penDear Sir,

I write to you having heard and read of the taxi blockades the length and breadth of the Eastern Cape last week and the recent shenanigans in Pretoria.

I am a liberal. I was brought up a liberal, albeit a semi-Christian one, I live in arguably the most liberal suburb in South Africa and I work in a bookshop – a liberal occupation in a liberal environment.

However, I have recently befriended a young man who is ardently conservative and who has been forewarning me of “developments” in South Africa. His thinking is largely influenced by the Suidlanders, Siener van Rensburg, and what I suppose he would call observation and common sense. Over the past two to three years he, or his “sources”, has/have been proven consistently correct. Some of his forecasts haven’t panned out yet and some haven’t been exact; not perfect, but about as consistent as anyone else I can think of.

That is a far cry from either the consistency or correctness of the newspapers, TV channels, journalists, observers, commentators, international experts, or political scientists in the large volumes of reading & viewing which I do daily.

I am not a convert to conservatism. However, a man could do worse than admit that there is something fishy going on. Things don’t look good for those of us who were quite certain that everyone from Nelson Mandela to the United Nations and from Helen Suzman to the Scandinavian peace institutes knew what they were talking about when they said that the ANC would provide us with a wonderful new South Africa. It really meant something to me whenever someone crowed about our liberal constitution. Unfortunately, it seems now as if the Freedom Charter and the constitution are just so much stuff and nonsense that any two-bit second-hand car salesman could have come up with.

The end result is that it is not easy being a Liberal in Africa these days… Consider the situation of a woman who marries an alcoholic. She feels sorry for him, and thinks that if she treats him nicely, he will reform. Unfortunately, he continues to return home drunk, and then he treats her badly. Instead of getting better as planned, he in fact gets worse. His wife has to prop him up. She excuses his behaviour, explaining what a difficult past he had. She clears up his mess and helps him keep up appearances at work. With her as his unwitting collaborator, his habit can continue unchecked. She pays for his drunken damage, bails him out of prison, and makes ingenious excuses to those critical of his behaviour. Amid the bruises and the debts she may begin to wonder where everything is heading. But one big factor holds her back: admitting that the marriage was a mistake in the first place, that she was foolish to have thought she could ever reform the monster in her home. How to concede that she has wasted an enormous amount of time and money for… nothing? The shame. The feelings of foolishness.

And so it is with those who patronised the previously-disadvantaged. They have invested high hopes and extensive resources, but the blueprint of improvement never materialises. They have made excuses and waited, but decades later the rubber bullets are still flying, just as in the days of the regime they despised. As facilities go up in flames, refuse piles up in the streets, and electricity vanishes for hours, they must experience the stress of ‘cognitive dissonance’. Their idealistic beliefs are increasingly out of alignment with material realities. Their dilemma is becoming urgent: will they make one more excuse, like the alcoholic’s wife, or have the courage to admit their broken dreams, and cut their losses?

Worse, if they do cut their losses and run, where do they go? For example, joining the Vryheids Front (or something similar) is clearly not the treatment for the disease in question. That would be a matter of drinking in another bar and hoping not to get drunk. I am not asking you, Sir, for the answers. However, it was placed upon my heart to share these sentiments with you after the numerous startling events of the past (especially) six months or so. I trust that you receive this letter in its intended spirit.

Name withheld

Parkhurst, Johannesburg