KW 42/1

Moin zusammen.

Source

We have just landed in Johannesburg, We hope you have enjoyed the flight. Please do not try to collect your luggage.

Written by Daniel Steinmann   

Saturday, 10 October 2009 07:54

To the world, South Africa is the African powerhouse, the only significant economy and the only meaningful place from which to enter the rest of the continent. Its superiority is overwhelmingly reflected in our otherwise dismal African statistics, in its domination on the sports field, in its markets, its infrastructure, its universities, its mines, its technology, its financial services, and in its claimed ability to host the FIFA Soccer World Cup next year.
But for us on its fringes, South Africa’s dominance is often a source of minor and major irritation, not least since we are not bowled over by its appearance.
I think there is a huge amount of eyeblinding going on in our southern neighbour and former colonial master. Not even considering the shenanigans of its politicians, including the clown-like antics of its current president, I am more concerned with SA’s real ability to live up to its popular image. In short, I think a large part of it is a farce.
It is a fact that South Africa is the murder capital of the world. The gruesome statistics are repeated often enough by many NGOs but one gets the impression, South Africans are blaze’ over this fact and regard it as a mere inconvenience. Crime in SA is at the order of the day, not only in poor or rural areas - everywhere, especially in the suburbs. I am asking myself how are the morally sensitive First-worlders going to swallow this unpleasant reality when it starts hitting them on a daily basis.
I do not think SA is ready or able to host the soccer world cup. But more important, I do not think the world knows, or want to know, that the big lion of Africa cannot host a brass band march without a dozen people getting killed. Vicious crime on a daily basis everywhere in SA is as normal as going to the loo for your early morning pee. This hard fact will hit the soccer fans in the hardest way imaginable the moment they set foot on SA soil. I expect a severe backlash in international media, the moment the first soccer fan is robbed (I expect this on the very first day), and an even bigger outcry when the first visitor is murdered for a cellphone or a video camera. (This I expect within the first week.)
Earlier this week I spent some time at Hosea Kutako International Airport. It is always a source for reflection to count the number of arrivals and departures and to see where they are going to or coming from. Again, the statistics are skewed. By far the biggest number of flights come and go from South Africa, even more than our own local flights. And of these flights, there are about twice as many to and from Johannesburg as there are from Cape Town.
Striking a light conversation with a tour operator, I heard a very familiar lament. Of the 12 people he had to pick up, 8 arrived without their baggage. Now this has become a running joke in Namibia - South African Airways’ proven ability to lose one’s baggage, but it is always more than an inconvenience when you arrive in Marseilles, or London, or Frankfurt and there is no case to collect. When returning home, it is not such a big issue, except that I do not even want to try and speculate what it must cost SAA in Windhoek per month to deliver hundreds (if not thousands) of baggage items per month.
I know the airline and the SA airports company are not the same entity, but in the eyes of the flying public, for all practical intents, they are. Still talking to the same tour operator, he said he collects groups of people on average about every second week at Hosea Kutako. Those that fly in from Cape Town or Europe, normally do not have a problem with lost luggage. But those that come from Johannesburg invariably have to wait for items lost at Johannesburg International. And of the bags that do arrive, more than 80% have clearly been ransacked. There is always something missing, almost from every single piece of luggage, he said.
Talking to a Namibian Airports Company employee a little bit later, he informed me that they had a formal complaints channel with the airports company in Johannesburg, but that the number of complaints become so big, more staff had to be assigned just to handle this. No response ever came back from the SA airports company, so after a while the local airports operator simply stopped lodging complaints. It patently was a waste of time.
So, if the mighty powerful South Africa cannot control a hundred or so luggage handlers all working in a rather contained airport building, how do they ever want to convince the world that they will be able to control their many thousands of hard criminals who roam the entire country.

Im Rest des heutigen Beitrags soll es einmal nicht um Südafrika gehen, sondern um Namibia. Es gehört zu den letzten Staaten des Kontinents, die noch nicht der üblichen wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Agonie der schwarzafrikanischen Staaten anheim gefallen ist. Vor zwanzig Jahren gab es noch vier davon, allen voran Zimbabwe, gefolgt Südafrika, Botswana und eben Namibia.

Was mit Zimbabwe passiert ist, weiß jeder Interessierte, obwohl liberale Gutmenschen daran nicht unbedingt erinnert werden wollen. Was in Südafrika passiert wird hier betrachtet und führt bei liberalen Gutmenschen zum antirassistischen Pawlowschen Reflex. Und Namibia ist sowieso das Leuchtfeuer!

Ist das wirklich so?

Für Südafrika und Zimbabwe kann/konnte man die Entwicklung anhand der großen Medienabdeckung nachziehen bzw. auch prognostizieren und plausibel belegen. Für Namibia ist das um einiges schwieriger.

Was mich hauptsächlich frage, ist, wie informiert sich die Bevölkerungsmehrheit, die in Namibias Norden angesiedelt ist? Was treibt sie um? Wo steht sie politisch? Wie stark ist die Forderung nach der Rückgabe des „gestohlenen“ Landes verankert? Ist Mugabe auch dort noch ein Held?

Könnte die weiße Wirtschaftselite, die Farmer und Tourismusunternehmer auch in diesem Land von einer plötzlichen Welle der Gewalt überrascht werden, so wie das in Zimbabwe ab 1999/2000 passierte? Wie groß ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass auch die SWAPO fremdes Eigentum einfach stiehlt?

Es scheint mir die Gefahr zu bestehen, dass die weiße Wirtschafts“gemeinschaft“ noch weiter von der Wirklichkeit des Denkens der schwarzen Mehrheit entfernt ist, als das in Zimbabwe der Fall war. Die immer wiederkehrenden Ausfälle –zuletzt der der Justiz(!)ministerin gegen Gwen Lister- gegen die weißen Kolonialisten und Ausbeuter sprechen eine andere Sprache als man sie den in offiziellen Verlautbahrungen entnehmen kann.

Bezeichnend ist für mich auch die Tatsache, dass die diplomatischen Vereinbarungen zur Landfrage, die zwischen Namibia und Zimbabwe geschlossen werden, auch auf Nachfrage des Namibian oder der AZ in Namibia nicht veröffentlicht werden. In Zimbabwe jedoch schon!

Ich kann mich des Eindrucks nicht erwehren, dass die Weißen Namibias ihre „Last days in Kenia“ erleben. Wir werden sehen.