The Common Sense’s Diary

The media reported that Patrice Motsepe is not going to run for ANC leader based on comments he made at a company results presentation. They got it wrong. He was asked if he would – a stupid question given that ANC rules frown on candidates revealing themselves ahead of branch nominations. His answer was that historically he’d said no, that he’d said one can do more good from outside politics, that it would be a distraction from his work, that the PM in the campaign site PM27 could mean anything, and that he’s not funding the handout of hats and the like. Sounds a lot like a yes.

A global poll shows that South Africans think their fellow countrymen are morally good. Two thirds of them believe that. That is about the best news the country could get. The legacy media in South Africa go on and on and on trying to drive hate and division in South African society. Each sporadic incident of possible racial animus is built up into a national disaster pitting black and white against each other. South Africa’s own polls have long showed that that is nonsense. Black and white South Africans share an incredibly rich common ground of values, respect each other, and want to work together to build a great new country.

Earlier this week the rand weakened by more than twice the amount that the dollar strengthened, when measured against a broad dollar index. The reason is that the rand is seen more as a speculative than a capital trade and it’s therefore very sensitive to global risks. That’s all pretty much taken as common knowledge but not enough people ask why it is so. The reason why it’s a speculative more than a capital trade is politics. South Africa’s foreign policy, like much of its domestic policy, is inherently hostile to capital investment. The foreign ministry and the presidency thrive on ideological grandstanding against the West and in favour of degenerates like those trying to make a bomb to finish off the Jews. In a war like that currently with Iran, where South Africa serves as Iran’s diplomatic proxy, the extent of the risk is exacerbated, and hence the twofold weakening. Had South Africa put the Iran fixation away and done more than a trade deal with the US, but also the capital investment deal that was on the table, the rand would this past week have behaved more like the Indian currency, which weakened by less than the strengthening of the dollar index.

A note circulated that the Islamist world is split on the war in Iran. Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the like all oppose Iran. The UK, however, supports Iran. There’s a deep truth in that statement, as Starmer’s dithering again exposed. Immigration is not a problem in the West; it’s immigration without assimilation. In the UK, the problem is now so great that its government is afraid to be seen at odds with Iran. It’s not reported in the UK press, but the Arab world is enraged at the betrayal.

The war is now really only about opening Hormuz. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil passes through there and it’s been shut, in practice, for a week. That drove the oil price from $60 to $100-plus, which caused a lot of global pain and angst. Keeping that pain up is the Iranian strategy to put pressure on America. It is the only leverage Iran has left as it has too few missile launchers remaining to threaten much. Open the strait and the pain is released. That will surely be the case within a week or two. After that the war will die down to sporadic missile launches and the interest of the world in it will fade.

Khamenei, before he was killed, did an interesting and clever thing. Iran put into action its mosaic strategy, which is that in the event of the death of the leadership the security forces should go on fighting autonomously even if their leaders are dead too. Hence the fighting will continue despite the degradation of central command and control. That makes it very difficult for a new leadership to emerge from the military as it is hard to bring enough top people together to agree on that. Think about the problem in terms of the end of any conflict – how would World War II have concluded if the German military had not agreed to a leader and to negotiate? Khamenei’s son may be the guy to watch but he is worse than his dad. And the Israelis likely won’t stand for it.

John Steenhuisen’s career as agriculture minister is likely coming to an end. Politics is a cruel business made crueller when your peers sense the blood in the water. Now the sharks are circulating and taking bites. How different it might have been if he’d taken the right advice on dealing with FMD. The big mistake was not letting private actors source vaccines approved by the state. So many records were broken under his DA leadership: from dethroning the ANC to joining the government and hitting record high poll numbers for a while. That it ends badly is sad.