers in a Zimbabwe-style scenario, associated almost inevitably with similar discrimination of all non-black economic and cultural activities. It is a 'pure-black' vision already being fuelled by complicit tolerance of crime, the unwavering support of Mugabe, targeted taxation and many official and un-official utterances seemingly solely designed to heighten the burden of far-away immigration officials.

However, there is a 'however'.  

Because the facts speak of a more complex ANC. While it is the ANC of the chip-on-the-shoulder Mbeki and opportunistic  young Julius, it is also the ANC of Croesus-Zuma and of the iconic Nelson Mandela,  Joe Slovo and Albie Sachs. In a wobbly nutshell, there are some fighting for balance, some foaming to get closer to the trough, others serial-troughing for self-respect or excitement, and still others with the genuine wish to do good for all.

Complex indeed, maybe rudderless and drifting, rats leaving, but with 65% surely not yet sinking.

South Africa is hugely advantaged by having the second richest minerals hoard  as well as  the lowest-cost electricity in the world. Former exclusionist policies followed by nepotism (incompetence) and corruption are probably the reasons why we have achieved only  a middling Gross Domestic Product per person (95^th/218 countries),  a distressingly bad human development index (121^st/178 countries) and the highest inequality coefficient worldwide. It is a fact that the ANC has been a total abysmal failure as the ruling party.

(Disastrous labour regulations, failed education systems, near non-existent service delivery, minimalistic cultural expenditure, high food prices through tacit official collusion with monopol suppliers, the highest crime rate in human history, massive police corruption, 20 billion for 30 toll gates?, para-statal incompetence, AIDS, ....)

Somebody else with the worst possible record is our 86 year old mill stone to the north. With a GDP/person ranked 218th out of 218 countries, it is no wonder that every one of his unconnected energetic Zimbabweans is down here helping to raise unemployment figures. Only the completely off-balance and selfish can now wish to duplicate the Zim-experiment so optimistically and tragically supported by our former president, and wish to kick out en-masse our current lot of successful food producers.

The ANC supports the 'Kill"- song because it thinks that will impress on voters that it is still a revolutionary party fighting against injustice and oppression. Voters experiencing crime, injustice and oppression might be impressed, or not. Voters on the wrong side of the inequality divide should ask their local representative some searching questions and vote accordingly. And those voting with emigration papers in their desk drawer might just stay put a little longer to see what the next elections throw up.

Letter to The Star - newspaper 22nd Feb 2011 (published in mutilated form on 26th Feb 2011)