Despite widespread antipathy towards Sepp Blatter, it must have crossed many minds that over the past month Fifa, the international football association, has called the shots on running South Africa better than any government has managed in half a century. Admittedly, it was made easier for Fifa that they stepped into a leadership vacuum.
SA’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, was inspirational, but indifferent to administrative follow-through. He was followed by absentee landlord Thabo Mbeki, always chasing glory in foreign fields. And now there is President Jacob Zuma, who prefers to muddle along, pushed and pulled by ever-changing currents within the African National Congress and its allies.
In contrast, Comrade Septic Bladder has commandeered the administration well. Crime is down and national pride is up. Political discourse has edged marginally from bad-tempered abuse to occasional civility. And not only is the Gautrain operating, but it actually runs on time.
As Zuma confides in an interview with Fifa, the primary lesson that the SA government took from hosting of the World Cup has been “how to work with strict timelines”. This is akin to identifying punctuality as the most useful legacy of school, but essentially Zuma is right.
The ANC has always been awash with admirable intentions but frustratingly inept at carrying them out. Working to a Fifa script, project implementation was, for a change, largely seamless.
What happens next, as Thiefa pockets its $3.2 billion loot and turns its piggy eyes towards 2014 target, Brazil? Following Zuma’s epiphany regarding how to engineer delivery, will the ANC apply its newly discovered skills to implement the literally thousands of upliftment projects announced since 1994 but that have since petered out?
It would mean getting the public service into gear and dealing with the problems of ANC cadre deployment, cronyism, inertia, and a general lack accountability. These, however, are stumbling blocks that could be addressed relatively easily, if there were a chain of accountability.
Government ministers had to exercise managerial oversight during the World Cup because they, in turn, for the first time were being held accountable. Not by a vacillating president or an endlessly forgiving electorate, but by the mandarins of Fifa and a demanding tourism market.
But national success depends on more than managerial best practice. As importantly, SA must become a post-ideological society — as has happened in virtually every successful modern economy — since slavish adherence to rigid, formulaic mantras strongly inhibits economic growth.
Zuma has often expressed admiration for the Chinese developmental model and with good reason. Over just 32 years China transformed from peasant society to the world’s third biggest economy, as a direct result of the jettisoning of doctrinaire communism.
In contrast, the ANC and its tripartite alliance have always preferred ideology to pragmatism. When it comes to joblessness, if it can’t create the “decent work” demanded by the trade unions, it seems to be perfectly content to preside over no job creation at all.
Similarly, in education, it spent years pondering educational philosophy and how outcomes-based education (OBE) would deliver Utopia, instead of fretting about basic literacy and numeracy. Consequently, half of OBE pupils dropped out before Grade 12 and 40% of those who made it that far, failed their matric.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga this week at last scrapped OBE, saying “We are removing the last ghost of 1998,” the year it was introduced. In the interim, millions of lives have been blighted by educational ideology, which in turn has been compounded by poor management — in most disadvantaged schools, teachers simply don’t bother to teach or even turn up.
Zuma’s pal, Super Sepp, wouldn’t tolerate it for a moment. Nor would Zuma’s heroes, the Chinese.
Another misleading, condescending article that really shows your delusional white supremacy logic.
- a white guy – Sepp Blatter was really responsible for the success of the WC
- blacks have at least learned about punctuality…finally!
Eish…seems like there’s no hope for your generation to overcome apartheid’s indoctrination – how very sad.
You speak of the transformation of out economy but conveniently forget to mention that almost TWO DECADES after liberation, over 90% of CEOs are white!
Your ROOI GEVAAR tactics reminds me of the Austin Powers movie…maybe someone should remind you that the the apartheid era and the cold war is over…LOL
You misinformation about OBE is another a amoral, disgusting journalist tactic. The government has admitted problems in the implementation of OBE but still adheres to its underlying philosophy of creating better students/learners who can think critically and compete at the global level. OBE is essentially a good faith attempt at transforming our outdated, racist educational system that only served the upper economic class – a Bantu education system that trained black to be servants and trained whites to be obedient and not to question the apartheid system.
The reason that FIFA are successful is because they are business men who know what they are doing and what needs to be done to achieve their goals (excuse the pun). As is the case with the building of all the infrastructure that was done by people who know what they are doing. The ANC is run by people who do not know what they are doing and worse, they do not know that they do not know, so they continue to appoint unqualified people to do things that require qualifications.
Most of us were sure that the World Cup would be a disaster because we based our feelings on the record of the ANC governement. It was only when we realised that the ANC had stepped back and allowed those who know what they are doing to do what was needed to be done that we all saw that the WC would be a huge success. South Africans are great and the best in the world, but if they are chosen on the basis of race, party affiliations, jobs for friends, family or corruption, failure is and always will be the result. The WC is over and we all hope that qualifications will remain as the prime reason for progress. If not, we will go back to revolutionary rhetoric and destruction of all that could be good.
You have struck a cord of thruth
Hoorrah!Hoorrah!Hoorrah!Hoorrah!!!!
At last, some REAL comment on a REAL situation, which unfortunately, is highly unlikely to change, the eyes now fixed on the next money-spinning event in 2020 rather than on the lessons William so aptly draws.
Great posting!!
So much can be taken from FIFA’s management style. Have the lessons been learned? Doubt it?! Strong, vigorous [and not least, brave] whip-cracker required for duty – 24/7.
Do we have such a candidate with the ruling party???
BAH! Money for nothing and the chicks for free…until the golden river runs dry….
Crime isn’t down… It’s just under-reported thanks to a media black-out. The FIFA courts are just one set of stats for crime over the last month. What about the Caesium-137 bomb that the Hawks are looking for? http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20100710085544493C308461
Flimsy piece!
I think perhaps that a little restraint is called for here. I really don’t think we should be trying to emulate either Fifa or the Chinese in the uncritical manner you seem to suggest.
In the case of Fifa’s involvement in South Africa, there is good evidence to think that it made life worse off for the poor, rather than better. Did you spend any time in Khayelitsha or the Kennedy Road Settlement in Durban? People were clear that the forced removal of poor folk from the wealthy parts of town to transit camps 30 km out of town where they were not allowed to leave on pain of arrest, the focus on building white elephant stadiums instead of schools and hospitals, and the laws outlawing protest had effectively further criminalised poverty. The ban on informal traders and the kangaroo courts which targeted tourist-related thefts and intellectual property right infringements were further indications that the concerns of the poor were (i) far from the minds of governance unless (ii) they were actively undermined.
Do we really want kanagroo courts and the criminalisation of poverty to act as our standard for proper behaviour?
I don’t know enough about China to comment on it, except to say that it is never a good idea to emulate others uncritically.
Dave: OBE is an abortion. This has been proven in many countries. The old system (which, yes, only whites had access to) is far better than OBE and should be implemented across the board. Merely changing will not help at all.
@Dave: Another misleading, condescending response that really shows your delusional fear for engaging in clear and logical thinking by throwing some clots of mud around from your trusted playpen.
Another important lesson from FIFA was the effect on crime rates. Apparently it fell dramatically during the time the police was required to keep an eye on soccer tourists. If we can permanently get rid of the police our crime rate should soon drop to acceptable levels.
Yes, Angie Motshekga climbed a few notches in my estimate after that remarkably brave decision. Brave, because to admit that things do not always work out in practice as it sounds in ideology seems to be the hardest thing for this government to admit. One can only learn once one admit to one’s mistakes…
Dave Harris. Nice retort and while watching the closing ceremony, the soccer finale and magnificent fireworks display afterwards, the tears in my wife’s eyes reaffirmed that we live in a great country.
Puncuality? Eish! This seems not to have filtered downfrom minsterial level and us ordinary mortals we will forever be blessed with “African time” but maybe a longer lifespan.
Dear Dave,
This might be too complicated a concept for one who deals in broad brush-strokes of willful ignorance but good old literacy is required first before you can add critical thinking and the rest to it. Ie crawl before you can walk.
If you’ve been exposed to learners churned out by the current system, you’ll find a fair few in grade 12 who are functionally semi-literate. These are the unemployed masses to be who will have to do all sorts of remedial training to be eligible for “decent jobs”.
As for the rest of your cherry picking of issues raised in the piece, LOL
South Africa is becoming a colony of europe.
I prefer Zuma to Blatter. At least he doesn’t pretend to be corruption free.
What utter incongruent nonsense. Fifa commands through local leadership, and South Africans and our leaders executed those demands. If there truly was a leadership ‘vacuum’, we would not have been selected as hosts in the first place. Sepp Blatter is not the one standing at the station making the Gautrain ‘run on time’. We rose to the Fifa demands the best we could, and it was good enough for them.
Also, it’s relatively easy to come in and have a little ‘affair’ with SA- sort a few things out here and there – none of the difficulties (and costs) of a long-term ‘marriage’, so lets get off the Sepp Blatter adoration train, William.
To all fellow readers equally annoyed by Dave Harris’ comments: Themba Tantrum recently enlightened us on another post that Dave Harris is an ANC plant, so pay no attention to the drivel. It is quite clear from his comments that he has a pre-meditated agenda and hardly reads the articles he comments on.
Many good points here, about education, accountability, experience, merit, discipline, abandonment of rigid ideology (comrade) etc. Authoritarian Chinese – 1,4 billion – might not be the best example, their expanding economy built on the backs of unlimited rural poor, with the unbridled desecration of the environment and perhaps the rape of African resources – their good education for the few, connected, related. Indeed, the military has a hand in much of the economy. Their discipline is reflected in North Korea’s building an atomic bomb and a paranoid Stalinist, militaristic society while millions starve. Indeed, one might say that Saddam was great because he did support education and some equality for women, or that Hitler brought Germany out of the depression. It is clear though that cronyism and institutionalized incompetency must go, for the issues of poverty and crime are too big for inaction and power for the sake of power. Besides a business perspective on the WC, greed and the transfer of a great deal of wealth for a single event had much to do with its success. So much is possible with little, and so much needs to be done, yet it would be dangerously simplistic to think that corporate or political authoritarian control will bring about accountability (the North Korean’s just recently shot by firing squad the leader that came up with the disastrous currency exchange policy). I think it is the place of the voter to light the fire under their butts. So idealistic, but it works elsewhere.
Dave Harris has hit the nail on the head once again. South Africa continues to be colonized, and the downtrodden colonized people continue to admire and attempt to emulate the very people who exploit them. Until the colonizers go home, the unjust society will persist.
Brilliant piece!
An excellent tongue-in-cheek piece, which as usual triggered a predictable response from Dave Harris. Keep it up, William. perhaps one day people like Dave H will start seeing what the party they are so slavishly supporting has been doing to this country.
To all fellow readers equally annoyed by Dave Harris’ comments, I repeat what Themba Tantrum has said on a previous Thought Leader post: Dave Harris is an ANC plant, so pay no attention to his drivel. It is quite clear from the comments he makes that he has a premeditated agenda and that he hardly reads the articles he comments on. Dave, I think it’s time to get a new gmail account with a new pseudo name…
@Policat,
So your wife cries when she sees a fireworks display. Everything will be just fine in SA from now on then.
@Kweku Hanson,
I thind Dave Harris has been hitting the nail with his head. If the colonisers leave this country would go down hill even faster.
Fifa colonised SA that’s why everything went according to plan. Black South Africans, by and large, were only employed to do the donkey work. That is they were employed for what they do best.
According to the above remark by Dave Harris, it is the 90% white CEO’s (after 16 years) who are responsible for non-delivery, corruption, mismanagement, incompetence. Kwaku Hanson draws the conclusion, that if “colonials” (i.e. whites) were to leave SA, these ills would suddenly disappear. And, to top it all, if I dare to expose this uninformed nonsense, then that is apartheid-indoctrinated condescension towards great minds.
From Mandela to Zuma, from the sublime to the ridiculous, how deftly you describe our three ANC presidents and our current ‘leadership vacuum’. Or ‘Comrade Sepptic Bladder’, who sets things in motion by taking to task, rather than simply taking (which is why ‘Thiefa’ applies to ANC leadership just as much.)
The difference, as you rightly say, is that in order to achieve his goals, Zuma’s pal, ‘Super Sepp’ demands and expects high performance and accountability. As far as the ANC’s claims for the country are concerned,’an endlessly forgiving public’ neatly sums up the situation.
The ANC give the electorate nothing except sweet-talk and excuses. They demand nothing of the people they appoint and so richly reward to supposedly achieve their so-called goals.
How can voters who continue to live in shacks, after all their strikes and protests about non-delivery, keep reinstating these tardy, greedy, inept,unscrupulous thieves, who live like kings off the fat of the land?
Perhaps it is time for tax-payers to go on strike until our demands that ANC leaders take their sticky hands out of tax-till, are met.
I think that the huge amount of money changing hands in exchange to guarantess of security was in part repsonsible for the SA government making the effort to curb crime around the World Cup.
…not only is the Gautrain operating, but it actually runs on time….. Objective journalism a myth this article is tainted by white supremacist hogwash. For your info Mr jounalist and your supporters did it occur to you that the train is running between Sandton and O R Tambo who does it serve the minority but to you Mr Saunderson-Mayer it’s a positive, and a truimph. You make no effort in exposing your feelings towards black-leadership hatred/undermining.. eventually the country will be potrait with respect by your likes and not conciquently because of your critic but because of your reform and acceptance that we(Africans) are of round origin and not of square and linear shapes as the Europeans…
And after 1994 South Africa thought it would never again have a white president but we’ve had one for just over a month! The security companies were fired after their striking fiasco and the police were employed by FIFA. Even the army and navy were under FIFA’s control being told where and how to patrol and what the required “standards” were.
Attributing the decline of crime statistics to FIFA administration is not only an insult to the hard work carried out by our own SAPS and other security agencies, but sheer ignorance and a shameful display of pessimism.
Narrow-mindedness and anti-ANC obsession makes us nothing better than the dumb, but hard-working Zuma and his administration… what’s our contribution to society? Waving the middle-finger at those who try?
@Kweku Hanson – The sad truth is colonisers go where opportunities abound, they are not the real evil. The real evil, that must go, is the handful of corrupt people who sell their own country’s resources to the highest bidder, in exchange for a white supremist lifestyle. Colonising does not happen by the gun anymore, but through the contractual rights that are traded behind closed boardroom doors by those in power.
“From Mandela to Zuma, from the sublime to the ridiculous”
People of Afrikaner culture have FW De Klerk to thank for enabling them to think outside of National Party. They are now free to even forget him, and can thus form a nucleus for determination of human identity based on the general will.
It is unfortunate that Mandela used our compassion to allow the ANC to exercise control and influence over the mind of the South African citizen. Pity was the tie that bonded us during apartheid, but it could not guide us as a society, which requires duty and justice, according to Rousseau.
Political pity for our plight expressed kindness, but created dependence on a political party. We thus clung to our ‘benefactors’ without gaining strength, and as such forgot what we were struggling for. Like in any genuine revolution, political compassion hijacked our general will.
Alexis de Tocqueville articulates, or bemoans?, how people get “abandoned to the wild propensities “of democracy which “grows up like those outcasts who receive their education in the public streets, and who are unacquainted with aught, but the vices and wretchedness of society”. This after the “most powerful, the most intelligent, and the most moral classes” never attempt “ to connect themselves with it in order to guide it”
If we are too selfish to upset our gravy cart, let us express our compassion for those illiterate voters by contributing our fat checks. Perhaps, we can bring back their thinking so that they can set
If Dave Harris is an ANC plant, then that is a drop in the bucket compared to the numerous plants the DA pays to comment here.
To those who believe that the country will go downhill if the colonizers go home — why should you care? According to you, it’s already going downhill. Open your eyes to many achievements, and ignore the honorable Mr Hyphenated who just cannot believe that we darkies can actually organise and execute successfully.
And on that note, Ant K, I wonder what South Africa’s own crime busters did around their tables for the years they were planning the WC’s security, that Sepp had to stroll in at the last minute and take over?
It would be really nice if he could teach his own pilots to obey his orders. Perhaps familiarity just breeds contempt.
Should we do a swop for five years? Sepp (ghastly man) can run SA for that time and get education, health, housing and services running. He can also show us how to repay exorbitant debt so that when The prodigal Zuma returns he can enjoy all te glory should we win the 2020 Olymics’ bid (God forbid).
P.S. Would anyone on this forum actually employ Dave Harris if they had a job going spare? And what as?
I was totally unaware that such a thing as an ANC plant existed in the slightly tarnished, no-longer-new SA. After all, see them, feel them; they are all around us (and who cares? That’s where they’re meant to be!)
Dave Harris, sadly, bears no fruit, which means the ANC plant should die without another generation. Best news this week.
Everybody should shut up and accept “we have hosted a beautiful World Cup” and nobody or nothing can take that away from us. All South Africans stand up and take a bow!
beautiful World Cup” yes. No problem there. The problem is that we used tax payer’s money (money deducted from yo salary, if u work) to fund a world (or Swiss?) business without guarrantee of returns. We now claim success without balancing the money invested with the returns – normal business practice.
Apparently FIFA has made profit, and they can claim success on those grounds. We are only hoping 4 vague future gain.
Perhaps u can understand better the investment vs return by looking at the well-known stars’ performance. The WC is not worth risking their career by getting broken limbs by nobodies who still seek recognition, like D Forlan, et al.
Artists work for audience which tends to degrade them to servile dependence on their public, especially the rich and the polical power.The relationship of art to luxury and corruption is said to be “complementary and mutually reinforcing.They both “bring aboutour corruption and ‘fling gerlands of flowers over our chains. Despots are said to “wisely cultivate art to direct their subject people from awareness of their loss of freedom”.
Art helps artists to conceal their real selves, and to build happiness on the opinion of the others. So they need payment for their pain on the pitch.
Come to think of it, the electorate that Don Sepp answers to is not very forgiving especially UEFA. An unsuccessful world cup would have been the end of Sepp’s presidency. He staked his whole reputation and career on South Africa successfully hosting the World Cup and growing FIFA’s stature in the social spheres of the world. As Sir Alex Ferguson once said of Sepp, he was having dictatorial tendencies and we know what happens to people that can be voted out when they begin to have dictatorial tendencies and are adjudged to have failed to deliver.
@Kweku Hanson – I agree with you that the silly hyphen’s comment should be ignored as beneath comment but why bring the DA into it? Why is it that whenever the ANC is accused (rightly or wrongly) of doing something, an ANC supporter will quickly point that “yes, but the DA does it too”, with no evidence. Its a childish argument. We, that is, you and me and everyone else who all support various parties or none at all, will never make progress if we do not start admitting to our mistakes, stop finding excuses for them when we can’t hide them and DO something to improve. It is after all only by making mistakes that we learn.
If only some of you were as critical of the apartheid government as you’re of the current government, apartheid wouldn’t have lasted that long, or do you only complain when it’s not working in your favour? South Africa has many challenges and some of you only chose to see what suits you!
@ Lucien. Lucien, we are dealing with the here and now and future. Criticising apartheid is inconsequential to the current discussion. You draw your conclusions about commentators with no basis. I believe the ANC is a lousy parasite affecting the countries well being and we can base that on factual past and current events, not just a perception. It was the private citizens and businesses that made the world cup a success, politicians merely enabled and allowed it to happen. The success of the world cup is only apparent in terms of the event itself. What happens from now on? We will find out soon enough.
Bizarrely for a market fundamentalist like myself, i find myself in sympathy with Dave Harris [up to a point]. This is an uncharacteristically rude, almost venomous piece by Mr S-M that fails to point to the ironic, Petard like, situation in which the Govt now finds itself. One normally associates S-M with a bucolic form of light hearted humour… This is more reminiscent of Bullard with a hangover on a bad day.
Whatever the role of ‘colonialist’ type ‘thieferites’ the fact is that [so-called] Black citizens were overwhelmingly prominent in the WC’s wonderfully successful; implementation, and have hence set a standard against which to benchmark future deliveries on a wide range of urgent requirements.
As regards OBE both S-M and Harris are off the mark.
Firstly plenty of teachers do turn up every day at most schools and do the jobs for which they are paid.
Secondly: The problem with OBE [an excellent concept] is that it is soooo elitist it makes bantu ed [about which i share Harris's disapproval] seem positively socialist.
OBE was a well intentioned idea that proved inappropriate to the circumstances… What is required is the simplicity of those systems from the past that were renowned for excellence, now divested of their brutalizing elements, coupled with the ideological vision of OBE to facilitate critical thought: the core skill for success in the 21st century.
Who’s right?
World cup follow up suggestion: Government moves speedily to solve SA pending water crisis.
@blogroid
Firstly, thanks for recognizing this peculiar brand of venom spat forth yet again William Saunderson-Meyer in his attempt to minimize the resounding success of our World Cup. It demeans journalism and simply propagates the old apartheid mindset.
Secondly, regarding OBE, I beg to differ. The problem with most educational systems is the one-size fits all mentality that no longer works in this age of specialization and democratization of knowledge courtesy of the internet. OBE is certainly not the magic bullet that will solve all our educational challenges, but is one strategy among several. School systems need to cater for a more diverse population and position our kids to compete at a GLOBAL level. OBE’s emphasis on critical thinking may not for all kids but with dedicated teachers and enthusiastic students, may just be the change we seek in raising a new generation of kids – our future!
@blogroid – sorry, but, it seems you just have not got to the hang-over stage yet and is still at the euphoric stage.
OBE is an excellent idea that simply doesn’t work? What is your current definition of excellence? The previous (whites only) education worked and was excellent, but elitist. So rather than implement it country-wide, scrapping only bantu non-education, scrap it all at great cost to all and replace it with OBE which does not work (although it is an excellent idea) only to not quite admit it is a damned disaster and go back to the education that did work anyway? Seriously, what are you drinking?
SOUTH AFRICANS in the private sector made the WC work as far as it did, inspite of government theft and incompetence. Tax-paying SOUTH AFRICANS will be paying for it for the next 20 years. This is not a black-white issue, as the ANCYL disrupters are trying to portray it to hide the ANC’s incompetence at being a government. We have many more excellent leaders out their (of all colours) that will be able to do the job far more effectively, to the benefit of all South Africans (of all colours). Racism is so pathetic. Divide and conquer, it allways works.
@X cepting & Dave Harris:Re OBE: Mea Culpa: i was perhaps to glib regarding OBE. When i said it was an excellent idea i did not mention: subject to various. caveats.
First. As i suggested: it is an elitist concept that was inappropriate to the circumstances… of every country in which it was tested. It is a system inappropriate to mass schooling because it seeks to foster a skill with which only a tiny few ‘learners’ are equipped: ie: critical thought… or level 7 thinking skills. It is possible that about two percent of the populace have this natural ingredient in their makeup… hence elitist.
Secondly. Implementation was always going to be impossible. The teaching corps were [metaphor follows] trained to teach carpentry [for instance] and were, without any additional training expected to ‘facilitate’ or ‘mediate’ the learning of mechanical engineering. Hello… [i have written about the absurdity of this extensively over the years ]
Thirdly. Because the teaching corps was not only untrained for anything but Bantu Ed, but also inherently recalcitrant [a majority were teachers because under apartheid rules they had few alternate options to make a living and many of the best left immediately for greener pastures] the decision was taken to prop up the programme with a mind boggling bureaucratically, procedurally, irrational ‘portfolio’ ‘control’ mechanism; that compounded all the folly of the concept and rendered it a system of nugatory effectiveness.
As regards my mindset i am naturally a positive person; why else remain in the madhouse.