The Common Sense Diary

Have they gone mad? Roedean School in Johannesburg seems set to double down on blowing up an antisemitism scandal that will taint its reputation forever. The facts of the case seem simple enough: members of the Roedean community did not want to play tennis against a Jewish school, and an administrative excuse was contrived to justify that, following which the school lied repeatedly about what had transpired.

Even if the antisemitism question can be put aside for a moment, it’s the lying that is so terrible. These are people who are meant to care for, guide, and shape the values of children. Yet they lie publicly and repeatedly in seeking to cover up what is a gross violation of decency and civil rights. What kinds of children are these people shaping?

The signs are not encouraging. Wandering albatrosses report that there is a nasty, militant, and radicalised core of pupils on the Roedean campus who have the staff on the run. That has all the fingerprints of woke radicalisation on it. Oy vey, as they probably don’t say at Roedean.

The DA runs a risk. It has gotten rid of John Steenhuisen for reasons that are sound enough. The danger now is that the party goes through a rough leadership transition, John continues to fail at agriculture, Ramaphosa has to fire him and put in a new minister who sorts out FMD, Geordin Hill-Lewis must split his focus between Cape Town and the job of running the party and its policies in the government, the DA has a mediocre local government election and gets a fright in Cape Town, raising questions about whether they can hold the Western Cape come 2029. Things get a bit panicky, and then the ANC elects Patrice Motsepe as its leader. If that all plays out, the result could be that the ANC gets 45%+ in 2029 and the DA under 20%, and that the ANC then forms a government with the FF+ and the PA and the DA has blown its chance. That’s not the forecast – it is just a flagging of a worst-case risk for the blues.

The flip side of that is the opportunity to punch through. Go through a smooth transition, John allows private participation to beat FMD, Hill-Lewis juggles two jobs with aplomb, Helen Zille has a knockout Johannesburg election and the DA rivals the ANC in every other major centre, the ANC picks anyone other than Motsepe as its next leader, and the DA punches through in 2029 to get 30%+ of the vote, a smidgen more than the ANC.

The Johannesburg CBD has not had electricity for a week, and parts of the city have no water. That’s extraordinary. Try Googling “major city centres that have not had water/electricity for a week”. There are some. For water, it is Mexico City, Bangalore, and Tehran that sometimes experience such interruptions. For electricity, it’s Havana. Birds of a feather.

A wandering albatross tells a fascinating tale. There is a group of ANC leaders, all faithful Christians, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the government’s close ties to Iran. Talk of this has been around for a time but corroboration has grown stronger. A leadership transition in the ANC might, therefore, open the way to a much more pragmatic foreign policy.

South Africa struck a promising trade framework agreement with China this week. That is very good. The details have to be finalised, but the deal will give South African firms easier access to the Chinese market and Chinese firms easier access to South Africa. South Africa’s corporates have been lukewarm on this – they know what more Chinese competition means. Just look at the auto industry. In South Africa, you can now buy the Chinese equivalent of a Range Rover for just over half a million rand. And it’s, by some accounts, better. But South Africa needs more competition and a stronger push for deregulation and the break-up of old monopolies in its economy, so roll on Beijing.

That’s not to say there cannot be a deal with America. Just send a top-flight envoy with the mandate and a deal in his pocket, stressing minerals and energy, and it can be done. Given how keen the Americans are on this, it’s a wonder the South Africans have evaded the opportunity to date. Maybe after the ANC leadership transition, the path to progress will appear surprisingly smooth and open.