Approaching the end of a year tends to make one nostalgic. You wonder what the new year will hold for you and your family. You also think back to what has happened during the last twelve months. You try to extrapolate statistics and to ascertain trends but you are confronted by chaos intent on making the future unpredictable.
Unfortunately humans have a very short lifespan and it is therefore almost impossible to project valid historical trends. History is written by the victor. While the relationship between people change, the way in which we remember history, changes with us. We find it hard to agree on the history of the last few centuries. How would we agree on the history of the past millenia?
But with whatever facts and insight we have at our disposal, what can we expect of the year 2008? I would like to risk my hand at some prophecy.
As far as South Africa is concerned I expect a high degree of populist upheaval. Although Jacob Zuma licked Mbeki’s ass at the ANC Congress and is now in control of the governing political party, Mbeki – his ‘Khozaness’, his ego and image as the intellectual politician, severely injured - remains in de facto control of the government and the country. He also holds the final trump card, i.e. the prosecution of Jacob Zuma. As stubborn and denialistic as he is, I do not expect him to leave the scene without having a last stab at his victor.
How will the people react to Zuma’s prosecution? Even more important, how will they react to his imprisonment on being convicted? Mbeki has lost a battle but the war is still undecided. When elephants fight the grass suffers. The power struggle that will ensue may have far reaching implications for this country.
Somebody asked me now the other day what did Zimbabweans use for transport before the donkey cart. The answer: motor cars. I expect very little change in that country during the next year. In order to escape international prosecution for atrocities in Mathabeleland, Mugabe will cling to power until his dieing day. With him in charge, Zimbabwe will hit rock bottom and its citizens will keep streaming over the border into South Africa.
In regard to the US it would seem that some small degree of sanity has returned. The era of power abuse and criminality which prevailed under George W Bush and Rasputin Cheney will most come to a close as America prepares for the next election. The next president? Well, I would hope for Obama or even Hackabee but it seems most likely that Clinton has the least principles to hamper her way to the White House.
In Russia I would presume that it will be business as usual with Mr Putin still at the head of the Russian government. That being the case, this country will have the opportunity grow in stature. In Asia China will however take the lead as a super power with which the world will have to contend with. With the 2010 Olympics at hand one can expect that everything will be focused on that event.
Africa will remain Africa. When Mbeki started wit the ‘African Renaissance’ and Nepad I had so much hope. I believed that, with South Africa leading, a new future awaited this continent. But my hope for Africa faded with my respect for Mbeki. Now I am convinced that nothing good will be coming from it and a lot of aid will be going to Swiss and Caveman Iland bank accounts via corrupt politicians and officials. The poor will become poorer and the few rich will become stinking rich. Aids, Malaria, TB, etc will increase and cause more deaths. Slavery, colonialism and Apartheid will remain the causes of this ‘under-development’.
As far as our environment is concerned, I do believe that we have made the turn. Big money has become involved and vested interests are developing. Although environmental conditions will still worsen for the foreseeable future, the attitude of people are changing and that bodes well for the future. Humanity will not perish as a result of an environment that can not sustain human life. Much rather natural and inevitable cycles of growth and decay will be responsible for the demise of civilization as we know it.
What about technology? My feeling is that the major discoveries have been made and that technology will continue to develop new and improved applications for it. We are waiting for the next generation of computers – which I do not expect in the next year.
In summary I have this suppressed believe in apocalyptic prophecy – supported by the conviction that the exponential growth of history we endure, can not continue. This ‘pyramid scheme’ - which is Life – is approaching its apex and must soon start tumbling. The Mayan prediction of 2012 and Nostradamus’s 2025 leaves us with a few years to go. Will something of the end of this period in Time be revealed to us in this coming year? I do not know. I’ll leave that to the mystics who can read the signs and omens of the End of Time to tell us how long we still have to find out why we have gone through all this in the first place.
J.C.Grobler.
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